or less, or not at all. All that can be known is what has happened; and what happened in the United States in terms of economic growth is no basis for calculating what might happen. The people of the United States converted an abundance of resources into an economic colossus, and in the process generated a rate of sustained economic growth the likes of which had never been seen before. To have fallen heir to a great wealth of natural resources was their good fortune; certainly a better circumstance than having to depend so heavily upon the fickleness of advancing technology as apparently future growth for the United States and others now must. popular legend, his restraints on population would not yield disaster, but rather were constantly operative. Only on occasion could they be escaped; and then only temporarily. Otherwise they operated to maintain a given population, but not equally. Those living on the margin were first and most affected by pestilence and vice; and so it is today. It is best under these or any circumstances not to be the marginal man if one can avoid it. See Thomas Robert Maithus, An Essay on the Principle of Population (London: T. Bensley for J. Johnson, I8O3).