His Royal Virus Prince Philip - In His Own Words

 

"In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation."
Prince Philip, in his Foreward to If I Were an Animal; United Kingdom, Robin Clark Ltd., 1986.

“I don't claim to have any special interest in natural history, but as a boy I was made aware of the annual fluctuations in the number of game animals and the need to adjust the ``cull'' to the size of the surplus population.”
Lecture to the European Council of International Schools. Montreaux, Switzerland, Nov. 14, 1986.

What has been described as the "balance of nature'' is simply nature's system of self-limitation. Fertility and breeding success create the surpluses after allowing for the replacement of the losses. Predation, climatic variation, disease, starvation ~ and in the case of the inappropriately named Homo sapiens, wars and terrorism ~ are the principal means by which population numbers are kept under some sort of control.
Introduction to "The Population Factor'' section of Down to Earth by HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, 1988.

I suspect that the single most important gift of progress to conservation has been the development of human contraception techniques. Yes, but you can't legislate these problems away. You've got to get people to understand the need for it: the more important people, the ones who have responsibilities have got to do it because they're at the receiving end. They've got to accept the measures. Interview with HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in People magazine, Dec. 21, 1981 titled "Vanishing Breeds Worry Prince Philip, But Not as Much as Overpopulation.

The object of the WWF is to "conserve'' the system as a whole; not to prevent the killing of individual animals. Those who are concerned about their conservation of nature accept that all species are prey to some other species. They accept that most species produce a surplus that is capable of being culled without in any way threatening the survival of the species as a whole.

It is curious how many philosophers from Plato to Keynes' time have believed in and advocated the control of society by "philosopher kings.'' According to Plato, "its kings must be those who have shown the greatest ability in philosophy,'' but ~ realistically ~ he added, "and the greatest aptitude for war.''
The Chancellor's Lecture, Salford University, June 4, 1982.