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 THE 
 
 LAW OF POPULATION 
 
 A TREATISE, IN SIX BOOKS.
 
 THE 
 
 LAW OF POPULATION : 
 
 A TREATISE, IN SIX BOOKS} 
 
 IN DISPROOF OF THE SUPERFECUNDITY OF 
 HUMAN BEINC4S, AND DEVELOPING THE 
 REAL PRINCIPLE OF THEIR INCREASE. 
 
 BY 
 
 MICHAEL THOMAS SADLER, M.P. 
 
 THAT TO THE HEIGHT OF THIS GREAT ARGUMENT, 
 I MAY ASSERT ETERNAL PROVIDENCE, 
 AND JUSTIFY THE WAVS OF GOD TO MEN. 
 
 VOLUME THE FIRST. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXXX.
 
 LONDON: 
 
 Printed by William Clowes, 
 
 Stamford-street.
 
 S7/ 
 
 V.I 
 
 •wy 
 
 TO 
 
 HIS GRACE 
 
 HENRY-PELHAM, DUKE OF NEWCASTLE, K.G. 
 
 |rc. ^c. |rc. 
 THESE VOLUMES 
 
 ARB 
 
 MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED 
 
 BT 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 7S0084
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Having, in a preceding publication, stated the 
 reasons which induced me to undertake the pre- 
 sent work, it is unnecessary for me to advert to 
 them on tliis occasion ; still more superfluous 
 would it be to repeat what was then said on the 
 great importance of the subject discussed in these 
 volumes. The Principle of Population, highly 
 interesting in itself, is, when considered as a 
 practical question, manifestly one of the most 
 important subjects which can engage human 
 attention, as fallacious views concerning it ne- 
 cessarily lead to the most pernicious conse- 
 quences. Two opinions are held, as to its nature 
 and tendency. The one, that human prolificness 
 is so regulated, as naturally to produce happi- 
 ness ; the other, that it exists in an excess, which 
 has as constant a tendency to occasion misery. 
 It is needless to add, that these different views, 
 Avhether individually or nationally entertained, lead 
 to principles and conduct diametrically opposite. 
 Already, I think, the darker theory has, wherever 
 it has prevailed, perpetrated more injury, particu-
 
 Mil PREFACE. 
 
 liirly on the poorer part of mankind, than any 
 system ever previously embraced. Still, were it 
 true, it woidd be the duty of mankind to receive 
 it, and to bow to their unhappy destiny : but if 
 otherwise, it is yet more imperative upon us to 
 resist an error, which has been already widely 
 injurious, and which is still rapidly spreading its 
 baleful influence. 
 
 To prove, then, the utter fallacy of that theory 
 has been one great object of the present treatise ; 
 but not the only one. It did not appear sufficient 
 to disabuse the public mind regarding its perni- 
 cious dogmas, but, in order to prevent the possi- 
 bility of its re-establishment, it seemed necessary 
 to occupy its place by a contrary system, erected 
 on the solid foundations of truth. It is hoped, 
 that both have been accomplished ; and that, in 
 the Law of Population, unfolded in this work, as 
 in all other principles of genuine philosophy, the 
 light of truth is still accompanied by the warmth 
 of benevolence. 
 
 This attempt, the latter part of it especially, 
 involved much consideration, as well as long and 
 laborious calculations, many of which are now 
 omitted, on account of the space they would have 
 occupied. These, at length, conducted me to a 
 result which I now present to the public, with 
 some confidence, as the true theory of human in- 
 crease. Most of the time, which I could devote 
 to this work, was thus occupied ; little attention, 
 therefore, could be paid to the merely literary 
 part of the undertaking ; indeed, more than two
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 thirds of it were written in a few of the concluding 
 months of last year, and consequently in much 
 haste. This is only mentioned for the purpose of 
 withdrawing the attention of the reader from the 
 manner in which the argument may be presented 
 to his mind, in order to fix it more exclusively on 
 the proofs by which it is established, and in behalf 
 of which no such indulgence is solicited. But, 
 with respect even to the latter, nothing can be 
 more probable than that discrepancies and errors 
 may be occasionally found, though it is hoped 
 none of them will be of such a nature as to affect, 
 in the least degree, the main argument. On other 
 points I shall feel little solicitous, not at all so as 
 to the attacks which may be made, not on the 
 Principle enunciated, but personally on myself. 
 Such attacks have been as vehement before the 
 nature of my argument was known, as they can 
 be after it shall have appeared, and as virulent 
 as though, instead of vindicating, I had been en- 
 gaged in some attempt to outrage the rights of 
 humanity. 
 
 A feeling of deference to the public strongly 
 prompts me to present some further apologies for 
 the manner in which I have been obliged to sub- 
 mit these ' volumes to their consideration ; such, 
 for instance, as those which Sir Matthew Hale 
 thought proper to make in his great work on a 
 somewhat similar subject — apologies which are so 
 much more applicable, as well as necessary, in 
 my case, that it is with difficulty I suppress them. 
 The present taste, however, so decidedly forbids
 
 X . PREFACE. 
 
 this course, that I forbear, and should not even have 
 ventured to advert to the only one I have offered, 
 had it not been for the purpose of explaining, that 
 if, in the hurry in which these pages were written, 
 (often, therefore, expressing the feelings of the 
 moment,) any terms have escaped me regarding 
 those whose theories I oppose, which can be con- 
 strued into personal disrespect, I shall still more 
 deeply regret the want of time and opportunity to 
 reperuse and revise them. Not so, however, as 
 respects the system they have, doubtless, thought 
 it their duty to advocate ; any terms, however 
 strong, any language however severe, which may 
 have been applied to that, I shall never soften or 
 retract, believing as I do, that could we trace its 
 effects, it would be found that it has already 
 been the means of inflicting greater mischiefs 
 than any error ever received, and that it threatens 
 still deeper evils ; in a word, that it is equally in- 
 jurious to man and derogatory to his Maker. 
 
 It only remains that the circumstance of de- 
 ferring the publication of a part of this work 
 should be explained. I conceive that Avhich is 
 now presented fully proves the principle in ques- 
 tion, and is so far complete in itself, independently 
 of the two remaining Books, which, however, I 
 hope Avill not be deemed unimportant. And 
 if it be admitted that the Law of Popidation is 
 demonstrated in the volumes now produced, the 
 duty of publishing them at a period when the 
 contrary and, therefore, false theory is in constant 
 and increasing operation, is abundantly clear, as
 
 PREFACE. Xl. 
 
 it is also that I should but ill have discharged that 
 duty, had I allowed the feelings of an author to 
 delay this appeal to the public in the cause of 
 humanity and truth. And in thus proceeding, 
 I have the express sanction of one whose phi- 
 losophy I have endeavoured to follow throughout, 
 though at an immeasurable distance — Bacon, 
 who, in a kind of soliloquy prefixed to his great 
 work, comes to a similar conclusion and states 
 reasons for it, in which I, perhaps, may be 
 allowed, however humbly, to participate ^ 
 
 I now, therefore, submit to the public, what I 
 conceive to be the true theory of human increase, 
 aware that it will meet an opposition propor- 
 tionate to the avidity with which the contrary 
 notion has been received ; and that it will have to 
 encounter objections of the most varied, as well 
 as opposite nature. Indeed, it has been already 
 observed upon the principle, when merely enun- 
 ciated in a foregoing work, that it is erroneous, 
 — that it is old, — that it is new, — that it is whim- 
 sical and curious. I am not, however, dis- 
 couraged. Similar objections were anticijoated 
 by the authority just referred to, even regarding 
 his own principles, — " In diversas censuras incur- 
 *' sura: alia scilicet quod sint dudum peracta, et 
 
 * Decrevit prima quaeqiie, quae perficere licuit, in publicum edcre. Neque lisec 
 fcstinatio ambitiosa fuit, scd solicita; ut si quid illi humanitus accideiet, extaret 
 tamen designatio quaedam, ac destinatio rei, quam animo complexus est : utque 
 extaret simul signum aliquod honestae suae et propensse in generis humani com- 
 moda voluntatis. Certe aliam quamcunque ambitionem inferiorcm duxit re 
 quam prse manibus habuit ; aut enim boc, quod agitur, nibil est: aut tantum, ut 
 merito ipso contentura esse debeat, nee fructum extra quserere.— Z?ocow, htstavr. 
 Mag.
 
 Xll PREFACE. 
 
 "jam extent ; alia quod curiositatem sapiant, et 
 *' friictum promittant perexilem ; alia quod nimis 
 *' ardua existant, et fere impossibilia quae ab ho- 
 " minibus absolvantur." 
 
 Many, however, I cannot but hope, will re- 
 ceive the Principle now set forth, as consolatory 
 to their best feelings, and in accordance with their 
 most sacred duties, and that it will, therefore, 
 meet with powerful advocates ; but how feebly 
 soever supported, or by whomsoever opposed, if 
 true, it will finally prevail, audits triumphs will 
 be those of humanity. These hopes were my 
 encouragement in undertaking a subject necessa- 
 rily laborious, and, in all respects, uninviting ; 
 and now that I have so far completed it, not- 
 withstanding the inadequate manner in which I 
 am conscious I have executed my intention, and 
 the imperfection which will be but too apparent 
 throughout, they constitute my reward. I have 
 erected an altar in haste, indeed, and of rude, but 
 I trust imperishable, materials ; some happier 
 hand may, perhaps, give it ornament and propor- 
 tion, and render it less unworthy of the spirit of 
 philanthropy, to which it is humbly consecrated.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Of the Theory of Human Siiperfecundity: the Principle 
 
 stated and disproved. 
 
 Chap. Page 
 
 I. Inlroductory ....... 3 
 
 II. Of the Theory of Human Superfecundity. The 
 
 Principle stated, and its Claims to Originality re- 
 futed . . . . . . . .33 
 
 III. Of the Theory of Human Superfecundity; its Geome- 
 
 tric Ratio considered ..... 55 
 
 IV. Of the Theory of Human Superfecundity ; its Arith- 
 
 metical Ratio ...... 64 
 
 V. Of the Theory of Human Superfecundity : the Geo- 
 
 metric aixl Arithmetical Ratios combined . . 78 
 
 VI. Of the Condition on which the Means of Subsistence 
 
 are bestowed, and the Precedence of Population to 
 Production . . . . . . .104 
 
 VII. Of the Precedence of Population to Production, and 
 
 its beneficial Effects on tlie Character and Condition 
 
 of Mankind conchided . . . . .117 
 
 VIII. Of the Precedence of Population to Production, as a 
 
 main Cause of Peopling the Earth ; with Remarks 
 
 on Emigration ...... 132 
 
 IX. Of the Checks to Population, enunciated in the pre- 
 
 vailing Theory. — War 147 
 
 X. Of the Wars, Migrations, and Colonizations of Ancient 
 
 Greece, as affected by Population . . . 168 
 
 XI. Of Ancient Greece. The Checks to Population 
 
 proved to be unnecessary and pernicious in that 
 Country ....... 193 
 
 XII. Of the Wars and Irruptions on the Roman Empire : 
 
 their Causes irreconcileable with the Theory of 
 Human Superfecundity . . . . .213
 
 XIV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Chap. 
 
 XIII. Of the Wars and Irruptions on the Roman Empire : 
 
 tlieir Causes irreconcileable witli the Theory of 
 Human Superfecundity .... 
 
 XIV. Of the Opinions of the Philosophers and Legis- 
 
 lators of Antiquity concerning the Priniple of 
 Population. — Plato ..... 
 
 XV. Of the Opinions of the Philosophers and Legis- 
 
 lators of Antiquity concerning the Principle of 
 Population. — Aristotle .... 
 
 XVI. Of the remaining direct Checks to Population . 
 
 XVII. Of the Diminution in the Operation of the Checks 
 
 .as Population increases .... 
 
 XVIII. Of the "Preventive Check," or "Moral Re- 
 
 straint ; " its imposiiion unnatural, unlawful, and 
 wicked ....... 
 
 XIX. Of the Preventive Check : its Partiality and In- 
 
 justice ....... 
 
 XX. Of the Preventive Check : its Cruelty 
 
 XXI. Of the Preventive Check: its Impolicy 
 
 XXII. Of the Preventive Check : its Diminution as Po- 
 
 pulation has increased ..... 
 
 XXIII. Of the Checks to Population : their Moral De- 
 
 fence considered and refuted . . 
 
 Page 
 
 233 
 
 250 
 
 273 
 283 
 
 2S9 
 
 315 
 
 339 
 35S 
 366 
 
 372 
 
 378 
 
 BOOK II. 
 Of the Theory of Human Superfecundity: its Principle, as 
 
 FOUNDED UPON THE POPULATION OF THE UnITED StATES OF 
 
 America and of China, stated and disproved. 
 
 I. Introductory ....... 397 
 
 II. Of the Erroneousness of the supposed Facts and 
 
 Deductions relative to particular States of America, 
 on which the Geometric Theory is founded . .401 
 
 Table I. Shewing the Difference between the Geometric and the 
 Actual Ratio of Increase in Rhode Island, United States. 
 
 III. Of the Erroneous Statements relative to the Amount 
 
 of the early Population of America. That of the 
 New England States ascertained . . .414
 
 CONTENTS. XV 
 
 .Chap. ^'''S^ 
 
 IV. Of the Ainonnt of tlie early ropulatiou of the North 
 
 American Colonies, now the United States, generally 427 
 
 V. Of Emigration to North America. Its Historical 
 
 Proofs 432 
 
 VI. Of Emigration to North America. Its Historical 
 
 Proofs concluded . . • • • .453 
 
 VII. Of Emigration to North America, proved by its Effects 
 
 on the Manners, Customs, and Language of the 
 
 Community .,....• 473 
 
 VIII. Of Emigration to North America, proved by sundry 
 
 Statistical Facts and Records .... 494 
 
 Table II. Bills of Mortality in Philadelphia, in North America, 
 from the Years 1738 to 1744 inclusive. 
 „ III. Bills of Mortality in Philadelphia, in North America, 
 from 1750 to 1732 inclusive. 
 
 IX., Of Emigration to North America, proved from the 
 
 Censuses of the United States generally, as divided 
 
 into Sexes and Ages ..... 506 
 
 Table IV. Shewing the Number of Emigrants existing in the United 
 States, calculated on a comparison of the Census of 1820 with 
 those of the different Countries specified. 
 
 X. Of Emigration to North America, proved by the Law 
 
 of Mortality, as applied to the Numbers in successive 
 Censuses ....... 526 
 
 XI. Of Emigration to North America, proved by its Effects 
 
 on .the relative Numbers of the different Sexes and 
 
 Ages, in the Censuses of the various States. . 535 
 
 Table V. Shewing the Proportionof the Numbers of each Sex, at the 
 Age specified, in every 20,000 of the Population of England, 
 Wales, and the United States, computed on the Censuses of 
 those Countries in 1820. 
 
 „ VI. Shewing the Proportionate Numbers of each Sex, at the 
 Ages specified, in every 20,000 of the Free Coloured and Free 
 White Population of tlie United States. 
 
 5, VII. Shewing the Existence and Extent of Emigration to the 
 United States of America, from its Effects on the relative 
 Numbers of the Sexes and their Ages, in the Censuses of those 
 States and Territories where it prevails. 
 
 XII. Of Emigration to North America : proved by the Bills 
 
 of Mortality of that Country .... 548 
 
 Table VIII. From Dr. Barton, exhibiting the Differences in the 
 Decrease of Life generally, according to Buffbn : and also in 
 the Town of Northampton, and Country Parish of Holy Cross, 
 in England ; and the Town of Salem in Massachusetts, North 
 America, calculated on 1000 inhabitants. 
 „ IX. Shewing the Bills of Mortality of the Cities of Balti- 
 more, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, for the Year 1814 ; 
 the Totals of which are proportioned to 1000.
 
 XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 Chap. Page 
 
 Table X. Shewing the Bills of Mortality of the Cities of Boston. 
 New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston, for 1821. 
 
 „ XI. Shewing the Mortahty in the Cities of New York, Phila- 
 delphia, Baltimore, and Boston, during a period of Seven 
 Years, ending January 1, 1827, with the Totals proportioned 
 to 1000. 
 
 „ XII. Shewing comparatively the Mortality in Carlisle, from 
 1774 to 1787, of London in 1814 and 1822, and of the princi- 
 pal Cities in North America in 1814, 1821, and Seven Years 
 previous to 1827. 
 
 „ XIII. Shewing the Expectation of Life ia sundry Parts of 
 Europe, and in America, at the Ages specified. 
 
 XIII. Of Emigration to North America: its Effect on the 
 
 general Increase of the Population . , . 558 
 
 Table XIV. Shewing the Increase of a Community in which the 
 Marriages are as 1 in 108 individuals, the Births 4.38 to each 
 Marriage, and the Deaths half the number of the Births. 
 
 „ XV. Shewing the Effect of Emigration on the Increase of 
 Population. 
 
 XIV. Of Emigration to America : calculated on the admission 
 
 of those who assert it to be " immaterial " . . 579 
 
 XV. Of the Population of China: the general Arguments 
 
 founded on its supposed Density stated and dis- 
 proved ....... 586 
 
 XVI. Of China: the assertion that Infanticide regulates its 
 
 Population, disproved ..... 610 
 
 XVII. Of China: the Argument of its excessive Population, 
 founded on the supposed Indigence and Distress of 
 
 its Inhabitants, disproved ..... 618 
 
 XVIII. Of China: its actual Population stated from Official 
 Documents ....... 630 
 
 I
 
 BOOK I 
 
 OF THE THEORY OF HUMAN SUPERFECUNDITY: 
 THE PRINCIPLE STATED AND DISPROVED. 
 
 Vol. I. ^
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 (1) The Law of Nature, or, to speak more intelligibly, 
 of the Deity, wliicli regulates the increase of mankind, 
 has ever been regarded as one of the most momentous 
 subjects open to human research ; not merely as a highly 
 interesting question of abstract science, but as of the 
 greatest practical importance, necessarily involving the 
 interests and happiness of the universal species, M^he- 
 ther considered in their individual or collective capa- 
 city : this law, therefore, patriots and legislators have 
 ever regarded as indicating their most essential duties; 
 duties, indeed, which the voice of nature and reason 
 dictates, and the sanctions of religion have rendered 
 still more sacred. 
 
 (2) This principle of population has, it is true, like 
 all other subjects, been occasionally contemplated in 
 very different, and indeed opposite, points of view; when 
 the various opinions touching its nature have led to the 
 most adverse conclusions. In some of the theoretic 
 speculations in which the ancient philosophers so much 
 indulged, it was, perhaps, imagined as a possible source 
 of future evil, for which, as some have supposed, reme- 
 dies were anticipated, which modern philosophy, too 
 often unconscious of the source of her superior illumi- 
 nation, is now taught to regard with horror. But, in 
 justice to human nature, it must be confessed that the 
 subject has been generally seen in the lights of benevo- 
 
 B2
 
 4 INTRODUCTORY. [Book I. 
 
 lence and truth, and, consequently, it lias been the study 
 of almost all nations, in every age of the world, how 
 to multiply, rather than repress the numbers of their 
 people. Since the Christian era, more especially, 
 wherever the religion of civilization has been spread 
 and established, such have been the principle and po- 
 licy on which all nations have professed to act; notwith- 
 standing the occasional murmurings and opposition of 
 individual selfishness and ignorance ; while all those 
 mighty intellects which have arisen during this long 
 period, destined to correct the past, and influence the 
 future opinions of mankind, and amongst these, more 
 especially, our own unrivalled countrymen, have, as 
 with one voice, given witness to the same cheering 
 view of this important question, and have recognized, 
 in the growing numbers of mankind, not the signs or 
 the instruments merely, but the very elements of human 
 prosperity. The multitude, meantime, have arrived at 
 the same conclusion, by the simple guidance of their 
 feelings and observation ; and have pronounced and 
 perpetuated in their national proverbs, which may be 
 regarded as the oracles of human experience, their sted- 
 fast faith in the sufiiciency of eternal Providence. 
 The question, therefore, seemed settled for ever upon 
 these sacred foundations. Without dreaming of the 
 necessity of any further inquiries or demonstrations, 
 mankind, or at least the civilized part of them, beheld 
 in the operation of this law, their affections, duties, and 
 interests identified ; and the attributes and operations 
 of the Deity, as their creator and preserver, in perfect 
 and everlasting harmony. 
 
 (3) Such, up to a late period, is the simple history 
 of the question before us : and it were superfluous to 
 add, that the doctrine of population thus founded upon 
 public interest, as well as religious principle, became
 
 Chap. I.] INTRODUCTORY. O 
 
 the surest gviardian of the riglits and feelings of linman 
 nature, especially in its lowest and most helpless state, 
 through all succeeding ages. 
 
 (4) But it was reserved for the present day, not 
 more prolific in new theories than in the resuscitation of 
 obsolete ones, not only to revive the contrary principle, 
 but to add to it an universality of application, of which 
 it was never before supposed susceptible; the principle, 
 as one of its chief advocates expresses himself, never 
 having previously " been sufficiently pursued to its 
 consequences," nor the necessary "practical inferences 
 drawn from it ^ :" its only claims to novelty, therefore, 
 are the daring terms in which it is *now propounded, 
 and the dreadful lengths to which it is pushed : a theory 
 which, we must admit with the writer alluded to, is 
 indeed " pre-eminently clear," both as to its nature and 
 its effects. It pronounces that there exists an evil in 
 the principle of population ; an evil, not accidental, but 
 inherent ; not of occasional occurrence, but in perpe- 
 tual operation ; not light, transient, or mitigated, but 
 productive of miseries, compared with which all those 
 inflicted by human institutions, that is to say, by the 
 weakness and wickedness of man, however instigated, 
 are " light:" an evil, finally, for which there is no re- 
 medy, save one, which had been long overlooked, and 
 which is now enunciated in terms which evince any 
 thing rather than confidence. It is a principle, more- 
 over, pre-eminently bold, as well as " clear." With 
 a presumption, to call it by no fitter name, of which it 
 may be doubted whether literature, heathen or Chris- 
 tian, furnishes a parallel, it professes to trace this sup- 
 posed evil to its source, " the laws of nature, which 
 are those of God;" thereby implying, and indeed as- 
 
 ' Maltlius's Essay on Population, Pre- quoted throughout, exce])t vhen other 
 face, p. v., quarto edition, which is wise expressed.
 
 G INTRODUCTORY. [Book I. 
 
 serting, lliat the law by wliicli tlie Deity multiplies 
 his offspring, and that by which he makes provision 
 for tlieir sustentation, are different, and, indeed, irre- 
 concileable ; that their adverse operation is not of such 
 a nature as to produce superabundance and profusion, 
 but insufficiency and want throughout all the tribes of 
 animated nature ; and that, as it respects mankind, in 
 particular, these laws must be regulated by expedients, 
 or rectified by checks, from the very contemplation of 
 which humanity recoils. 
 
 (5) The moral effects of this theory, however, I 
 leave for further and distinct consideration : but I can- 
 not refrain from declaring, on the very threshold of the 
 argument, that as, in the plain apprehension of the 
 many, it lowers the character of the Deity in that at- 
 tribute, which, as Rousseau has well observed, is the 
 most essential to him, his goodness, or otherwise im- 
 pugns his wisdom ; as it disturbs our dependence upon 
 Divine Providence, and weakens those feelings of com- 
 placency with which man ought to regard his fellow 
 man, teaching human beings to view each other as 
 rivals for an insufficient share in the bounties of nature, 
 rather than as co-partners in an overflowing abundance, 
 which still increases with their multiplication ; and, 
 above all, as it distinctly aims at destroying the sacred 
 and long-established rights of poverty and distress, — it 
 commits a deliberate outrage on the settled feelings 
 and principles of mankind. 
 
 (6) This dispute, therefore, in which, let it be re- 
 membered, that this same system is the aggressor^ can- 
 not be conducted, as its advocates seem to expect, with 
 the apathy of a metaphysical discussion or mathematical 
 demonstration. If there be any themes on which "'twere 
 impious to be calm^," this is unquestionably one of them. 
 An indifference, whether affected or real, in discussing
 
 Chap. I.] INTRODUCTORY. 7 
 
 a subject which so deeply concerns the welfare and even 
 existence of myriads of human beings, has not even the 
 semblance of a virtue : for myself, if I have not con- 
 formed to the " candour " of the present age, as it is 
 termed, I have imitated the honesty of preceding ones, 
 in expressing myself with the utmost plainness and 
 freedom throughout ; and would send those who may 
 think that occasional warmth in such a cause demands 
 any apology, to one of those authorities to whom I 
 shall often have occasion to appeal : " Men cannot con- 
 tend coldly and without affection," says Lord Bacon, 
 " about things which they hold dear and precious." 
 
 (7) If anything can heighten our feelings of painful 
 surprise at the revival, in the Christian era, of this 
 darkest notion of the heathen ages, it is the period at 
 which it has been again brought forward, and more 
 especially, the country which has, in this respect, "the 
 bad pre-eminence " of having been its principal promul- 
 gator. It may safely be asserted of the various nations 
 that form the European family, that from their first 
 establishment they have, generally speaking, gone on 
 increasing in population, and that this progressive in- 
 crease has been accompanied by a more than corre- 
 sponding augmentation in the means of subsistence ; so 
 that, from their foundation to this hour, there probably 
 never was a time in which the inhabitants were so nu- 
 merous, and the comforts of life so liberally shared as 
 at the present moment. Exceptions there are to this 
 general remark, but they are svich as flow into the cur- 
 rent of the argument and strengthen its force. Thus 
 there are countries in which the number of the inha- 
 bitants has diminished, but they are those in which 
 their condition has consequently deteriorated. 
 
 (8) But, not to anticipate a branch of the succeed- 
 ing argument, I shall proceed to remark, that it was in
 
 8 INTRODUCTORY. [Book I. 
 
 England, one of tlie most densely peopled, and most 
 plenteous countries of them all, and at a time, as it is 
 now confessed on all liands, when the united energies 
 of her entire population were not more than equal to 
 the salvation of the empire, that the doctrine of the 
 redundancy of human beings, and especially of our 
 countrymen, was broached. It is still more empha- 
 tically repeated at the present moment, when we pre- 
 sume to think it is equally clear that the combined ef- 
 forts of her entire numbers are quite as essential to her 
 preservation. In the period that has intervened, events 
 of the most tremendous import, varying and reversing 
 the state of things in rapid succession, have occurred, 
 events that have had no possible bearing upon the sub- 
 ject under consideration ; yet still, in all these fluctua- 
 tions, whether distress has been apparently occasioned 
 by a scanty supply of the necessaries of life, or from 
 an " over production '' of them ^ ; whether the market 
 of labour, as it is called, has been under-stocked, or 
 over-supplied ; in periods of the deepest gloom or the 
 brightest glory, the doctrine has not merely kept its 
 ground, it has continued to spread its triumphs. In the 
 diagnosis of this empirical principle, the political San- 
 grado of the age, every symptom equally indicates the 
 £>ne sole disease, and demands the same specific ; the 
 evil exists in redundant population, for which it exhi- 
 bits its nostrum, a compound of its " checks." 
 
 (9) But the truth is, there are ingredients in this 
 system which render it palatable at all seasons, and to 
 a great variety of tastes. It appeals to the strongest 
 passions of the human heart ; it allays the fears and 
 flatters the selfishness of those to whom it addresses 
 itself; it graduates the virtues of social life, or even 
 changes their very character, as expediency or interest 
 
 ' See Lord Liverpoors Speech, Feb. 1822.
 
 Chap. I.] INTRODUCTORY. 9 
 
 dictates ; and, above all, it absolves, in great measure, 
 Wealth and Power from tlieir deep responsibility ; 
 soothing the sloth and excusing the neglect, if not 
 sanctioning the misrule, of those whose elevated duty 
 it is to mitigate or remove the miseries of mankind, by 
 attributing those miseries principally to the laws of 
 nature \ which it represents as propitious only to the 
 prosperous, and inexorable to the destitute. It is thus, 
 under the specious garb of an abstract truth, that 
 the doctrine in question, whatever its advocates may 
 advance to the contrary, becomes a pander to the 
 mean esthough, alas ! not the least prevalent or 
 powerful passions of our nature, and is favoured 
 accordingly. 
 
 (10) Another and a principal reason of the revival 
 and spread of this notion is, that it has been adopted as 
 the very basis of modern Political Economy, which is 
 consequently placed upon a foundation unsupported 
 by common sense, experience, or humanity. This sys- 
 tem, made up of" shreds and patches,'' partly of truisms, 
 partly of palpable blunders, but principally of a string 
 of unconnected paradoxes, which, just as it happens, 
 may be either, is self-elevated into the rank of a sci- 
 ence, in which, such is the temptation, every one is at 
 once a professor, and under a sort of immediate 
 afflatus, utters oracles. Though all agree that the 
 short and direct path of human interest has never been 
 discovered, much less trodden, till their days, still no 
 two of them concur as to its exact direction ; on one 
 point, however, they are unanimous, namely, in assert- 
 ing the superfecundity of the human race, and conse- 
 quently the necessity of checking its increase. It is in 
 tlieir capacity as zealots of this doctrine, that it be- 
 comes necessary to allude to them. It was the object 
 of that true political philosophy which they despise, 
 
 Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 367.
 
 10 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 and would fain entirely displace, to raise tlie value 
 and multiply the numbers of our countrymen; to spread 
 the utmost possible degree of happiness amongst the 
 greatest possible number, — objects of identical instead 
 of incompatible pursuit, their notions to the contrary 
 notwithstanding. On the other hand, it is the purpose 
 of the new school to treat and regard men as animated 
 machines, and indeed to supplant them by inanimate 
 ones were it possible ; to pronounce them as worthless 
 or otherwise, just as it may please the capitalists (who, 
 in proportion as they are diminishing in number, are 
 becoming more powerful) to employ them or not ; in- 
 structing the latter at the same time that they are 
 under no imaginable obligation but what selfishness 
 dictates, to encourage the labour of those by whom 
 themselves are supported. Nay, so far has the merce- 
 nary principle of this school advanced, as to pronounce 
 the virtues themselves marketable commodities ^ The 
 perfection of their system, therefore, would be the 
 utter degradation of the species. 
 
 (11) It is not, however, by such dogmas as these 
 that the momentous dispute before us will be deter- 
 mined ; the question lies not between the people and 
 the capitalists; if it did, and the latter pursue the course 
 on which they seem bent, it would, I fear, be deter- 
 mined at length, very little to their satisfaction ; — it is 
 one which lies between the people and their God ! It 
 is simply whether, in reference to the present number 
 of human beings, the earth is sufficiently productive ; 
 and, if we must carry oar views into futurity, whether 
 its potential produce, when fully developed, will still 
 suffice for the numbers whom the Author of nature 
 shall call into being, agreeably to those laws of increase 
 which he has established. This is the precise question : 
 meantime, it is somewhat strange, that the political 
 
 ■' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 64.
 
 Chap. I,] INTRODUCTORY. ll 
 
 economists can reconcile the imanimous conclusion at 
 which they have arrived, with some of their own no- 
 tions. They have produced volumes filled with defi- 
 nitions of the word capital, and yet they seem to forget 
 that whatever it may be called, or however defined, it 
 is that, and that only, which gives its possessor a com- 
 mand of the product of human labour ; consequently 
 that human beings constitute the wealth of the world. 
 It is they only who create that wealth ; it is they only 
 who give it its value, when created. They have written, 
 likewise, very much about the market of labour, as it is 
 called, and yet they seem not to know, or, at all events, 
 frequently to forget, that mankind are reciprocally pro- 
 ducers and consumers ; that, under proper regulations, 
 they are equally necessary to each other, whatever be 
 their numbers ; that mutual wants are so balanced and 
 connected in the mechanism of the social system, of 
 which necessity is the main spring, as to produce that 
 perpetual motion, the harmonious movements of which 
 nothing but the interference of such philosophers can 
 disturb or destroy. This mutual dependence of man 
 upon his fellow man, whatever be the attempts to weaken 
 it, and however successful they may be for a time, will 
 ultimately be found as strong in the last, as it was in the 
 first, stages of human existence ; nay, far stronger, for 
 reasons which are too obvious to be pointed out. As the 
 body politic enlarges, all its members partake of the 
 general growth ; when, therefore, it has attained to its 
 gigantic stature, still less than when it was in its infant 
 state, can the hand say to the foot, " I have no need of 
 thee." But the idea that mankind should outgrow their 
 dependence upon each other, whimsical as it is, is far 
 more tolerable than that they should become too nume- 
 rous for the provision of their common Parent. Yet 
 this last is the idea that Political Economy, and " the
 
 12 INTRODUCTORY- [Book I. 
 
 Principle of Population, "share in common, and continue 
 to spread abroad by united and too successful efforts. 
 
 (12) There are, however, reasons of a less objec- 
 tionable nature, that have greatly contributed to spread 
 the principle about to be examined. It is so propounded 
 as to avail itself of the weaknesses of the human intel- 
 lect, as well as those of the heart. It is delivered forth 
 as an abstract truth, in those generalities, in which, as 
 the most exalted intellect the world perhaps ever be- 
 held, observes, "the mind of man, to the extreme pre- 
 judice of knowledge, so much delighteth." The philo- 
 sophy of Bacon was, indeed, especially opposed to them, 
 and hence we find him constantly guarding us against 
 "empty," "superficial," "barren" generalities, which, 
 says he, " do but offer knowledge to scorn of practical 
 menV' and we are plainly warned against acting upon 
 them by a mind hardly mferior to his own. " Rules, sug- 
 " gested by a view of such generalities," says Hooker, 
 " however plain they may appear at first sight, ought 
 " not to be trusted." The theory of population about to 
 be considered is founded, however, upon "general and 
 abstract ideas," which an authority of a very different 
 order has well observed, " are, generally speaking, the 
 source of all human error^." 
 
 (13) But the use of terms from the exact sciences, 
 geometry and arithmetic, to which mankind have long 
 been in the habit of associating the idea of certainty, in 
 the enunciation and pretended demonstration of this 
 theory, has more than all contributed to betray many 
 ingenuous minds into this prevailing delusion. The 
 former science, indeed, it is almost unnecessary to re- 
 mark, has nothing whatsoever to do with the ratio 
 which bears its name. Applied to the mensuration of 
 human fecundity, " the most fallacious of all things," 
 
 * Bacon's Works, vol. iii., p. 155. • = Rousseau.
 
 Chap. I.] INTRODUCTORY. 13 
 
 to avail myself of the language of Burke, " is geome- 
 trical demonstration." The arithmetical ratio, the other 
 pillar, as is supposed, of this system, is still more in- 
 adequate to the office to which it is assigned. Those 
 who set about computing or expressing the magnitude 
 or amount of the mercies of the Eternal Parent of 
 mankind, by its utmost powers, will find themselves 
 baffled, and will have to exclaim, with a sacred bard 
 of ancient times, " If I would count them, they are 
 " more in number than the sands ; if I would declare 
 " and speak them, they are more than can be num- 
 '' bered ! " At all events, they ever have been, and will 
 still remain, equal to the wants of all human beings ; 
 vet, strange as it may appear, two rows of figures, cal- 
 culated on different principles, and placed parallel to 
 each other, have convinced numbers to the contrary. 
 So true is the observation of a writer, not very remark- 
 able for his humanity or religion, that " the mathe- 
 " matics are made use of in every thing, even where 
 " ridiculous, and men seem to repose no greater trust 
 " in Providence than they would in a broken mer- 
 " chant^" In darker ages, indeed, many busied them- 
 selves in pourtraying the person of the unseen God, or 
 in illustrating his mysterious essence by mathematical 
 diagrams ; and such, I humbly conceive, acted a far 
 less irrational and irreverent part, than those who affect 
 to measure the mighty deep of his mercies by their 
 arithmetic, and to demonstrate, by their geometrical 
 ratios, that it is inadequate to receive and contain the 
 efflux of that fountain of life which is in Him ! 
 
 (14) Let it not be imagined, however, that the 
 sciences which have done so much to serve the interest, 
 and enlarge the understanding of mankind, are im- 
 pugned. It is their misapplication, in reference to the 
 
 ^ Mandeville's Essay on Charity, p. 368.
 
 14 . INTRODUCTORY. [Book I. 
 
 svibject about to be considered, and their consequent de- 
 gradation, that is the sole ground of the preceding re- 
 marks. On the other hand, I trust it will appear in the en- 
 suing treatise, that, when rightly applied, they add their 
 demonstrations to those in the volume of nature, "known 
 and read of all men," which establish the principle of po- 
 pulation as one of equal wisdom and benevolence. 
 
 (15) The last reason that shall be here adduced for 
 the spread of this notion of the superfecundity of the 
 human race, is the confidence with which it is pro- 
 nounced and repeated, and the strong facts by which it 
 professes to be demonstrated. The human mind, thus 
 assailed, generally declines the labour of an apparently 
 useless examination, and naturally reposing some de- 
 gree of trust in the authorities it consults, surrenders 
 itself up to a settled conviction, which it is unwilling 
 afterwards to have disturbed. The present controversy, 
 it is hoped, will furnish another and a striking proof, 
 how detrimental to the cause of truth it is thus to resign 
 the judgment without due examination, especially in 
 regard to those specious novelties which affect the feel 
 ings or touch the interests of mankind, and which are 
 generally the more vehemently maintained the less 
 satisfactorily they are proved. In this instance, it will 
 be found that the theory about to be examined cannot 
 stand the test of even its own principles, much less those 
 of truth. It has neither taken sufficient heed that its 
 facts, which are denominated demonstrations, should 
 be truths, nor been mindful of the ancient maxim, that 
 its suppositions should be possibilities. These are 
 grave charges ; the ensuing pages, it is believed, will 
 fully substantiate them : the attempt to do so will ne- 
 cessarily throw much of the work into a controversial 
 form, so little desirable in an elementary treatise, and 
 indeed into what is still less so, under any circumstances,
 
 Chap. I.] INTRODUCTORY. 15 
 
 the appearance of a personal debate; one author in 
 particular, the avowed renovator and champion of the 
 system, having probably embodied in his book all that 
 had been previously advanced in its favour, and " suffi- 
 ciently pursued it to its consequences." The controver- 
 sial part is, however, essential to the whole ; the theory 
 just alluded to, having, unhappily, present possession 
 of the ground, if I may so speak, must be demolished 
 before the foundations of a contrary one can be laid. 
 
 (16) Such, then, are some of the principal causes, 
 which have given prevalence to the doctrine of the su- 
 perfecundity of the human species; each, when sepa- 
 rately considered, has, no doubt, had its particular in- 
 fluence, but their united effect has been its general 
 diffusion. Modern philosophers now receive it on pain 
 of forfeiting their title to their very name ; periodical 
 writers almost unanimously espouse it, and unceasingly 
 spread its dogmas through every part of the earth ; 
 legislators seem upon the point of reducing the system 
 into practice; monarchs have already acted upon it; 
 and even many of the expounders of our religion, though 
 they cannot pollute the well-head of revelation with its 
 "principle," yet are busily engaged in tinging the stream 
 with its pernicious admixture. Books are published, 
 and sermons written expressly on this system ; even the 
 moral code is revised in reference to it, and new virtues 
 and vices are promulgated in conformity with the new 
 theory of population. Yet, notwithstanding this active 
 coalition in its favour, I venture to prognosticate that its 
 triumphs will be short; the moment that renders it a 
 practical question, to which it seems on the eve of being- 
 reduced, will give the signal for its destruction. The 
 insults it levels at God, and the injuries it meditates 
 inflicting upon man, will be endured by neither. 
 
 (17) Meantime, the pertinacity with which this
 
 16 INTRODUCTORY. [Book I. 
 
 notion is retained, however it was imbibed, is far less 
 remarkable than the eagerness with which it has been 
 embraced. Philosophy, as it is well known, has not 
 merely its fashions, which, like those of manners, are 
 deemed indispensable, however absurd ; but it has its 
 prejudices, which the history of every age can testify 
 are, at least, as strong as those of ignorance. That it has 
 its pride was never doubted. Hence is it that so many 
 conceive, that to resign principles which they have 
 once espoused, and perhaps warmly advocated, would 
 be to subscribe to their own degradation. The more 
 cogent and unanswerable, therefore, the arguments are 
 which are brought forward against their adopted no- 
 tions, the more determined their adherence to them 
 becomes ; and, indeed, some such have been heard to 
 declare, in allusion to this very subject, that they 
 would as soon resign their belief in the first proposi- 
 tions of Euclid as in those of Malthus. 
 
 (18) To such as these, if the succeeding argument 
 addresses itself at all, it does so with very slight hopes 
 of success, and with the full expectation of their utmost 
 hostility. It appeals principally to that unbiassed 
 judgment and unabated humanity, which inspire the 
 great mass of the people; to those, who, never attempt- 
 ing to soar into those abstract regions from whence the 
 doctrine in question has been professedly brought, have 
 never fallen into those depths of absuj^dity and miscalcu- 
 lation into which it will be seen that it has precipitated 
 itself. I say, it is to the unsophisticated sense, and to 
 the unquenchable feeling of the British people that I 
 appeal; and careful and slow as the decision maybe, and 
 very possibly deferred till I can no longer hear the re- 
 sult, I am confident as to its nature : it will be in favour 
 of the system of humanity, of religion, and of truth. 
 
 (19) But before I enter upon the task of refuting the
 
 Chap. I.] INTRODUCTORY. 17 
 
 system in question, it may perhaps be expected that 
 I should take some notice of the many volumes that 
 have been already produced in answer to it. It has 
 happened, however, that I have seen very few of these, 
 and read still fewer. Many of them are, I understand, 
 written with great ability and learning ; but having 
 satisfied myself that the main, and, as it strikes me, 
 the only final and irrefragable answer to such a theory, 
 namely, the development and demonstration of a con- 
 trary principle of human increase as the law of nature, 
 as hereafter explained, has hitherto been undisco- 
 vered, at least unadverted to ; and as it is on this 
 foundation that the argument will be finally placed, 
 I trust the present work will not be deemed super- 
 fluous. 
 
 (20) That there is great apparent difficulty in 
 the principle of population, when superficially viewed, 
 or, what is still more fatal to its being understood, 
 viewed through the medium of some pre-conceived 
 system of philosophy or politics, is undoubtedly true. 
 The most striking facts that present themselves on the 
 subject, if viewed singly, and abstractedly from the 
 circumstances with which they are connected, or in 
 numbers insufficient to form any accurate and uni- 
 form result, may themselves betray the mind into 
 the false deductions about to be examined ; and they 
 have done so. Thus it is undeniably true, that human 
 beings, in the first stages of society, in new colonies 
 for instance, are extraordinarily prolific : it is equally 
 so, that they increase far more slowly in a more ad- 
 vanced state, when the population has become great, 
 and, consequently, condensated. If we were not to 
 admit the former fact, there would be no possible way 
 in which to account for the peopling of the world, nor 
 any by which the planting of new colonies and coun- 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 18 INTRODUCTORY. [Book I. 
 
 tries could be accomplished, or the numbers of man- 
 kind, when accidentally wasted, replenished, — circum- 
 stances which have occurred in almost every age of 
 the world. On the other hand, admitting the prolific 
 power of the human race to remain the same, which is 
 assumed by the system in question, it is impossible to 
 evade the conclusion to which it conducts us, namely, 
 that population has, ultimately, a tendency to exceed 
 production. Laying aside those pretended demon- 
 strations which have certainly confused rather than 
 illustrated the subject, still it must be admitted, that 
 if mankind have a constant and necessary tendency, 
 under all circumstances, to this increase, they must, 
 if unchecked, ultimately outgrow the means of susten- 
 tation. Give whatever latitude you please to the 
 combined effects of human industry and the fertile 
 powers of nature, even till the globe were converted 
 into one entire mass of human sustenance, still human 
 sustenance has then its limits, namely, those of the 
 globe itself; whereas the powers of human increase, 
 on the above hypothesis, would still remain the same, 
 and be infinite and inexhaustible, and would conse- 
 quently exceed those means, as far as the principle 
 was concerned, in an infinitely increasing ratio : that 
 is, granting the Eternity of the World, which all 
 the advocates, Christian or otherwise, of this revolting 
 scheme, necessarily assume as a postulate in all their 
 demonstrations. But more of this hereafter. To 
 avert this catastrophe, as well as to reconcile the 
 existing state of mankind and the variations in their 
 prolificness in difierent states of society, these philo- 
 sophers enunciate a set of checks, the degrading 
 nature, and partial and cruel operation of which, as 
 well as the gross mistakes manifested in reference to 
 their supposed effects, will be matter of distinct con-
 
 Chap. I.] INTRODUCTORY. 19 
 
 sideration. Meantime they seem to triumph in the 
 very answers that have been made to their theory, 
 claiming- them as arguments in its favour, and main- 
 taining that they all ultimately resolve themselves into 
 their system, though somewhat modified; recognizing 
 the necessity of checks of a very similar character, 
 at a somewhat remoter period. 
 
 (21) The following treatise will, at all events, 
 stand clear of this last imputation : it is founded on 
 principles essentially different, and the views it takes 
 of the structure and interests of society are diametri- 
 cally opposite. Touching the law of human increase, 
 it upholds it to be in exact harmony with, instead of 
 opposition to, that of the increase of the means of 
 human sustentation, if properly developed ; and that 
 in all the diiferent states of society, the variations in 
 which it seems adequately to account for — that in- 
 crease, instead of having to be regulated by checks 
 abhorrent to humanity, is governed by an unerring 
 rule of nature, as merciful in its operation as in its 
 purpose. This law, which though " not dreamt of 
 in their philosophy" who have written so much 
 about, or rather against, population, is yet perfectly 
 consistent with every physical observation on the hu- 
 man species which has the slightest bearing on the 
 subject, and proved by all the registers of human ex- 
 istence of every age and country, accessible to pre- 
 sent examination. Even the exact sciences, under 
 the direction of reason and truth, demonstrate its ex- 
 istence. It harmonises with the best feelings and 
 affections of human nature, unites in bonds of mu- 
 tual kindness and interest the brotherhood of man- 
 kind ; and, in fine, investing itself in the characters 
 of truth, and speaking the language of benevolence, it 
 
 asserts its divine origin, and makes good its claim to 
 
 c 2
 
 20 INTRODUCTORY. [Book I. 
 
 tlie Inimitable description of Hooker, who, after hav- 
 ing been " considering of food, as of a benefit, which 
 " God of his bounteous goodness has provided for all 
 " things living," exclaims of that law of " Almighty 
 " Providence," of which this forms so essential a part, 
 " of her no less can be acknowledged, than that her 
 " seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of 
 " the world ; all things therein do her homage, the 
 " very least as feeling her care — the greatest as not 
 " exempted from her power," 
 
 (22) The extreme desirableness of such a law of 
 nature, thus governing, without the intervention of 
 unnatural or cruel expedients, the measure of human 
 increase, so as to proportion the number of man- 
 kind to their means of subsistence, is, in itself, no 
 mean argument in favour of its existence ; it would, 
 indeed, be a strange and solitary instance in the 
 economy of nature, if a visible improvement could be 
 suggested in her most essential operations. But a 
 law of human increase, which should multiply the 
 species rapidly, where such multiplication would be 
 obviously advantageous, regulating that increase 
 through all the intermediate gradations of society, 
 so as to reconcile it to the interests and necessities of 
 mankind, — and causing it to pause at that point, where 
 further numbers would cease to be a benefit, or 
 could not be sustained, — and that this law should ope- 
 rate by such means as would administer to the virtue 
 and happiness of the human race,^ — would be that im- 
 provement on what is now deemed to be the principle 
 of population. A jyriori, therefore, the presumption 
 is, that the better principle will, on examination, be 
 found to be the true one. We are, moreover, strongly 
 warranted in presuming the existence of some 
 such law. Some of the happiest and most successful
 
 Chap. I.] INTRODUCTORY. 21 
 
 efforts of moral pliilosopliy in modern times have been 
 those which have demonstrated the existence, and ex- 
 emplified the wisdom and contrivance, of the Deity, 
 especially in the structure and functions of animated 
 existences, by shewing that similar purposes have been 
 effected by corresponding contrivances in what are 
 called mechanical inventions \ I need not Sfive in- 
 stances ; they pervade the whole of animated nature. 
 Thus the great national machine, for such I suppose I 
 may denominate the steam-engine, has that within 
 itself, which though influenced by the same impetus, 
 moderates and controls the velocity of its movements : 
 this important instrument, almost inert and quiescent 
 at first, gradually expanding, and thereby increas- 
 ing its counteracting power, as the general motion 
 becomes accelerated, checks its velocity, and con- 
 tracts again as that abates, so as to equalize and 
 regulate the motions of the whole ; the significant 
 name of this is, I believe, " the governor." A similar 
 power, infinitely more necessary to control the move- 
 ments of human population, I contend, exists in nature ; 
 and to prove that it so exists and operates, is the pur- 
 port of the present work. 
 
 (23) The desirableness of such a law, or regula- 
 tion, in nature, when I have mentioned it as having 
 deduced it from existing and unerring facts, I have 
 never once heard doubted ; its existence, constantly : 
 and this, simply, because I could not then render a 
 philosophical reason for what I had already discovered 
 to be a physical truth. It appeared mysterious, and was 
 consequently to be disbelieved, however true. This 
 I mention to warn the reader against a similar delusion. 
 How, I would ask, should this law be otherwise than in- 
 explicable in its nature and operation, when every thing 
 
 ' Paley's Natural Theology, passim.
 
 22 INTRODUCTORX- [Book I. 
 
 connected with the subject is enveloped in impene- 
 trable mystery ? No great stickler for miracles, Rous- 
 seau, has observed, that " in the generation of animate 
 " and organized bodies the human mind is lost, as in an 
 " abyss ^" Reproduction through all the innumerable 
 tribes of animal, and even vegetable, existence, is, in 
 every single instance, a miracle, to which nothing but 
 the continuous evidence of our senses could reconcile 
 our belief; one, indeed, which learning, and ima- 
 gination, and experience, have long attempted to 
 penetrate and expound ; but which, after all, the 
 most recondite professor comprehends as imperfectly 
 as the untutored peasant. The various laws to which 
 this principle conforms, in effecting its purpose, ne- 
 cessarily partake of the occult character of their ori- 
 gin; and it is only in the lesult that their multiform 
 operation becomes manifest : then is it that all the 
 infinite variety, whether of time, place, or mode— all 
 the seeming disconnexion and confusion involved in 
 the complicated process of unceasing renovation, are 
 seen resolving themselves into that harmonious sys- 
 tem, all whose parts are mutually dependent, and the 
 minutest essential to the great and everlasting purpose 
 of the whole. The miracle of creation is thus unceas- 
 ingly repeated, and, connecting itself with that of Pro- 
 vidence, with an additional train of infinitely minute 
 and complicated calculations, extending from the ubi- 
 quital centre to the boundless circumference of the 
 universe, man beholds this " mighty world of wonders" 
 refreshed and replenished with that life, happiness, 
 and beauty, with which it was first invested ; and yet, 
 " wandering oft with brute unconscious gaze," he 
 affects to reject and ridicule miracles ! 
 
 ^ Rousseau, Essay on Education, t. ii. p. 29.
 
 Chap. I.] INTRODUCTORY. 23 
 
 (24) Let not, however, tlie preceding' observations 
 be misunderstood ; the incomprehensibility of the 
 principle of reproduction is not appealed to for the 
 purpose of sheltering the theory enunciated in this 
 treatise, nor the proofs by which it will be substantiated, 
 from the most rigid examination. All the facts which 
 nature presents are but familiarised miracles ; and if 
 the system I announce, proved as it will be, add an- 
 other to the number, it is not therefore to be re- 
 jected. Meantime it must be confessed, that the sys- 
 tem I hope to replace seems " pre-eminently clear" 
 from all possible objections on this ground : I am 
 not aware that it has attempted to enlarge the boun- 
 daries of natural philosophy, or added one dis- 
 covery to physical science, or fatigued itself with any 
 laborious calculations founded on known facts ; it has, 
 therefore, escaped all objections, and avoided all 
 examinations, on those grounds. It has, however, 
 amply avenged itself upon moral science, with many 
 of whose doctrines and duties it has made un- 
 sparing havoc. But to revert to the mysteriousness 
 of the principle about to be advanced, if that be made 
 the ground of its rejection, further consideration will 
 convince us that the objection lies with tenfold weight 
 against that to which it is opposed, which would have 
 us to believe that the complicated operations of an 
 all-wise Providence are so calculated as to spread 
 misery, if not frustrated by the interference of human 
 beings ; — that the universal scheme is, after all, im- 
 perfect, either in intelligence or benevolence. This, 
 were it true, would appear, in the book of nature and of 
 Providence, a miracle indeed, — a miracle of malignity. 
 In a word, both systems appeal to the same principle, 
 that of reproduction ; a principle incomprehensible in 
 itself, and plainly the work of Supreme Wisdom : the
 
 24 INTRODUCTORY. [Book I. 
 
 difference is tliis, the one represents tliis principle as 
 a blind and unbending law, naturally operating alike, 
 whether for good or evil, under all circumstances, and 
 in every stage of society ; which ridicules the inter- 
 ference of the Deity, when it is hardly consistent with 
 a belief in Him to conceive that he would not inter- 
 fere ; and which is therefore perfectly palatable to 
 atheism, or to that version of atheism whose god is 
 asleep, or afar off, regardless of the creatures he has 
 made : the other maintains that the law of increase 
 is naturally and necessarily regulated by the circum- 
 stances of that race of beings which it exists only to 
 perpetuate, and consequently perpetuates in numbers 
 and proportions most conducive to their happiness and 
 welfare. It therefore recognises the perpetual presence 
 of the Deity, either in his immediate and unceas- 
 ing providence; or, what perhaps still more highly 
 exalts our ideas of his infinite perfections, in that 
 imerring prescience, which, joined to his power and 
 goodness, has anticipated from everlasting all the con- 
 tingencies of human existence ; and, by an uninter- 
 rupted series of secondary causes which runs through 
 time, and connects it with eternity, has adequately 
 provided for them : thus is it that the Prince of Poets 
 represents the omnipotent Father, grasping in his 
 almighty hand that golden chain, bright with bene- 
 volence and mercy, by which he sustains from the 
 heights of eternity his universal offspring. 
 
 (25) That these theories cannot co-exist as sepa- 
 rate truths, or, that a system cannot be made up of 
 parts of both, needs hardly to be observed. They are 
 utterly irreconcileable in their nature and in their 
 effects. " Between existence and non-existence," says 
 Bishop Taylor, " there is an infinite distance." Be- 
 tween these principles there is that distance. Nor in
 
 Chap. I.] INTRODUCTORY. 25 
 
 their influences and effects can they ever converge. 
 No human language, therefore, can adequately de- 
 scribe, much less exaggerate, the variation. The opinion 
 that the Supreme Being has left his oftspring to be 
 regulated by the inflictions of this Manichean prin- 
 ciple, and that which places them in the hands of a 
 kind and superintending Providence, are " contrarieties 
 at war." In no stage of human existence can they 
 be confounded. At the very portal of life the one 
 stands with " aspect malign," measuring, with sinister 
 hand, the exhaustless numbers ; perpetually preach- 
 ing and prophesying against the redundant stream of 
 human existence, and, doubtless, not in vain : the 
 other hails the effluence of life and immortality in 
 strains which gladden all nature, and gratify heaven 
 itself. Further onwards in the pilgrimage of life, the 
 former principle, like the murderous spirit of Mac- 
 beth, sees, with fearful and frenzied eye, every place 
 in ^ life's great feast pre-occupied and full ; and 
 would, therefore, scourge from " the temple of nature" 
 the poor, the wretched, and the destitute, who are dis- 
 turbing her bidden guests, the ^ patentees for food. 
 The latter, on the other hand, sees in the same enter- 
 tainment, whether as it respects " room or food," after 
 the privileged classes are fully satiated, " enough and 
 to spare," and it therefore bids the universal family of 
 man to the banquet of nature ; yea, calls the poor and 
 the lame, the halt and the blind ; and those that have 
 no money, no " patents for food," it kindly constrains, 
 compels them to come in. Seen in the haze of futu- 
 rity, their characteristic differences seem enlarging : 
 the one threatens future, and still increasing, miseries, 
 as the inevitable lot of human beings, if the holiest 
 laws of nature are not insulted and outraged ; when 
 
 ' See Malthus's Essay on Population, p. 531, &c. * Ibid., p. 398, &c.
 
 26 INTRODUCTORY. [Book I. 
 
 a swarm of unnameable offences would doubtlessly 
 ensue, and add indescribable pollution to universal mi- 
 sery : the other points to coming days of unexampled 
 prosperity and peace, promised indeed in the anticipa - 
 tions of philosophy, as well as in the prophecies of re- 
 ligion, when the increasing prevalence of all the social 
 virtues shall augment the numbers, and heighten the 
 happiness, of mankind, till the human family shall 
 more fully occupy the earth, and the benevolent pur- 
 poses of the Deity become more plainly unfolded, and 
 more perfectly accomplished. Nor does the rivalry 
 of these principles end here, nor terminate even with 
 time itself. To man is not only confided the custody 
 of his own existence, he is the trustee, if I may so 
 speak, of that of all future generations ; both are gua- 
 ranteed by the strongest lav»^s that are impressed upon 
 organised life ; let him take heed how he rashly vio- 
 late his trust ! 
 
 What myriads wait iu Destiny's dark womb, 
 
 Doubtful of life or an eternal iomb ! 
 
 'Tis his to blot them from the book of fate, 
 
 Or, like a second Deity, create ! 
 
 To dry the stream of being in its source. 
 
 Or bid it widening win its restless course ; 
 
 ^Vhile, earth and heaven replenishing, the flood 
 
 Rolls to its ocean fount, and rests in God ! 
 
 The theory for which I shall contend, prescribes obe- 
 dience to those natural and moral laws which are too 
 clearly enunciated to be mistaken, and leaves the event 
 to Him in whom are the issues of life and death. That 
 which I oppose would extend its influence beyond even 
 the bounds of time, and, in regulating the population 
 of this world, would regulate that of the next ! Viewed 
 then in the lights of eternity, how does this subject 
 appear ? Its slightest features enlarge into infinity, and 
 become fixed for ever. Then the meanest of those
 
 Chap. I.] INTRODUCTORY. 27 
 
 human existences, wliicli a gTovelling principle would 
 teach us to regard as valueless, or worse, is invested with 
 that which swells its worth above that of all the " ca- 
 pital " upon earth ; beyond the boasted powers of geo- 
 metry or arithmetic to compute, — with immortality ! 
 Contrariwise, those things which that principle repre- 
 sents as of primary consideration, and makes the foun- 
 dation of its varying code of virtues, are then seen 
 stripped of their fictitious value ; even life itself seems 
 but as a short parenthesis in the page of eternity, " sig- 
 nifying nothing," except in connexion with the import 
 it bears to the language of that mysterious volume. But 
 this principle, running counter to all the feelings and 
 duties of mankind in this life, would finally render the 
 concerns of eternity subordinate to those of time ; and all 
 from a vain and selfish fear, that the Being who created 
 all, who preserves all, who clothes the lilies and feeds 
 the ravens, without whose notice not even the sparrow 
 falls, and who, knowing that we " have need of these 
 things," should not clothe, and feed and sustain, those 
 for whom he principally created the world which he 
 has given to the children of men. 
 
 (26) As some of the last ideas have clothed them- 
 selves in the language of Scripture, and as, possibly, 
 similar instances may appear in the course of this 
 work, it will be well to state, thus early, the way in 
 which such quotations, which will neither be sought 
 for nor avoided, will, if they should occur, be used. To 
 those who embrace the truth and authority of the Di- 
 vine Records, they will be more than mere illustrations ; 
 by those who are unhappy enough not to be of that 
 number, they cannot be regarded as less — as even the 
 latter are themselves often found enforcing their mean- 
 ing by similar allusions. Dr. Johnson has too well de- 
 fended the practice, which is abundantly illustrated by
 
 28 IXTRODUCTORY. [Book I. 
 
 all the best aiitliors in tlie best periods of our language, 
 to render any apology from me necessary. I trust, 
 therefore, as no part of the ensuing argument will be 
 built on proofs derived from Divine Revelation, that 
 quotations from it may be tolerated, as so many pas- 
 sages from Homer or Virgil, by those upon whose opi- 
 nion they will make no other impression. Not that by 
 thus expressing myself, I would disclaim the decisive 
 evidence which Revelation affords us on this momen- 
 tous point. God forbid ! If ever there was a subject 
 which connects itself with the very principles of our 
 religion, it is this. Sir Matthew Hale, who wrote a 
 folio book upon it, so treated it throughout his inva- 
 luable work. Even the divinity of Heathenism was 
 full on this point. Christianity is decisive. Not that 
 Christianity which gives, in the estimation of some, so 
 " pleasing a proof of its truth," by accommodating 
 its doctrines to the dogmas of the day, making, there- 
 fore, "virtue itself ambulatory," but that which never 
 did, nor ever will, at the instance of all the philoso- 
 phers in the world, resign one jot or tittle of its prin- 
 ciples or precepts till all its purposes are fulfilled ; 
 and which has, a thousand times over, and especially 
 on those points on which, for a time, it was thought 
 the most untenable, vindicated itself as the only true 
 and permanent system of moral philosophy in the. 
 world. This religion, none can deny, enjoins those 
 virtues which infallibly tend to the increase of that 
 " evil," which the darker theory of Population has 
 pronounced to be fatal to the interests and happi- 
 ness of mankind, forbids those fears which it is its 
 main purpose to infuse, and enjoins that confidence 
 which it would fain destroy ; while the views it takes 
 of the rights of poverty and distress, and the duties 
 it ordains, in reference to them, are as opposite to
 
 Chap. I.J INTRODUCTORY. 29 
 
 tliose held by tlie latter, as liglit is to darkness. 
 Those who regard the subject in the sacred light which 
 this divine relig'ion pours upon it, — and happy is it 
 for the present and future interests of humanity, that 
 they infinitely outnumber those noisy declaimers who 
 totally disregard it, — have no need to be invited into the 
 present controversy. They may doubt or differ upon 
 other topics, but on this they are fully confident and 
 unanimously agreed, namely, that a God of infinite 
 goodness would not create those whom he could not 
 sustain ; neither would a God of infinite purity contem- 
 plate means, concerning which he has expressed his 
 abhorrence, in order to obviate the supposed difficulty. 
 Though the argument may be unnecessary to such, 
 still, if it demolish a theory, of which infidelity and 
 vice are already availing themselves ; if it uncover a 
 link in the chain of that Providence which they were 
 conscious had ever sustained them, though it was 
 concealed from their view, it cannot but unfold to 
 them matter of pleasing contemplation. By adding 
 another to those innumerable instances which ought 
 already to have taught mankind that accusations 
 against Providence ultimately resolve themselves into 
 proofs of human ignorance, and consequently that it 
 is the duty and wisdom of mankind, firmly to confide, 
 even when they can no longer fully comprehend, — they 
 will refresh their minds with one of the most impor- 
 tant and consoling truths of their religion, and 
 
 learn that to ohey is best, 
 
 And love with fear, the only God ; to walk 
 As in his presence ; ever to observe 
 His providence, and on him sole depend, 
 Merciful o'er all his works. 
 
 (27) From the calm and elevated view of the 
 subject which the language of our great poet in- 
 spires, I must now descend into the thorny paths
 
 30 INTRODUCTORY. [Book I- 
 
 of controversy, which I shall pursue, without, I 
 hope, personal rancour ; but, certainly, without that 
 compromise of either feelings or principles, which is 
 now denominated candour, — a sacrifice, which, I con- 
 fess, I cannot think is due to those who advocate the 
 contrary system, notwithstanding their mutual com- 
 pliments to each other on this head; and, more 
 especially, if we advert to their treatment of the real 
 objects of the dispute, the poor and destitute, who, 
 notwithstanding the dogmas of Political Economy, it 
 is impossible, in the nature of things, can ever cease 
 out of the land. To this subject, however, I shall 
 more particularly advert on another occasion ; in 
 the mean time I intend to pursue the argument now 
 entered upon in the following order : — In the present 
 Book of this treatise (the First), I purpose to state 
 the principles of the theory I am opposing, toge- 
 ther with something of its history, shewing that, as 
 now propounded, it is irreconcileable with itself in 
 all its main positions, and especially with those checks 
 which it announces as .solely regulating the redundant 
 numbers of mankind, each of which will be particu- 
 larly considered. The Second Book will be exclu- 
 sively devoted to the consideration of the population 
 of the United States of America and of China ; the 
 increase in the former country having been long 
 appealed to as the one triumphant demonstration of 
 the geometric ratio so often advanced. In this section 
 of the work it will be proved, beyond the possibility 
 of contradiction, that the data on which that demon- 
 stration is founded are utterly erroneous, both as it 
 regards the number of inhabitants at the period from 
 which it dates its calculations, and the circumstances 
 which have mainly contributed to its rapid increase. 
 Respecting China, the empire in which, as we have
 
 Chap. I.] INTRODUCTORY. 31 
 
 been long instructed to believe, the principle of po- 
 pulation has finally produced those evils which are 
 asserted to be its inevitable consequence, the fal- 
 lacies put forth as to the number of its inhabitants 
 and their condition will be fully exposed, and the 
 deductions of the anti-populationists consequently 
 overturned. In the Third Book, the numerous and 
 fundamental errors in those calculations on which 
 the system has chiefly relied will be clearly exhi- 
 bited, when a series of mistakes will be exposed, 
 which, it is believed, have been but rarely paralleled, 
 at least in works professedly scientific, and whicli, I 
 cannot but think, must, of themselves, be fatal to the 
 entire theory. The succeeding- Book will be devoted 
 to the development and demonstration of an essen- 
 tially different, and, I trust, true principle of Popula- 
 tion, established by references to every national 
 register of human existence which has hitherto been 
 published in any part of the world, and one, more- 
 over, in perfect unison with the nature, interests, and 
 duties of mankind, under all possible circumstances 
 of society ; to which will be added, a dissertation 
 on the balance of food and numbers throuo-hout 
 animated nature, which will still further illustrate 
 and extend the principle of reproduction in human 
 beings, as enunciated and proved throughout the 
 treatise. The Fifth Book will comprise an exami- 
 nation of different countries of the world, in refer- 
 ence to the principles at issue ; in which it will be 
 shewn, contrary to the position maintained in the 
 prevailing theory, that as the population of each has 
 increased, the general prosperity has been still more 
 advanced, and that a corresponding improvement has 
 taken place in regard to the moral and intellectual 
 character of the species. It will be also shewn, that
 
 32 INTRODUCTORY. [Book I. 
 
 no country upon earth contains at present anything 
 approaching to the number of inhabitants for which 
 nature has evidently contemplated to provide. The 
 Sixth and last Book will consist chiefly of deductions 
 from the law of population thus established, touching 
 the interests, rights, and duties of mankind; wherein 
 will be discussed several important principles of poli- 
 tical philosophy, in reference, especially, to our ov^ti 
 country. In conclusion, a view will be taken of the 
 future progress and improvement of society, as sug- 
 gested by the preceding principles, and which reason 
 and religion equally warrant us in anticipating. Such 
 are the principal heads of the argument on which I now 
 proceed to enter.
 
 33 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF THE THEORY OF HUMAN SUPERFECUNDITY. 
 THE PRINCIPLE STATED, AND ITS CLAIMS 
 TO ORIGINALITY REFUTED. 
 
 (1) "The necessity of setting down, in the very be - 
 " ginning-, the definitions of our words and termsV' 
 especially in an inquiry like the present, induces me, 
 in the first place, to explain the principle I am about 
 to controvert, and this I shall do in the constantly 
 repeated, and sufficiently significant, language of its 
 principal advocate — it is that of a natural " tendency," 
 and " constant effort in population to increase beyond 
 the means of subsistence^:" which I shall generally 
 express throughout by an expressive term, not in 
 general use, though not of nly creation^, — superfe- 
 cundity. 
 
 (2) In proceeding to disprove that there is any 
 such principle in nature as this superfecundity, in 
 reference to the means of subsistence, I must pre- 
 mise that the argument has nothing whatsoever to do 
 with such acts or institutions as have at any time 
 spread misery amongst mankind : if these were to be 
 recognized as the laws of nature, then indeed it would 
 be no difficult task to shew that human beings have 
 been, alas, redundant in every age and country of the 
 world. It is obvious, however, that these inflictions 
 have no more to do with the principle of population 
 than, for instance, the first murder, or the miseries of 
 the siege of Jerusalem. But it is unnecessary to dwell 
 
 * Bacon's Works, vol. ii. p. 144. ^ See Paley's Natural Theolog}'. 
 
 * Malthus, pp. 3, 12, &c. 
 
 Vol. I; D
 
 34 THEORY OF SUPERFECUXDITY. [Book I. 
 
 on this point ; the author who will be most frequently- 
 alluded to, in attempting to prove the evils resulting 
 from that principle, has expressly treated the subject 
 as totally distinct from such considerations ^ ; nay, it is 
 not attempted to be denied, that, according to the 
 theory of the anti-populationists, the most perfect 
 institutions would but accelerate that dreadful catas- 
 trophe with which it threatens the human race^, were 
 their excessive numbers not checked, and their natural 
 prolificness restrained. 
 
 (3) The proposition is, therefore, totally unem- 
 barrassed by extraneous considerations ; and, as before 
 stated, it is — that there is a natural " tendency," and 
 constant effort, in population, to increase beyond the 
 means of subsistence ^ ; and that this active tendency, 
 therefore, has always produced numbers redundant 
 and excessive in reference to those means ; occasioning 
 evils and demanding checks wdiicli will be enumerated 
 and examined hereafter. 
 
 (4) This principle of population, which is as an- 
 cient as the history of human selfishness and igno- 
 rance, it is strange to observe, is at present hailed by 
 many as some new and important discovery ; whereas 
 its only claims to novelty are those pretended mathe- 
 matical demonstrations which render it ridiculous, and 
 those deductions M^hich make it disgusting. In past 
 times, the notion was principally advocated by the 
 ignorant, and opposed by the intellectual, part of man- 
 kind ; now, indeed, we are told, it has changed hands, 
 and is warmly espoused by " the most thinking per- 
 sons," as they describe each other to be, and re- 
 jected only by the most incompetent. The doctrine, 
 however, which is now received as a new light, is 
 
 ^ Malthus, Essay on Population, Prospects of Mankind, ch. iv. 
 p. 367. 3 Malthus, Essay, &c. pp. 3, 12, 
 
 2 Ibidem, p. 493. Wallace, Various &c. &c.
 
 Chap. II.] ITS ORIGINALITY REFUTED, 35 
 
 nothing' more than ancient darkness, a sort of moral 
 penumbra, through which some of the brightest parts 
 of the earth are, it seems, doomed to pass. 
 
 (5) Without deducing this principle from the mis- 
 stated opinions of ancient Greece and Rome, or the 
 notions of the northern barbarians, the savages of this 
 or the surrounding countries, when the scattered 
 population did not suffice to occupy any of the re- 
 gions they possessed, nor even to reclaim them from 
 a wilderness state, all which will be adverted to else- 
 where ; but to come down to more recent times — there 
 have always been those who have begrudged their 
 fellow beings that life which they themselves enjoyed ; 
 and the nature of their apology has been uniform, 
 however expressed; — it has been that of the principle of 
 superfecundity, and the consequent necessity of check- 
 ing human increase. 
 
 (6) It is a singular fact, however, and one which 
 seems fatal to such an opinion at the very outset, that 
 as it respects any particular country, the apprehensions 
 it inspires have always been strongest when the in- 
 habitants have been, comparatively speaking, few; 
 and, on the very same ground, those fears, which are 
 now but too prevalent in almost every part of the 
 world, are found to be the most deep, and to lead to 
 the most fatal and disgusting consequences where the 
 population is the thinnest. The features of this 
 " principle," and its " evils," always appear the 
 largest, and are seen the most distinctly, through the 
 vacuum of comparative desolation. 
 
 (7) In proof of this, as it respects our own coun- 
 try, I shall hereafter advert to the earlier periods of 
 its history, not commencing, at present, before the 
 reign of the last Henry. In that " intellectual period," 
 when the country was not half cultivated, nor the in- 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THEORY OF SUPERFECUXDITY. [Book I. 
 
 habitants a third of the number now existing*, the evils 
 of popukition were as distinctly seen, and as feelingly- 
 deplored, as at this moment. A descendant of Sir 
 Thomas More, writing the life of that statesman, thus 
 expresses himself, in proof of his superior intelligence : 
 " That the land would be peopled to the devouring 
 " one another, he writeth particularly more like one 
 " that had seen what has already ensued, than one who 
 " spoke of things to come K'' The redundancy of 
 human beings must have been a theme of grievous 
 complaint with many before Hollingshed's days, to 
 have so frequently attracted the notice of that honest 
 old chronicler ; and, it is curious to remark, that the 
 modern assailants of human increase have but picked 
 up, and aimed afresh, the arrows of their spent 
 quiver. There were then, it appears, found men 
 " affirming that we had already too great store of 
 " people in England ; and that youth, by marrying 
 " too soone, doo nothing profit the countrie, but fill 
 " it full of beggars, to the hurt and utter undooing 
 " (they sale) of the commonwealth-."" Again, in ano- 
 ther place, he says, '• Certes, in some men's judg- 
 " ment, these things are but trifles, and not worth 
 " regarding. Some also do grudge at the great in- 
 " crease of people in these dales, thinking a necessary 
 " brood of cattell farre better than a superfluous aug- 
 " mentation of mankind." In a word, it would be 
 difficult, I think, to prove that the argument w^as bet- 
 ter understood, or more clearly stated, or the evils of 
 a redundant population more feelingly deplored, by 
 any anti-populationist of the present day, than at this 
 early period. It has, however, always been their fate 
 to meet with a similar reception ; their endeavours 
 
 ' Crebacre, Life of Sir Thomas More, ^ Hollingshed, vol, i., p. 344, 
 p. 110.
 
 Chap. II.] IT.S ORIGINALITY REFUTED. 37 
 
 have been invariably withstood, and themselves 
 treated with disdain. Thus the old historian, just 
 quoted, adds, with honest indignation, " But I can liken 
 such men best of all unto the Pope and the DiuelP."' 
 (8) The accurate historian needs not to be reminded 
 that the same pernicious views had, as at present, 
 long infected a part of the legislature of the country, 
 and one of the noblest efforts of Bacon was that which 
 exposed the folly, and thwarted the aims, of such as 
 espoused them ^. But the efforts of Bacon were soon 
 forgotten, and even his recorded opinions disregarded ; 
 in vain was it that he asserted " that the body of the 
 kingdom was but thinly sown with people'^;"' and 
 pointed to " the manifest badges and tokens of their 
 scantiness," as " plain demonstrations thereof,"' and 
 even met the anticipations of the anti-populationists 
 of his day ; proving, by reasons which exist at this 
 moment in full force, that England " need fear no 
 surcharge of people*."' Still the feelings of igno- 
 rant selfishness Avere suffered to prevail against the 
 reasonings of the patriot philosopher ; and in the reign 
 of James laws were made, and instructions given, the 
 avowed object of which was to repress human increase 
 by means of what is now dignified with the appellation 
 of the preventive check ^. Some particulars of these 
 proceedings are thus preserved in a scarce w^ork by a 
 nearly contemporary author: "They who could not 
 " maintain a wife might not marry, for a licence they 
 " could not have, the bishops taking care enough 
 " with their officers that the poor might not have law^- 
 " ful favour of a licence, lest their hospitality might 
 " be charged or impaired by their maintenance ; and 
 
 ' Hollingshed, vol. i., p. 308. ^ Bacon's Works, voL iii., p. 294. 
 
 * See "Mr. Francis Bacon's speech in * Bacon's Works, vol. iii., pp. 295, 
 
 favour of an increase of people." — 296. 
 
 D'Ewes, pi 552. ' Barrington. Ancient Statutes, p. 395.
 
 38 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY, [Book I. 
 
 " their publicly denouncing the banns of marriage the 
 " first time; the parish, for the like reason, hindered 
 " it the second, if any cause were ; and usually none 
 " were permitted marriage till the man were thirty-five 
 " at least, and the woman thirty \" These regula- 
 tions, however, it appears could not possibly be con- 
 tinued ; (if they had, how would England now have 
 stood?) for this writer grievously laments the " most 
 " imprudent laxation of laws in the justiciaries of the 
 " nation, so that since," says he, " they have coupled 
 " at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, a 
 " great age ; this hath bred multitudes of poore ; weak 
 " and tender poore^;" elsewhere he says, " this nation 
 " hath lost its politicke rule ; it is overspread with 
 " multitudes of men," (just so said Ceesar nearly six- 
 teen hundred years before,^) " nay, multitudes of 
 ^' poor^." (Could Mr. Townsend say more now?) I 
 shall advert to this obsolete author ag^ain, in shewino- 
 that the prevailing system of population has not the 
 least claim to originality, when it will be seen 
 that, if there be any merit in the discovery, it is 
 due to him, fanatic as he was, being one of those 
 " thinking men " who not only saw the principle 
 clearly, but enunciated every single check that has 
 been brought forward in its behalf, even that of moral 
 restraint, Avhich its reputed author was some consi- 
 derable time in discovering, or rather " supposing^," 
 and which is now put forth as the redeeming feature 
 of the whole system. 
 
 (9) I might multiply proofs almost without num- 
 ber of the prevalence, at that period, of the principle 
 
 » English Law, or a Summary Sur- Cfesar's Comm., 1. v., c. 10. 
 
 vey, &c. by Ch. Geo. Cock, folio, p. 50. ■« Cock, Essay on Christian Govern- 
 
 2 Cock, Essay on Christian Govern- ment, p. 148. 
 
 ment, p. 50. s Malthus, Preface, p. vii. 
 
 ^ Hommum est infinita multitude. —
 
 Chap. II.] IT,S ORIGINALITY REFUTED. 39 
 
 of population I am opposing- ; and I must add, that it 
 would arg-ue the utmost deoTee of io-norance, not to 
 allow that that principle was founded upon precisely 
 the same reasonings, and justified by exactly the same 
 facts as at present. I chuse to shew this, in the 
 next pla'ce, from those who opposed it, for the sake 
 of exhibiting the tone of feeling and good sense then 
 entertained by many on the subject. ''The many 
 " peaceful years of our dread Csesar's protection," says 
 one of these, " begetting such multitudes of souls in 
 " the tribes of our Israel, as former ages never saw, 
 " it now behoveth us that our increased charge be not 
 " unprovided for, nor by neglect the family famished ^" 
 " How fearful and desperate is your want of bread", 
 he says elsewhere, " upon the least defect of a full 
 " harvest ." He does not, however, propose " that 
 " our unemployed poore, wherein this land so infinitely 
 " aboundeth^," "should want their bread, nor our 
 " state be advised to stop the fountain of their flowing 
 " issue V' but propounds those remedies, the partial 
 adoption of which, has fully answered as far as they 
 have been tried; and which, notwithstanding their 
 present unpopularity, will continue to succeed where- 
 ever they are resorted to, even to the end of time. 
 I shall conclude my extracts from this author with 
 a proof that the " evil " was even at that time sup- 
 posed to be of so pressing a nature, that one of the 
 principal expedients now suggested was then fully 
 acted upon. " For albeit God hath commanded 
 " man to increase and multiply, and to fill the 
 " earth, ordaining matrimony free and lawful to all ; 
 " we (supposing he has not given enough to feed us), 
 
 * Adam Moore, Bread for the Poore, ^ Ibid., p. .30. 
 p. 3. ■* Ibid., p. 39. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 4.
 
 40 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 " though not by our command verbally, yet by our act 
 " really, stop that issue of his blessing, by prevent- 
 " ing the poor of needful habitations, whereby, indeed, 
 " their increase is much hindered \" This prime ex- 
 pedient of destroying the habitations of the poor had, 
 indeed, long before that period, been resorted cO ; it is 
 now revived in our own day '; but, by whomsoever pro- 
 posed or practised, and under what apologies or pretences 
 soever, a more cold-blooded act of cruelty and oppres- 
 sion it is impossible to perpetrate ; one deliberate deed 
 of this nature is sufficient to make a human monster, 
 a multitude of such, — apolitical economist! But I 
 shall return to this subject again, and the constant 
 repetition of such doctrines and such deeds must apo- 
 logise for that tautology of indignation which they 
 excite. In the mean time^ without further detaining 
 the reader in shewins; that the same fears of an over- 
 whelming population producing the same effects, pre- 
 vailed in other countries as well as in England^, all of 
 which it is now plainly seen were not half peopled, 
 and that these fears, and the measures they dictated, 
 gradually subsided as population continued to advance 
 in each ; — facts that may perhaps be again touched 
 upon in another branch of the argument. I shall con- 
 clude these quotations on the subject with one from a 
 benevolent writer in the close of the last century but 
 one, Bellars : " Is it not strange to consider," he ex- 
 claims, " how industrious the world is to raise corn 
 " and cattle, which only serves men, and how negli- 
 " gent, or rather careful, to hinder the increase of 
 " men, who are a thousand times better (than beasts), 
 
 ' Adam Moore, Bread for the Poore, " many who has not 40/. Scots of free 
 
 p. 31 . " gear to set up house upon, or some law- 
 
 ^ Third Report on Emigration. See " ful trade whereby to subsist." — Local 
 
 the Rev. Mr. Malthus's Evidence, from Acts. Edmonston's Zetland, vol. ii., p. 
 
 pp. 311 to 327. 151. France. Hume, vol. vi., p. 205. 
 
 2 Scotland — " that none be allowed to See Maltc-Brun, Geog., l.xcv., p. 86.
 
 Chap. II.] ITS ORIGINALITY REFUTED. 41 
 
 *' being to serve God ! Do not men greatly reproach 
 " their Maker, as if he had chosen the uselessest part 
 " of creation to serve him, whilst men think them the 
 " least worth their while to raised" 
 
 (10) That this " superfluous augmentation of 
 mankind," therefore, was most felt and complained 
 of, when men were the fewest, admits of no doubt ; 
 let us next inquire, where it is that the pressure 
 of population is most dreaded at present? — precisely 
 in those countries where a vast accession of in- 
 habitants would be the greatest possible blessing. 
 The aboriginal American, with less than a square 
 mile of the foodful earth to his individual share, 
 exclaims, we are told, "It is time for our young 
 men to go to war, or we shall starve^." Wan- 
 dering through a luxuriant desert capable of pro- 
 ducing every thing for the solace and sustentation 
 of millions, the Indian becomes an infanticide and a 
 parricide, in order to keep down population to the 
 supposed level of the means of subsistence^; and the 
 South-Sea Islander, amidst a still greater profusion 
 furnished him by both elements, adds — and, if you 
 believe him, from the same necessity — cannibalism to 
 infanticide'^; to say nothing of his betters, who check 
 population in a more fashionable manner^. The 
 people of Asia, at least in those countries that are the 
 thinnest of inhabitants, reason like the European phi- 
 losophers, but, if we are to credit some accounts, still 
 act the savage in reference to this subject : " they will 
 " talk of the greatest scourges to which the human 
 " race is subject, — famine, pestilence, war, as catas- 
 " trophes almost to be wished for, considering the 
 
 • Bellars, Proposals for raising a Col- v., pp. 29, 30. 
 
 lege of Industry, p. 2. * Ellis, Narrative of a Tour through 
 
 ^ Bristedj America and her Resources, Hawaii, p. 326. 
 
 p. 22. 5 Cook's First Voyage, vol. ii., p. 207, 
 
 ^ Humboldt, Personal Narrative, vol. el seq. Ellis, p. 326.
 
 42 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 " survivors as benefited by the destruction of so many 
 " of their fellow-creatures ^" And, lastly, in China, 
 — yes, in China, which, notwithstanding the " Edi- 
 " fying Letters" of the Jesuits, is, to the confusion of 
 the argument I am opposing, now ascertained to be, 
 in reference to its soil and climate, one of the worst 
 peopled countries in the East, if not in the whole 
 world, — Dr. Ellis tells us he was surprised to hear the 
 doctrine of Malthus broached on the " Imperial 
 Canal;" namely, that "wars were absolutely neces- 
 " sary to maintain the proportion between the supply 
 " and the consumers ^." It is somewhat singular, that 
 in a country so miserably peopled as China, in pro 
 portion to its fertility and extent, the military man- 
 darin, M^ho held this language, did not think of 
 beating his sword into a ploughshare in order to raise 
 the " level of the food" to that of the population, 
 instead of hewing down the population to the level of 
 the food; but that would neither have comported with 
 his principles on population, nor with his profession. 
 The good old woman, whom Mr. Malthus speaks of 
 meeting at the Lac de Joux^ , equally alive to the true 
 principle of population, chimes in with the doctrine of 
 the professor of Hertford College, but is inclined to 
 rectify the disproportion between life and food by a 
 gentler expedient than war ; which, however, the 
 latter assures us, was originated by the principle of 
 population * ; and the peasant who conducted him to 
 the source of the Orbe, it appears, " understood the 
 " principle of population almost as well as any man 
 " he ever met with," and his views upon the subject 
 are explained somewhat at large ^. It does not, how- 
 
 ' Finlayson, Mission to Siam and * Malthus,Essay on Population, p. 281. 
 
 Hue, p. 65. 4 Ibid., p. 65. 
 
 * Ellis, Journal of the Proceedings ^ Ibid., p. 231. 
 of the late Embassy to China, p. 275.
 
 Chap. II.] ITS ORIGINALITY REFUTED. 43 
 
 ever, appear, tliat any of tlie interlocutors in that, or 
 other similar dialogues which have been given us with 
 much simplicity, were themselves the practical con- 
 verts of their own opinions ; and this forms a singular 
 feature in the modern principle of population. All 
 its advocates are fully aware of the evil, but few, if 
 any of them, are willing to assist, personally, in re- 
 moving it. They agree to lay that task exclusively 
 upon friendless poverty, the very condition, above all 
 others, in which it is the most insupportable ^ But 
 to return. 
 
 (11) In applying some of the preceding observa- 
 tions to Europe, their appositeness, I think, will be 
 fully apparent ; and it is worthy of remark, that the 
 Rev. Mr. Townsend — who was one of the earliest 
 writers that, at considerable length, propounded and 
 illustrated the system under examination — himself 
 seems to have imbibed it in one of the very worst in- 
 habited countries of Europe, Spain, whose thin and 
 declining population had long been acknowledged as 
 one of its greatest evils ; and it is but fair to state, that, 
 whatever merit or otherwise there may have been in 
 reviving that system, (for neither did he discover it,) 
 is undoubtedly due to him, and not to Mr. Malthus. 
 Thus, does he lay it down as a maxim, that " the hu- 
 " man race every where makes strong efforts to in- 
 " crease^." Mr. Malthus, in like manner, speaks of 
 its " constant effort to increase^." The former says, 
 their numbers will go on increasing, and be limited 
 only by their food ^ ; the latter reasserts the idea in 
 the very words ^. The means by which population is 
 kept down to the level of food are enumerated, and 
 
 1 Reports of the Society for Bettering vol. i., p. 382. 
 the Condition of the Poor, vol. iii., p. ^ Malthus, p. 12. 
 325. ■* Tomisend, vol. i., p. 383. 
 
 * Townsend, Joixmey through Spain, ' Malthus, p. 16.
 
 44 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 are precisely of the same nature in both, and clearly- 
 resolvable into vice, misery, or, as it is called, moral 
 restraint K The principal proofs by which the Reve- 
 rend Travellers demonstrate their point, are identical. 
 Does Mr. Townsend bring forv^ard China as an ex- 
 ample of a country '^ where population is advanced 
 to the utmost ability of the soil to nourish," and in 
 which infanticide is resorted to in order to keep down 
 the numbers ^ ? So does Mr. Malthus ^. On the other 
 hand, Mr. Townsend proves his principle of increase, 
 by shewing it, as he supposes, in full operation in 
 North America "* ; so, therefore, does Mr. Malthus ^. 
 
 (12) And not only does the former writer assert 
 the superfecundity of human beings, in reference to 
 their food, but he informs us that their numbers would, 
 if unrestrained, go on doubling at regular intervals, 
 ad injimtum ^. Mr. Malthus assures us just the same 
 thing, in very similar language; and says, " a thou- 
 " sand millions are just as easily doubled every twenty- 
 " five years, by the power of population, as a thou- 
 " sand '';" this, however, is the very point that ought 
 to have been proved by both, rather than simply as- 
 serted and re-asserted throughout ; but that task has 
 been attempted by neither. It is what is not believed, 
 and will be, I trust, fully disproved in this work. 
 The only attempt to substantiate it, is that first made 
 by Mr. Townsend, who says, " the population in 
 " North America doubles every twenty-five years, 
 " but in some provinces in fifteen years ^." Trans- 
 ferring this ratio of increase, which he takes to be 
 true, to the old world, he says ; the reason it does not 
 
 1 Townsend, vol. ii., pp. 362—365. » Malthus, p. 4, &c. 
 
 « Ibid., vol. ii., p. 362. « Townsend, vol. ii.., p. 383. 
 
 ' Malthus, p. 145, &c. 7 Malthus, p. 5. 
 
 * Townsend, vol. ii., p. 362. » Townsend, vol. ii., p. 362.
 
 Chap, n.] ITS ORIGINALITY REFUTED. 45 
 
 take place here is " obvious" — " want of food '." This 
 demonstration, if it must be so denominated, is made 
 not an atom stronger by the verbal repetitions of Mr. 
 Malthus ; who tells us, in like manner, that, " in the 
 " northern states of America, the population has been 
 " found to double itself in twenty-five years ^ ; in the 
 " back settlements, in fifteen years ^." " Why," the lat- 
 ter asks, " does not an equal number produce an equal 
 " increase, in the same time, in Great Britain ?" He 
 answers, in the words of the former, — " the obvious 
 " reason to be assigned, is want of food*." It will be 
 seen hereafter, that the " obvious reason" of both these 
 authors is not the true one — no uncommon case. 
 
 (13) Thus, not only the principle of population, to 
 use Mr. Townsend's phrase, which Mr. Malthus has 
 likewise adopted, but the proofs by which it professes 
 to be demonstrated, the nature of the checks which 
 restrain its increase, and even the precise periods of its 
 natural duplication, are repeated by the latter, with 
 something more like the servility of the copyist, than 
 the accidental coincidence of an original writer. 
 
 (14) The deductions likewise from this repulsive 
 principle, the only considerations which could have in- 
 duced me to engage in examining its truth, whoever 
 were its authors, are in both writers precisely the same. 
 Without noticing that they ground arguments against 
 the system of equality on this theory, (which, were it 
 true, it is however quite obvious would form one of the 
 strongest arguments in its favour,) I shall merely ob- 
 serve, that Mr. Townsend's views on the subject be- 
 trayed him into that inveterate hostility to our great 
 national charity, the poor laws, for which he was early 
 distinguished. He even went so far as to stigmatise a 
 
 > Townsend, vol. ii., p. 362. ^ Malthus, p. 339. 4. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 4, 339. * Ibid., p.340.
 
 46 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 system, wliich was first established \ and lias been since 
 supported and eulogised by the wisest and best men 
 this country has ever produced, as "absurd^." Mr. 
 Malthus, regarding them, still adopts his words, as well 
 as his notions, and calls them " absurd^." The former 
 frequently refers to his " Dissertation" upon the Poor 
 Laws, in which he says, he has discussed the principle 
 of population more at length. I have not been able 
 to obtain a sight of that book, otherwise I have little 
 doubt but the sameness of Mr. Malthus's deductions 
 might be still more distinctly marked ; enough, how- 
 ever, has been said to shew, that whatever be the merits 
 of what is now called the Malthusian theory, the 
 author whose name it bears has but a very slender title 
 to them. 
 
 (15) The motive that has induced me to make these 
 remarks is perfectly distinct from any anxiety to adjust 
 the claims of authorship to such a system, much less 
 envy of any writer who may, however improperly, suc- 
 ceed to the honours of it ; it will be stated before I con- 
 clude this chapter : and it is of sufficient weight to de- 
 termine me still further to trespass on the reader's at- 
 tention, in shewing that the theory existed, substan- 
 tially, long before Mr. Townsend himself, though he 
 unquestionably reduced it into shape, and ought to have 
 given to it his name. Amongst the few authors I shall 
 bring forward in proof of this, I shall first mention 
 Wallace, who wrote on the subject long previously to 
 Mr. Townsend, and who, I cannot but think, has ex- 
 plained what is now called the " principle of popu- 
 lation," in a much more clear and forcible manner 
 than any of his successors. He announces, as amongst 
 certain primary determinations in nature, " A limited 
 
 ' The Poor Laws of England were ^ Townsend, vol. ii., p. 364. 
 
 drawn by Francis Bacon. s Malthus, p. 413.
 
 Chap. II.] ITS ORIGINALITY REFUTED. 47 
 
 ^' earth, a limited degree of fertility, and the constant 
 "increase of mankind V' which increase must be 
 checked by causes which he enumerates, and whicli 
 class themselves under the heads of vice, misery, or 
 moral restraint. His deductions, in reference to poli- 
 tical institutions, are forcibly expressed, and, admitting 
 the truth of his premises, are undeniably correct, and 
 they coincide precisely with what Mr. Malthus has 
 given in not very dissimilar language ; only that the 
 former has saved his system from the absurdity of 
 asserting that its evils are " immediate " and "always 
 pressing" at all periods, even while the earth is in 
 great measure uncultivated, and men have arms to till it, 
 and there are institutions to encourage their labour, and 
 protect them in the rightful possession of its products. 
 He comes, however, at last to the same conclusion, 
 which is common to all who hold the superfecundity of 
 the human race, and one of so dark and pernicious a 
 character that it is strange it did not cause him to sus- 
 pect the truth of his premises, and retrace every distinct 
 step he had taken in the argument. His benevolence 
 plainly struggled against it, and had Truth lent her 
 helping hand, he would have been delivered from the 
 theory altogether, the inevitable consequences of which, 
 however postponed or concealed, are what he has felt 
 compelled to announce as undeniable, namely, that 
 " the more excellent the laws, and the more strictly 
 " they are obeyed, mankind must the sooner become 
 " miserable^." An axiom this, perfectly accordant 
 with the entire theory, and indeed inseparable from it, 
 but most certainly worthy, both in reference to its na- 
 ture and its effects, of the great Enemy of mankind 
 himself. 
 
 * W^allace, Various Prospects of Man- ^ Ibid., p. 111. 
 kind, Nature and Providence, iv. 112.
 
 48 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 (16) Nor lias this unhappy view of the principle 
 of population been confined to this countiy. I have 
 now before me a little work, professing to be translated 
 from the French, and published a little later than the 
 middle of the last century, in which it is expressed 
 with the utmost perspicuity, and reconciled by the same 
 expedients to the existing state of things, and even 
 to Providence itself, (such is the marvel,) as in the 
 " Essay on Population." I shall not weary, I trust I 
 might say disgust, the reader, by quoting the princi- 
 ple laid down by this author, which would be merely 
 a repetition of what has been already given so fre- 
 quently ; nor shall I fatigue him with its proofs, 
 which are as strikingly coincident ; but shall merely 
 shew, that in the enunciation of the checks, which 
 are supposed to keep down the population to the level 
 of food, and which are regarded as the main and es- 
 sential part of the modern system, Mr. Malthus, and 
 even Mr. Townsend, are completely forestalled. When 
 the former of these, therefore, is enumerating " the 
 obstacles to the increase of population V' do I err in 
 conceiving that I read the very language of the anony- 
 mous writer when treating " of the obstacles which 
 oppose the undue increase of population^ V These, 
 Mr. Malthus informs us, may be thus enumerated, — 
 "all unwholesome occupations, severe labour and ex- 
 " posure to the seasons, extreme poverty, great towns, 
 " excesses of all kinds, the whole train of common 
 "diseases and epidemics, wars, pestilence, plague, 
 "and famine^;" w^hich, with something about bad 
 nursing, make up the whole list. The anonymous 
 author says, that amongst his checks " may be con- 
 " sidered, laborious, pernicious, and dangerous em- 
 
 ' Malthus, p. 11. Creation, pp. 105, 110. 
 
 ^ Philosophical Survey of the Animal ^ Malthus, p. 11.
 
 Chap. II.] ITS ORIGINALITY REFUTED. 49 
 
 " ployments ; inclemency of the seasons ; scarcity of 
 "provision; large cities; luxury, effeminacy, sensu- 
 "ality, and debauchery; disease and infirmities; 
 "wars, pestilence, and famine ^" The article con- 
 cerning nursing, therefore, is the sole novelty in the 
 modern catalogue. I shall not pause to trace further 
 coincidences, they are numerous and striking ; if any 
 should wish to estimate more particularly the claims 
 of the present system of population to originality, 
 I would send them to the work itself; in a leaf of 
 which it appears the late Dr. Parr wrote, " This book 
 " contains the seminal principle of many passages in 
 " Malthus's Essay^." He will there perceive, I think, 
 not only that the " seminal principle," but the blossom 
 and fruit of the whole theory are there ; saving its 
 present deadly hostility to the poor laws. But, as 
 though so pernicious a system were always to be 
 accompanied by some inhuman deduction, there is a 
 long note, written expressly against loving our ene- 
 mies ^. So true is the sacred maxim concerning prin- 
 ciples, as well as men, — "by their fruits ye shall 
 know them ! " 
 
 (17) So much then for the novelty of the system. 
 And regarding its checks, that now called moral 
 restraint, which has been but slightly alluded to, the 
 least information upon the question will suffice to 
 convince us that it is one of those preventives which 
 has never been lost sight of by those who hold the 
 natural superfecundity of the species. Most of the old 
 women in England, as well as she of the Lac de Joux, 
 have remained fully alive to it, long after they have 
 been dead to almost every other subject. But in order 
 
 ' Philosophical Sui-vej', &c., pp. 105- ^ Philosophical Dissertation, &c. p. 
 123. 109. 
 
 * Literary Gazette, Aug. 1827. 
 
 Vol. I. E
 
 50 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 to shew that it has been warmly proposed in this 
 country ages ago, and with a fairness in regard to its 
 application, now wholly lost sight of, and which 
 entitles the fanatic author so far to our respect, I shall 
 again quote Cock ; and I do so for a still higher pur- 
 pose than that of prolonging this part of the inquiry; 
 and if the facts disclosed meet the eye of any who 
 have influence in the kingdom, may they sink into 
 their hearts ! They prove not only that the pressure 
 of population was felt more heavily when the inhabit- 
 ants of the country were comparatively few, and had 
 recently been thinned by the consequences of the 
 grand rebellion, which Sir William Petty computes 
 had swept off a fortieth part of the whole people ^ ; 
 but that emigration (a mania for which has been 
 recently attempted to be revived) was even then 
 strongly recommended as a necessary remedy for the 
 sufferings and surcharge in the numbers of the people. 
 " The nation," says this writer, " hath lost its politick 
 " rule," alluding to the restraint upon marriage having 
 been removed, " and is overspread with multitudes of 
 " men, nay multitudes of poor, so that to take care for 
 " the education of all these, you say, is wholly imprac- 
 " ticable. To this I say, that no nation, if not plagued 
 "with war or diseases, but naturally it will grow 
 " over numerous. Now the magistrate supreme 
 " ought truly to know the contents of his territory, 
 " and be able to lay out the possible subsistence of 
 " his subjects ; as the wise grazier, to know how many 
 " beasts will be depastured in such a ground, or how 
 " much seed will sow an acre. These are the myste- 
 " ries of wise regiments, which few princes or magis- 
 " trates, now-a-days, if at any time, will study, but 
 
 ' Political Arithmetic, Tracts, p. 106. 
 
 '
 
 Chap. II.] ITS ORIGINALITY REFUTED. 51 
 
 " it is tlieir duty : but from not well con-sidering tliese 
 " things, nations which might in ordinary course live 
 " quiet, being grown over populous, whereby the due 
 " care of inferior magistrates is obstructed, they grow 
 " loo.se and lazy, then swarve into crimes, then com- 
 " plain of neglect of duty of magistrates, which is 
 " evident ; then interest gains head, these make par- 
 " ties, and then the state is utterly embroiled or 
 " altered. Therefore, if the princes will, in the use 
 " of the wisdom God hath given them to rule by, rule 
 " well and safely, they must, once every seven years, 
 "number their people; if the accidents (I must so 
 " call them) of plague, war, famine, &c. have not 
 " done it ; and either by opening a fit way, publickly 
 " known, of easing their country's burthen, by settling 
 " them in another county ; or if all counties are full, 
 " by transporting them into another country, avoid 
 "this danger." The former alternative, however, is 
 now conceived to be unworthy attention by the poli- 
 tical economists of the present day : nor were these 
 the only expedients to avoid the recurrence of the 
 evil, in the discovery of which he was as clear-sighted 
 as any of them; he therefore thus expresses himself. 
 " Now the Christian magistrate, therefore, upon the 
 " whole, may and ought to bridle this beast in man," 
 (alluding to the natural passion between the sexes,) 
 " by a discreet moderate law, to restrain the lusts of 
 " proud, rich, lazy, idle, and so lustful young ones ; 
 " and take off the itch of mean ones by work and 
 " labour of body, with slender diet ; and holy exer- 
 " cises, divine and spiritual breathings after God in 
 " the sense of our own weakness, will as well restrain 
 "exorbitant affections in Christians, as the love of 
 " philosophy or the fear of the gods, so called, could 
 " heathens : let us not therefore eat to lust, and live 
 
 E 2
 
 52 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 " in idleness, and then we must marry or we burn ^" 
 Such are the opinions this author published in the 
 middle of the seventeenth century^; and it is there- 
 fore perfectly clear, that the old fanatic understood 
 what our modern philosophers call "the true prin- 
 ciple of population" as clearly as the best of them, 
 anticipating all their remedies for the evils it is sup- 
 posed to occasion, which it fully appears were felt far 
 more severely then than at present ; but with a fair- 
 ness, of which not an individual amongst them has 
 shewn himself capable of imitating, proposing to ad- 
 minister those remedies, as it respected the rich as 
 well as the poor, impartiall}^ and universally. 
 
 (18) Respecting the terms now made use of in the 
 system under consideration, which, as applied to this 
 theory, have acquired a most unnatural importance, 
 they have as little claim to originality as the things 
 they are meant to express. The idea of mankind 
 multiplying in a " geometric ratio," that is, doubling 
 their numbers in regularly recurring intervals of equal 
 duration, is sufficiently old, so is the expression itself^. 
 But the geometrical progression of human increase 
 has been generally applied to the antediluvian period 
 of human history, or to that immediately succeeding 
 the flood ^, when human life was tenfold its present 
 duration. This longevity was always attended to 
 in these calculations ; and its diminution, after having 
 accomplished a manifest purpose of the Deity, was 
 taken into account as occasioning the gradual ex- 
 tension of the term of human duplication ^ : con- 
 siderations which must not even be recollected in the 
 
 ^ Cock, Essay on Christian Govern- ■* Burn, History of the Poor Laws, 
 
 ment, pp. 126, 148, 151, 152. p. 153. 
 
 * A.D. 1651. » Sir William Petty, Tracts, pp. 108, 
 
 ^ Sir Matthew Hale, Primitive Ori- 120. 
 giaation of Mankind, p. 205.
 
 Chap. II.] ITS ORIGINALITY REFUTED. 53 
 
 modern system of population. As to the " arithme- 
 tical ratio," as far as it means to imply, that food natu- 
 rally increases slower than the multiplication of hu- 
 man life, if the term has not been used, which I think 
 it has, at all events the idea is as ancient as the 
 former one, as has been sufficiently shewn already. 
 Nor has the circumstance of the two ratios beinar 
 brought together, most unfortunately, as I think, for 
 the argument, been without an example ^ But as I 
 suspect, it is upon these ratios that the supposed de- 
 monstration of that theory is built, which Mr. Malthus 
 says is established in his first five pages, I shall fur- 
 ther consider them separately, and then in connexion 
 with each other ; when I think it will be seen the 
 whole rests on a very insecure foundation. 
 
 (19) I have, in the meantime, adduced these 
 proofs, that the principle shortly explained in this 
 chapter, has no claims to originality, from, I repeat, 
 a very different motive to that of settling a dispute 
 about authorship. One of the principal excellencies 
 in a justly celebrated work, in answer to the infidel 
 publication of Mr. Paine, consisted in shewing that 
 writer, that his confident hopes of subverting the 
 Christian religion, by having advanced something, as 
 he supposed, essentially new on the occasion, were ut- 
 terly fallacious, and that the sacred truths he opposed, 
 had, through a succession of ages, sustained precisely 
 similar attacks uninjured -. In like manner the laws 
 of Providence, in regard to human increase, have, long- 
 before our days, been impugned on the same grounds, 
 by the same arguments and in the same terms, as those 
 we are about to consider, but without any permanent 
 
 ' Philip 'Cantilloii, Essay on Food ^ Bp. Watson, Apology for the Bible, 
 and Population, &c. pp. 119, 120. passim.
 
 64 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY, [Book I. 
 
 effect. Those laws have still continued to be regarded 
 as the source of human prosperity and happiness, and 
 perfectly adapted to the measure of that increase in 
 human sustentation, to which they have a visible and 
 special reference. 
 
 I
 
 55 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF THE THEORY OF HUMAN SUPERFECUNDITY ; 
 ITS GEOMETRIC RATIO CONSIDERED. 
 
 (1) The principle of population about to be ex- 
 amined has already been shortly explained. In pro* 
 ceeding, however, to consider the mode and measure 
 in which it is said to operate, all which its advocates 
 profess to understand clearly, and to calculate with 
 the greatest certainty and precision, it may be need- 
 ful to restate the theory and in their own terms, as 
 the reader, in respect to his outraged feelings, will 
 doubtless have attempted to dismiss it from his recol- 
 lection. 
 
 (2) The principle is simply explained, as " a con- 
 " stant tendency in all animated life, to increase be- 
 " yond the nourishment prepared for it^ :" a proposition 
 sufficiently astounding in itself, and still more so in 
 its inevitable consequences ; consequences which have 
 been by no means overlooked. On the contrary, they 
 have been calmly contemplated and attributed to 
 Nature, (whose laws are elsewhere declared to be 
 those of God ;) that Nature, which, it is said, 
 " has scattered the seeds of life abroad, with the 
 " most profuse and liberal hand, but has been com- 
 " paratively sparing in the room and the nourishment 
 " necessary to rear them ^." Her sentient offspring 
 she has " impelled by a powerful instinct to increase 
 " their species^," and the " superabundant effects" of 
 her own laws " are repressed afterwards," by " want 
 
 of room and nourishment V' and " amongst animals, 
 
 1 Malthus, pp. 2, 540. * IHd., p. 2. 3 Malthus, p. 2. * Ibid.; p. 3. 
 
 a
 
 5G THEORY OF SUPERFECUXDITY. [Book I. 
 
 " by their becoming the prey of each other ^" Man, 
 however, is in the most melancholy predicament. 
 Reason, it appears, " interrupts his career," dissuad- 
 ing him from obeying the strongest law of nature : if 
 he attend to its monition, his obedience too frequently 
 produces " vice V' if he do not, the inevitable conse- 
 quence that awaits him, is " misery,'* which " will 
 be severely felt by a large portion of mankind^;" 
 especially by the most destitute, from whom this 
 theory proposes, that all public assistance, founded 
 on long established rights'*, should be entirely with- 
 drawn. A large proportion of mankind must, there- 
 fore, be kept down in numbers, by checks as they are 
 called, or rather scorpion scourges, composed of de- 
 structive vices and sufi'erings, which the system places 
 in the hand of nature for that purpose : the domestic 
 virtues and charities, at least when found in a condi- 
 tion of life unhappily too prevalent, are to be lashed 
 and branded^, while impurity and vice, meantime, 
 stalk abroad unpunished. These are the principal 
 means by which the numbers, which the fiat of the 
 Creator calls into being, must be kept down to the 
 level of that inadequate sustentation which he has 
 provided for them. 
 
 (3) The proportion in which it is asserted, in this 
 theory, that human beings would increase, is denomi- 
 nated the "geometric ratio," audit is announced, and 
 assumed to be demonstrated, in these terms: — " The 
 " human species would increase" (if unchecked) " as 
 " the numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256; and 
 " subsistence as, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. In two cen- i 
 
 " turies the population would be to the means of ex- 
 
 * Malthus, p. 3. 2 iijid,^ p, 3. cumstances of poverty mentioned — " to 
 ' Ibid., p. 3. ■•Paley. the punishment, therefore, of nature he 
 
 * " Ckarly immoral," mider the cir- should be left."— Malthus, pp. 539, 540.
 
 Chap. III.] THE GEOMETRIC RATIO. 57 
 
 " istence as 256 to 9 ; in three centuries, as 4096 to 
 " 13 ; and in two thousand years the difference would 
 " be ahiio.st incalculable ^" 
 
 (4) This boasted scheme is, when examined, of a 
 most singular character, and, as will be seen hereafter, 
 might be so made use of, as to prove a diametrically- 
 opposite principle to that which it is brought forwards 
 to express. But to consider what it means rather 
 than what it shews, viz. that mankind would, unre- 
 strained, double their numbers every twenty-five 
 years, while their food could not be made to increase 
 in an equal time, in any thing approaching to that 
 ratio. All the consequences predicated must, there- 
 fore, inevitably ensue, consequences which, it is the pur- 
 pose of the calculation to shew, could neither be mi- 
 tigated nor delayed. The system pushes man at once 
 to the verge of that gulf of universal suffering, which 
 it declares the conflicting laws of nature have pre- 
 pared for him, and only saves him from the final 
 plunge by vice and misery ; or, by that which, not- 
 withstanding the sophistry with which it is recom- 
 mended, is in effect a disgusting compound of both ; 
 — the " preventive check." — A theory, this, which 
 cannot be that of God and Nature ; and which, in their 
 name, I shall attempt to disprove. 
 
 (5) First, then, as it respects the geometric ratio of 
 human increase. But, before I address a few observa- 
 tions to this point, I will refer the reader, at this early 
 stage of the argument, to the Second Book of this trea- 
 tise, in which he will find the sole demonstration of the 
 theory of human duplication at regularly recurring 
 periods, founded on the supposed progress of American 
 population, entirely disproved, not only by reasonings 
 which I think it will be hard to invalidate, but by facts 
 
 ' Malthus; p. 8.
 
 58 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 wliicli I am certain it will be impossible to controvert. 
 American statistics, so far from substantiating the geo- 
 metric ratio, disprove it altogether ; and the reader must 
 be well aware, if he be at all conversant with the ques- 
 tion, that there is no other, even supposititious, proof of 
 it in existence. The few words, therefore, that I shall 
 spend upon this part of the subject (and many would 
 be superfluous) will treat the geometric ratio as what 
 it is, — a mere unsubstantiated hypothesis. 
 
 (6) Without dwelling, for the present, therefore, 
 upon the varying ratios of mortality, plainly accom- 
 modated to the state of the population in every part of 
 the world, and even recognized by the supporters of 
 the theory in question ; without adverting to those 
 mutations in "nature's two boundaries, corruption and 
 generation \" to use Lord Bacon's language, which, it 
 will be shewn hereafter, constantly accommodate 
 themselves to the varying exigencies of human beings, 
 independently of the intervention of the inhuman and 
 immoral checks already enumerated ; it may be at 
 once denied that human increase proceeds geometri- 
 cally, and for this simple but decisive reason, that the 
 existence of a geometrical ratio of increase in the works 
 of nature is neither true nor possible. It would fling 
 into utter confusion all order, time, magnitude, and 
 space. This increase can only exist as an abstract idea. 
 Its abettors may be challenged to produce it as a per- 
 manently practical truth. This they cannot do, and 
 hence the difference between our respective principles 
 is this, and it is immeasurable ; that whereas their 
 ideal ratio of human increase is only reconcileable to 
 truth and experience by the constant operation of a 
 set of cruel and disgusting checks ; the true principle 
 of population is, without such interference, so regu- 
 
 ' Lord Bacon, Works, vol. i., p. 364.
 
 Chap. III.] THE GEOMETRIC RATIO. 59 
 
 lated by the Author of nature as to be productive of 
 the greatest possible degree of human happiness. 
 
 (7) In further consideration of this geometric ratio, 
 I observe that Mr. Malthus, in the chapter in which it 
 is propounded, has exemplified his meaning, if not, as 
 he supposes, demonstrated its truth, by appeals to 
 the vegetable kingdom. Let us do so likewise ; and 
 take from its entire tribes, any of which would equally 
 illustrate the subject, the growth of its monarch, the 
 oak, as an exemplification of the better principle, not 
 as the proof of it ; that, as it will be seen hereafter, is 
 founded upon a much surer basis than any mere illus- 
 tration can supply. From the period when it first bursts 
 its acorn and perforates the soil, till it becomes a 
 vigorous sapling, its growth and enlargement are com- 
 paratively rapid ; so it continues, while it spreads abroad 
 its branches, rears its lofty head, and rises to maturity. 
 Then is it that its annual increase gradually diminishes, 
 and at length pauses, when it stands hardening its 
 giant limbs in the changeful seasons, alternately 
 putting forth its vernal leaves, and disrobing itself to 
 the roar of the wintry blast, century after century, 
 without adding one cubit to its majestic stature. But 
 neither then, nor at any subsequent period, till it finally 
 bows down its honours to its native soil, does it sur- 
 cease its growth, nor fall into decay for want of nourish- 
 ment and room. It sinks from an inevitable law of na- 
 ture, analogous to that which regulates the increase of 
 animated beings, and which, hitherto, has determined 
 the fate of empires, of which the sacred records justify 
 me in selecting this as an instructive emblem. An 
 ant, meantime, mounted on a mole-hill at its foot, sup- 
 posing this instructive teacher to be a mathematician, 
 witnessing its early growth, and calculating from 
 thence a geometric ratio, might well augur that it
 
 GO THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 would ascend to tlie size of Nebucliadnezzar's tree, 
 shadowing all the beasts of the field, and sheltering the 
 fowls of heaven in its branches, till at length it would 
 darken the skies, and hide that sun which calls forth 
 its busy fraternity to their annual labours. The calcu- 
 lations of this interesting insect would be not less true 
 in the abstract, and not more false in their application, 
 than that of the philosopher, who, with the page of 
 history before him, where is recorded the existence of 
 mighty and populous empires, not a vestige of which 
 now remains, and others by whose ruins he is still 
 surrounded, (not one of which met their fate from a 
 want of food for their boasted numbers,) still raves 
 about the geometric ratio of human increase \ 
 
 (8) Nor has this geometric ratio any existence 
 when applied to the comnion pursuits of life. One of 
 the authorities quoted in the first chapter of the work 
 under examination, supposes, indeed, upon this prin- 
 ciple, the possibility of the indefinite, or rather infi- 
 nite multiplication of any particular race of men or 
 vegetables, and applied, I think, the notion to other, 
 and, as he thought, more practical as well as profit- 
 able purposes, — the increase of money; calculating to a 
 nicety what a farthing put out to interest at our Savi- 
 our's birth would have amounted to at his day, had 
 it been properly husbanded. Nor did the idea exist 
 with him in mere theory : he actually left in his last 
 will and testament some, I forget how many, millions 
 sterling to be applied as he directed at a given time 
 after his death I The philosopher was quite as pro- 
 found when he was penning his codicil as when en- 
 gaged in proving that the world might be planted 
 
 • ' I have observed, since I wrote this the same analogj^, the rise, progress, 
 
 passage, that one of the proibundest and decay of the ancient races of man. 
 
 writers on geography that has ever yet — See Malte-Bnin, Geog., l.xcv., p. 72. 
 appeared, Malte-Brun, has explained,"hy 2 Dr. Frankhn's Will, Works.
 
 Chap. III.] THE GEOMETRIC RATIO. CI 
 
 entirely with fennel : — tlie growth of Jack Hickathrift's 
 bean, or any other nursery story, is as sober a suppo- 
 sition as either. 
 
 (9) False, however, and even ridiculous, as is the 
 geometric ratio when any thing more than a mere ab- 
 stract idea ; and although, were it true, " the great 
 "■ difference in the delivery of the mathematics, which 
 " are the most abstracted of knowledges, and policy, 
 " which is the most immersed V is manifest; still the 
 duty, interest, and policy of the country, it is now pro- 
 posed, should be dictated by it ; and in sober earnest 
 we stand in no little danger, if the principle gain 
 ground, of seeing one of the wildest of Swift's satirical 
 reveries actually realized amongst us^. Under these 
 circumstances, I hope I may hold the humble office of a 
 " flapper" on the occasion, and so far recall these state 
 mathematicians to matter of fact and common sense, as 
 to shew them two practical problems, both of which 
 are undeniably true, and either of them fatal to their 
 theory ; they are these : — 
 
 First, Human increase, under the most favourable 
 circumstances for its development, does not proceed 
 in a geometrical ratio, but is constantly regulated on a 
 totally different principle. 
 
 Second, Supposing such a ratio to exist, (which will 
 be distinctly disproved,) still the longest of the terms 
 upon which its supporters have founded their theory, 
 even taking their own data, involves a series of phy- 
 sical impossibilities. 
 
 (10) For a full proof of these important positions, 
 decisive indeed of the entire argument, I must again 
 crave the reader to anticipate subsequent parts of this 
 work. In regard to the first, and in proof that no 
 
 ' Bacon, Advancement of Learning, ^ Swift, Voyage to Laputa, Works, 
 b. ii., p. 152.^ vol. xiii., p. 145, e/sey.
 
 62 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 such duplication as the theory I am opposing- ever 
 has taken place, I have already referred to the Second 
 Book of this treatise ; that it never can, consistently 
 with the established laws of nature, I hope is demon- 
 strated, by every species of evidence of which the 
 subject is susceptible, in the Fourth. In the opening 
 chapters of the intermediate one, the second assertion 
 is most distinctly substantiated, namely, that even 
 the longest term assigned as the natural period of 
 duplication in an unchecked population, is so far from 
 being actually true, that it is not even possible, ad- 
 mitting the most favourable suppositions which have 
 been brought forward in reference to human prolific- 
 ness and longevity. My reason for postponing these 
 proofs to a further stage of the argument is, that the 
 diiferent branches of it may be kept as distinct as may 
 be, and thereby that tautology somewhat lessened, 
 which it is not easy altogether to avoid in a work of 
 this extended nature, at least with that share of time 
 and attention that I have been able to devote to its 
 composition and arrangement. I am not, however, 
 unaware of the effect of continued repetition. Locke, 
 I think, owed no little of his success in clearing away 
 the metaphysical cobwebs of preceding times to it ; 
 and, at all events, the practice has been avowedly 
 resorted to by the author to whom I shall often ad- 
 dress myself. In the choice of difficulties, I have, 
 however, preferred separating the argument into two 
 general divisions; the former of which will princi- 
 pally consist of proofs derived from general observa- 
 tion and experience ; the latter, of those numerical 
 calculations, by which it is arithmetically demon- 
 strated. In subsequent parts of the work, then, the 
 present subject will be resumed, when it will be fully 
 proved, that the geometric ratio of human increase
 
 Chap. III.] THE GEOMETRIC RATIO. 
 
 lias never yet been known to exi.st ; that the periods in 
 which its supporters assert that it doubles human 
 beings, involve impossibilities; and, finally, that no 
 such principle, however modified, constitutes the true 
 law of population.
 
 64 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OF THE THEORY OF HUMAN SUPERFECUNDITY; 
 ITS ARITHMETICAL RATIO. 
 
 (1) If tlie geometric ratio, as applied to the in- 
 crease of human beings, cannot bear a close investi- 
 gation, the arithmetical one, as expressing the utmost 
 possible augmentation of their sustenance, cannot sus- 
 tain a single glance. So far from its being a " self- 
 evident truth," as represented, it is an obvious fallacy, 
 and one of the most glaring description ; whether re- 
 garded theoretically or practically, whether submitted 
 to the intellect of the philosopher, or the observa- 
 tion of the peasant, the error appears equally striking. 
 
 (2) The design of the theory under examination 
 being to represent the utter insufficiency of the sus- 
 tenance provided for the beings which the unrestrained 
 laws of nature would certainly produce, two different 
 ratios are employed, — the geometric one, exhibiting the 
 multiplication of those beings as proceeding, when 
 unchecked, in an infinite series in which each succes- 
 sive term is double that of its preceding one ; and the 
 arithmetical, as shewing the means of subsistence 
 when augmented to the utmost, advancing indeed, 
 but so as to make each successive term exhibit a per- 
 petually lessening proportion to the former. In this 
 arithmetical series, the second term indeed doubles the 
 first, but the third adds only a half to the second ; the 
 fourth, one third ; the fifth, one fourth ; the sixth, 
 one fifth ; and so on, till at the end of the few places,
 
 Chap. IV.J THE ARITHMETICAL RATIO. C5 
 
 which are given, while the increase of the geometi'ic 
 ratio has advanced to 128, that of the arithmetical 
 still remains only one. When these two ratios are 
 brought together, for which purpose they were calcu- 
 lated, they consequently exhibit a perpetually enlarging 
 disproportion, which speedily becomes all but infinite. 
 But the arithmetic ratio, which is made to express 
 the utmost increase of human food, will, in the first 
 place, be considered separately, and then in its sup- 
 posed connexion with the geometric one. 
 
 (3) In proceeding to examine this supposed ratio 
 of the increase of food, in order to see the subject 
 more clearly, let us, in the first place, consider it as 
 distinct from "room :" and we are perfectly warranted 
 in so doing, not only because the corresponding ratio 
 has been so considered, but because Mr. Malthus 
 himself has done so in laying down his own principle ; 
 and that not inadvertently, but designedly and for- 
 mally, making it the distinctive feature of his system 
 compared with that of Wallace and others ^ The 
 difference of these ratios he asserts in the very first 
 page of his work, to have been " constantly and 
 " powerfully operating since the commencement of so- 
 " ciety^;" and after having dwelt upon the same idea 
 throughout, he repeats, near its close, that it is the 
 present and existing evils deducible from the principle 
 of population, which his system contemplates. Speak- 
 ing of a remote difficulty, he says, " An event, at such 
 " a distance, might fairly be left to Providence ; " (sin- 
 gular language!) "but the truth is," continues he, 
 " that if the view of the argument given in this essay 
 " be just, the difficulty, so far from being remote, 
 " would be imminent and immediate. At any period 
 " during the progress of cultivation, from the present 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 354. ^ Ibid., p. 1. 
 
 Vol. I; F
 
 66 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 " moment to the time when the whole earth was 
 " become like a garden, the distress, for want of food, 
 " would be constantly pressing on all mankind, if 
 " they yvere equal. Though the produce of the earth 
 " would be increasing every year, population would be 
 " increasing much faster, and the redundancy must 
 " necessarily be checked by the periodical or constant 
 *' action of moral restraint, vice, or misery ^" Here, 
 then, as clearly as when he speaks of the same prin- 
 ciple being in constant and powerful operation from the 
 origination of society, he evidently treats the subject 
 as not referrible to space. I perceive, likewise, by 
 another work of his, a small part only of which I have 
 read, he admits that the earth is capable of sustaining 
 ten-fold its present inhabitants, and that the popula- 
 tion of Europe is far from having approached the limits 
 which nature has assigned^. Meantime, as he has 
 absolved human institutions from any culpable and 
 prejudicial interference with the question, or declared, 
 at least, that their influence is " light and superficiaP," 
 we are fully warranted in considering the arithmetical 
 ratio as not being at present bound up by want of room, 
 and nothing more is necessary in order to expose itself 
 and its office to deserved derision. 
 
 (4) The purpose of pursuing this inquiry is, 
 however, of a far higher nature than that of an- 
 swering any particular author, much less exposing to 
 ridicule his peculiar views, and as I am perfectly 
 persuaded, notwithstanding these assurances to the 
 contrary, that, in the very nature of things, it must 
 be the prospective terrors, rather than the " imme- 
 " diate^" effects of population, by which most of the 
 converts to this fallacious theory are influenced, be- 
 
 ^ Maltbus, Essay onPopulation, p. 354. SMalthus, Essay on Population, p. 367. 
 2 Ibid., Polit. Econ,, p. 348. * Ibid., p. 354.
 
 Chap. IV.] THE ARITHMETICAL RATIO. G7 
 
 fore I address a few words to the subject of tliis chap- 
 ter, I shall dwell a little on the idea of the vast 
 spaces which the earth still presents hitherto either 
 wholly unoccupied, or very partially possessed, by 
 human beings ; and this I will do, in the words of 
 Dr. Franklin, whose right sense and feeling- in this 
 instance will tend to obliterate the recollection of 
 those occasional weaknesses incident to human nature, 
 from which it has been already seen he was not exempt. 
 ' The world is large," says he, " and a great part of 
 ' it uncultivated. Many hundred millions of acres 
 ' in Asia, Africa, and America, are still in forest ; 
 ' and a great deal even of Europe. On a hundred 
 ' acres of this forest a man might become a substan- 
 ' tial farmer, and a hundred thousand men, each 
 ' employed in clearing his hundred acres, would 
 ' hardly brighten a spot large enough to be visible 
 ' from the moon, unless with Herschel's telescope ; 
 ' so vast are the regions still in wood^" 
 
 (5) More recent authorities, in possession, it may 
 be presumed, of the most accurate information, not 
 only confirm this view of the subject, but amplify our 
 ideas respecting the abundant room there is, even in 
 Europe, and in England, for an immediate and im- 
 mense multiplication of the human species^ . 
 
 (6) That the increase of the production of the means 
 of sustenance is not, in the second place, thus fatally 
 abridged and brought down to the wretchedness of 
 this arithmetical ratio by human institutions, I need 
 not surely contend ; Mr. Malthus himself has, as we 
 have seen, very distinctly asserted to the contrary ; and, 
 indeed, to prove the very reverse, was probably the 
 primary motive of his undertaking. These, he says, 
 "are light and superficial" as "causes" of that weight 
 
 ^ Fraiiklin, Essays, vol. ii., p. 84. ^ Malte-Brun, Geog., 1. xcv., p. 87, 
 
 F2
 
 68 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 of human misery which continually presses upon man- 
 kind, and result, as he declares, from the laws of na- 
 ture, one of which he conceives to be this arithmetical 
 ratio. It is perfectly plain, therefore, that he treats 
 the arithmetical ratio as a question distinct from human 
 power as well as room. Totally differing with him, as 
 I do, in regard to the main source of human mi- 
 sery, and feeling little disposed to exonerate institu- 
 tions from their share in the guilt of its frequent 
 infliction, I will, nevertheless, acknowledge that their 
 general effect on the mass of mankind is greatly to 
 increase, rather than diminish, the production of 
 the means of subsistence. But, let it be recol- 
 lected, that in the particular cases in which it is 
 otherwise, and these institutions intercept, instead of 
 distributing and securing, the bounties of Providence, 
 nature stands fully absolved, and would remain so were 
 such cases universal. It is the scale graduated by 
 Providence, and not by cruelty and oppression, which, 
 I presume, both Mr. Malthus and myself are con- 
 sidering. 
 
 (7) In every view of the question, and most of all, 
 in that taken by the author whose principle I am oppos- 
 ing, I am, therefore, fully warranted in treating these 
 ratios as an abstract question ; and, so regarded, there 
 probably never was an assertion hazarded upon any 
 subject that has engaged the attention of man from 
 the creation to the present hour, so palpably at 
 variance with truth as that which represents the na- 
 tural rate of increase in human sustenance to be 
 slower than that of the increase of human beins^s ; to 
 say nothing of the astonishingly great, and continually 
 increasing, disparity contended for by the theory so 
 maintained. It seems absolutely necessary to recall 
 the advocates of such notions to the evidence of their
 
 Chap. IV.] THE ARITHMETICAL RATIO. 69 
 
 own senses. Wliicli of tliose vegetable or animal 
 substances, whose plain destiny it is to administer 
 to the necessities of man, is it that multiples in a 
 slower ratio than himself? Or, rather, which is 
 it, on the contrary, that does not increase much 
 faster? many of them, indeed, at a rate which 
 speedily baffles all the powers of calculation to ex- 
 press. In what situation can the human being- be 
 placed, whatever may be his habits, who does not see 
 his food multiplying around him with a rapidity truly 
 astonishing, whether he avail himself of the gifts of 
 nature, or, through ignorance or oppression, expire 
 amidst their profusion? Suppose him placed in the 
 lowest condition of life, and existing as an animal of 
 prey ; that prey is almost infinitely more prolific 
 than himself. To take but one example of the fact 
 from each of the elements that furnishes it ; a single 
 pair of one of the species of wild edible quadrupeds, 
 a celebrated historian of nature observes, would, in 
 four years, multiply into a million and a half: the 
 increase of a flock of wild pigeons, in the same space 
 of time, would be almost inconceivable. Wilson, the 
 American ornithologist, calculated the numbers of a 
 single flight of them, which he observed, at about two 
 thousand millions ; an almost incredible fact, were it 
 not corroborated by similar accounts^. In the earlier 
 history of the colonies, they were called the victuallers 
 of the plantations", and were well deserving of the 
 name. As to the finny tribes, who has ever compared 
 human prolificness with theirs, or ventured to suppose 
 that the subsistence they might yield to man is 
 exhaustible? Would not these double in twenty-five 
 years? If the experiments of the great Lewen- 
 
 ' Dr. Williams, History of Vermont, &c. of the British Settlements in North 
 p. 114. America, vol. ii., p. 218. 
 
 ^ Dr. Douglass, Summary Historical,
 
 70 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 lioek were true, and I never heard of their being 
 doubted, Bradley has shewn, that, according to a very 
 moderate calculation, a single cod w^ould increase in 
 ten years into about a thousand myriads of myriads, 
 a sum which we may more easily write than appre- 
 hend; and that " a herring, if suffered to multiply 
 " unmolested and undiminished for twenty years, 
 " would shew a progeny greater in bulk than the 
 " globe itself ^" 
 
 (8) But man was not intended to remain a mere 
 hunter ; and as he advances to the pastoral stage of 
 existence, all the animals he reclaims from the wil- 
 derness, and domesticates, become far more prolific, 
 according to the observation of Lord Bacon, who 
 says, " creatures, which, being wild, generate seldom ; 
 " being tame, generate often 2;" while, by a process 
 which Dr. Short remarks, increases their fecundity ^, 
 the disposable stock is in effect almost doubled. But 
 agricultural are added to pastoral pursuits, and the 
 fertility of nature is still further augmented. 
 Then all the fruits of the earth, so prolific in their 
 natural state, improve and increase in proportions 
 previously unknown, and yield their crops in con- 
 stant and rapid succession. While the favourite 
 productions of the vegetable kingdom are more care- 
 fully cultivated, and yield still greater abundance ; 
 till many a narrow horticultural strip, surrounded by 
 delicious fruits, and bearing in its bosom, or on its 
 surface, a profusion of nutritious produce in grateful 
 variety, every species of which naturally increases 
 in ratios which soon amount to numbers defying com- 
 putation, becomes a sample, and perhaps a very im- 
 perfect one, of the capabilities of the mother earth, 
 
 'Good, Study of Medicine, vol. v., ^ Short, New Observations on BiUs of 
 
 P-J- ... MortaUty, pp. 157, 158. 
 
 ^ Bacon, Century, viii. §. 758. 
 
 '
 
 Chap. IV.] THE ARITHMETICAL RATIO. 71 
 
 were tliere hands to bestow, and necessities to require, 
 an equal culture of every part. 
 
 (9) But one of the most singular of all the as- 
 sumptions which g'o to make up this arithmetical ratio, 
 is, that the additions which it is allowed to yield to 
 its product, constantly becoming relatively smaller and 
 smaller, are nevertheless only to take place just once 
 in every five-and-twenty years. The object is clear 
 enough, it is to make the arithmetical series coincident 
 in its terms with those assumed in the geometric one, 
 and for the purpose, after all, of shewing their irrecon- 
 cileable difference. But, though the object is as plain 
 as the sun, nothing under it can be more obscure than 
 the method taken to accomplish it, not a step of which is 
 even once hinted at : it is asserted and assumed through- 
 out without the slightest attempt at a proof. I must 
 again call the recollection of those, who support and 
 embrace such a theory, to simple matters of fact. In 
 the first place, regarding the very slowest rate of in- 
 crease which exists in the largest animals destined for 
 the sustentation of man, and even these multiply with 
 a certainty to which there is nothing that corres- 
 ponds in the natural history of our species \ it is to 
 be observed, that their period of unprolificness is 
 comparatively very short, and their term of doubling, 
 considering that many of them often produce more 
 than one at once, is at least annual. Those that 
 are smaller in size, amply compensate for the dif- 
 ference by an increased fecundity. The sheep, for 
 instance, especially of some breeds, has been known 
 almost to decuple herself in about a year^: as to the 
 swine, one of the most useful animals in creation, be- 
 
 * Dr. Short, New Observations on the ficness of Texel Sheep, ibid., vol. ii., p. 
 
 Bills of Mortality, p. 157. 222 ; and Fell's Tour through the Ba- 
 
 ^ Dr. Campbell, Political Sur\'ey of tavian Republic, p. 66. 
 Britain, vol. ii., p. 222. See the Proli-
 
 72 THEORY OF SUPERFECrXDITY. [Book I. 
 
 comino', as Plutarch observed long ago, so mucli more 
 fecund in a domesticated state than in its wild one, 
 their prolificness has been often remarked. In the 
 latter state, they farrow but once, in the former, 
 " twice, and sometimes even thrice, in the year. They 
 " may rear sixteen or eighteen pigs, and there have 
 " been instances of their having had twenty^;"' abat- 
 ing what you please of these numbers, still considering 
 the early and extreme fecundity of this essentially use- 
 ful animal, I ask him how many million times would 
 a pair double, while, admitting Mr. Malthus's own hy- 
 pothesis, a human couple would do so once ? I shall 
 not attempt a calculation ; the result would be not 
 very expressible in numbers, and perfectly incom- 
 prehensible in amount. I am speaking now of the 
 natural principle of multiplication in each, if wholly 
 unchecked, and that I conceive to be the question at 
 the present moment; it will be discussed in a different 
 form hereafter. As to domestic fowls, the use of which 
 is plainly indicated by Providence, who has endowed 
 them with corresponding powers of increase, their un- 
 checked prolificness would again baffle all attempts 
 at calculation ; — merely to allude to it is abundantly 
 sufficient. 
 
 (10) Pursuing the argument one step further, and 
 turning to the vegetable kingdom, we are astounded 
 at its very threshold : most of those instances of pro- 
 lificness already mentioned as so immense, dwindle 
 into insignificance compared with what nature here 
 unfolds ; especially in those instances where, as in the 
 animal creation, her products are plainly destined for 
 the immediate use of man. To talk of these adding 
 only one arithmetical unit to their increase, and that 
 only once in an age of five-and-twenty years, would 
 
 ' Dr. Campbell, Political Sun-ey, &c., vol. ii., pp- 185, 186.
 
 Chap. IV.] .THE ARITHMETICAL RATIO. 73 
 
 be a perversion of langiiag-e and triitli indeed. In 
 many instances, and in vast regions of the world, des- 
 tined, it may be hoped, for the happy residence of 
 innumerable human beings, however desolate at pre- 
 sent, the increase, unchecked even by the revolving- 
 seasons, is going on unceasingly, and the language of 
 the poet is no fiction, 
 
 Co' fiori etemi, etemo il frutto dura : 
 E meutre spunta 1' un, 1' altro matiira. 
 
 But, in all climates under heaven, the due return of 
 summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, gives the 
 produce of the vegetable kingdom at least annually, in 
 half the world still more frequently, and in most cases 
 without the short period of early unprolificness being 
 demanded. The amount of this increase who can calcu- 
 late ? The great Linneeus, whose researches into na- 
 ture were, probably, as deep as the philosophers with 
 whom I have to do, though his deductions from them 
 were so different, entered into a calculation, from 
 which it appears that a single tree bearing only two 
 seeds annually, all its produce being equally prolific, 
 would multiply in twenty-five years into I forget how 
 many millions. But man does not subsist upon trees, 
 nor is there any vegetable in the world so sterile as 
 the above supposition. Take the pea, producing an- 
 nually many hundred-fold, and who will encounter 
 the calculation ! But these ideas insensibly lead into 
 the argument reserved for an ensuing chapter, in 
 which these arithmetical and geometrical ratios will be 
 considered as they are propounded to us, namely, in 
 necessary connexion with each other, when another 
 example or two will be given of the prolificness of na- 
 ture, especially when developed by human necessity. 
 
 (11) But it will probably be objected to the pre- 
 ceding reasoning, that though the principles upon
 
 74 THEORY OF SUPERFECUXDITY. [Book I. 
 
 which it is founded are undeniably true, yet the re- 
 sults to which they tend are not, and never can be, 
 wholly realized ; and that, therefore, this immense fer- 
 tility of nature only exists as an abstract idea. Pre- 
 cisely the same mig'ht be said of the geometric ratio ; 
 and I think it but fair that they should be alike treated, 
 either both theoretically or both practically. But 
 waiving this defence of the preceding argument — hav- 
 ing considered the question of the superior fertility of 
 food to human life as an abstract, I will now proceed 
 to examine it as an immersed, question, which, practi- 
 cally speaking, it is willingly acknowledged to be. 
 
 (12) Adverting to what has been already advanced 
 in reference to this arithmetical rule of increase not 
 being regulated by a want of space, in a world, gene- 
 rally speaking, all but unoccupied, and consequently 
 as far as nature has to do with the question, where 
 men might, for instance, plant twice the number of 
 peas, and breed from a double number of the same 
 animals with equal prospect of their multiplication ; 
 and believing that institutions, as far as they are con- 
 cerned, always might, and generally do, facilitate and 
 encourage them in such increasing efforts, by means 
 which may not be direct and obvious, but are sure and 
 constant in their operation, I shall close these remarks 
 upon the arithmetical ratio, as it is termed, by consi- 
 dering what it is that limits the amazing profusion 
 wljifji the fertility of nature would bestow, adjusting 
 it to the actual demands of the existing numbers of 
 mankind. This regulation I conceive to be two-fold. 
 
 First, The amount of the means of sustentation, 
 which are bestowed upon the sole condition of labour 
 (a circumstance hereafter to be adverted to), is limited 
 by the number, intelligence, and industry of the species. 
 
 Second, It is further adjusted to the extent of the
 
 Chap. IV.] THE ARITHMETICAL RATIO. 7^ 
 
 necessity and the demand that exists for those means 
 of sustentation. 
 
 (13) These efficient causes of the limitation of the 
 products of the earth necessary to human beings, are 
 too obvious to need proof or illustration ; a man's 
 planting of vegetables, or rearing of cattle, must ne- 
 cessarily be limited in extent, by the labour and 
 time he can bestow upon both : and again, he cer- 
 tainly will not continue to do either, to a degree be- 
 yond the demand for them when produced, that is, 
 more than what he can use himself or exchano-e for 
 other things desirable to him. This is evidently true 
 as it respects individuals ; and though the question 
 becomes more complicated as it extends, it is equally 
 so of the world at large. The balance of supply and 
 demand may, indeed, be occasionally disturbed by 
 accidental causes, always, I think, plain to be seen, 
 and not so difficult of removal, as some suppose, if we 
 would follow the leadings of nature ; but the vibra- 
 tions in that balance are slight and trivial, when we 
 consider the mighty masses which it is plainly a part 
 of the regimen of Divine Providence to preserve in 
 constant equipoise. 
 
 (14) It, therefore, appears to me that this balance 
 of the powers of human beings, and their necessities, 
 is as plainly the work of that Providence, as is the 
 ample provision he has made for the latter, under all 
 possible contingencies. Liberal as is his hand, he, 
 nevertheless, respects his own gifts, and demands that 
 we should reverence and not waste them ; which, in 
 this view of the question, we never can, without inflict- 
 ing want somewhere, and this circumstance perhaps 
 constitutes the moral oifence of extravagant profusion. 
 Varying, indeed, the nature and number of his boun- 
 ties in different states and degrees of society, for pur- 
 poses perfectly consistent with his wisdom and bene-
 
 76 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 volence, so as not only to sustain and solace, but to 
 call forth the superior endowments of, his supreme 
 creature, thus sharpening his intellect, exercising his 
 foresight, and demanding his charity, — still he has not 
 permitted the aggregate product of that moderate 
 labour to which he has mercifully doomed mankind, 
 ever greatly to exceed the wants of the universal 
 family ; otherwise the consequence would probably 
 have been a state of degradation, of which, perhaps, 
 the animal creation furnishes no example — a condition 
 of vice and ultimate misery, of which imagination 
 itself can form no adequate idea. As society ad- 
 vances and population multiplies, the result of com- 
 bined labour, aided by enlarging knowledge, becomes 
 greatly augmented, but their condition improves in a 
 like degree ; and as the necessities of life are distri- 
 buted in larger shares with proportionably less effort, 
 its conveniences are more generally attainable, till 
 habit renders these necessaries, v/hen superfluities take 
 their place, and become in general demand ; so that, 
 in every stage of society, the wants and wishes of man 
 keep pace with his enlarging powers of improvement. 
 As the labour of a fewer number, in proportion to the 
 whole, accomplishes equal effects, wdiether applied to 
 agricultural or other pursuits, the objects of labour 
 become more numerous and diversified ; and avocations, 
 distinct from the drudgeries of existence, are created 
 and multiplied, absorbing those who would be other- 
 wise superfluous and redundant in the social sj^stem. 
 Thus is it that mankind is preserved from that sloth, 
 and protected from that excess, which it requires but 
 little insight into his nature to know would be fatal to 
 the well-being, if not to the very continuation of the 
 species. All the steps of this progress, without enter- 
 ing further upon a subject, which, as essential to 
 another part of my argument, must be again touched
 
 Chap. IV.] THE ARITHMETICAL RATIO. n 
 
 upon, are sufficiently plain ; and every one of tliem 
 gives a decided negative to both the ratios of the sys- 
 tem I am examining, whether considered distinctly, or 
 in connexion with each other. 
 
 (15) To these natural limitations of the means of hu- 
 man subsistence, may occasionally be added, the imper- 
 fection of human institutions: when in any case, either 
 through being erroneously formed, or inadequately exe- 
 cuted, they fail in accomplishing, to the utmost possible 
 degree, that which is their " great end and purpose, to 
 '' prevent misery or to cure it\" Supposing these 
 in general to be conducive to the interests of mankind, 
 and being grateful for those under which I live, more 
 especially; I, nevertheless, will not wholly absolve them 
 in this particular, much less will I join with those who 
 do so, the more effectually to fix upon nature the mise- 
 ries inflicted on her offspring, in proof of their prin- 
 ciple of population. 
 
 (16) Such, then, appear to be the limitations, 
 practically speaking, to which nature conforms, in 
 evolving the products intended for the use and sus- 
 tentation of man ; and they are of such a kind as to 
 confirm, instead of contradicting, that abstract view 
 which has already been imperfectly taken, of her as- 
 tonishing prolificness, in regard to those products. But, 
 happily for the human race, what we have allowed to be 
 an abstract truth under most circumstances of society, 
 changes into a practical one, the instant it is put to the 
 test ; and the potential becomes the positive and actual 
 produce. In contemplating this fertility, man is lost 
 in feelings of astonishment and gratitude ; he drinks, 
 indeed, of the stream of the Divine bounty, as of a 
 brook by the way, but he traces it to a fountain of 
 mercies which is inexhaustible and unfathomable. 
 
 ^ Jonas Hanway, Letters to the Guardians of the Poor, Let. II., j). 7.
 
 78 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF THE THEORY OF HUMAN SUPERFECUNDITY : THE GEO- 
 METRIC AND ARITHMETICAL RATIOS COMBINED. 
 
 (1) The ratios wliicli are supposed to express the 
 natural increase of liuman beings, and that of their 
 means of subsistence, having been considered seve- 
 rally, it remains that they be examined in connexion 
 with each other, in which relationship they form the 
 system now controverted ; and it will appear, that if, 
 as separate principles they have no claim to truth, 
 when by another and a bolder assumption they are 
 united, they have still less the semblance of it. 
 
 (2) I must again premise, that the author under 
 examination does not present these ratios when con- 
 nected, any more than when distinct from each other, 
 as regulated by room or space ; but, on the other hand, 
 as principles which have operated in the adverse man- 
 ner he represents from the very " origin of society," 
 when the world was hardly occupied at all, and as still 
 operating, when, according to his own admission, as 
 well as matter of fact, it is but very partially possessed. 
 Excepting these admissions were repeated, they would 
 probably be lost sight of as utterly irreconcileable with 
 the theory with which they are connected. We shall, 
 therefore, proceed to examine them in that strange 
 connexion in which they are said to exist, or at least 
 as having a constant tendency so to exist, and connect 
 themselves. In doing this, I shall again insert them 
 in the form in which they are presented to us : the
 
 Chap, v.] GEOMETRIC AND ARITHMETICAL RATIOS. 79 
 
 first line representing- the lowest ratio in which man- 
 kind would, if unchecked, continue to multiply ; the 
 second, the greatest in which the means of his sub- 
 sistence could be made to advance, though the fer- 
 tility of nature, and the combined efforts of human 
 beings, co-operated to the utmo.st, in developing them. 
 It must be remarked, that the term of both ratios is 
 assumed to be the same, and is fixed at twenty-five 
 years. These ratios stand thus : 
 
 1. 
 
 2. 
 
 4. 
 
 8. 
 
 IG. 
 
 32. 
 
 C4. 
 
 128. 
 
 256, &c 
 
 I. 
 
 2. 
 
 3. 
 
 4. 
 
 5. 
 
 6. 
 
 7. 
 
 8, 
 
 9, &c 
 
 (3) Now the above numbers, in their relation to 
 each other, either develope the operation of general 
 laws of nature, or they do not. If they do, they are 
 applicable to every period of human history. So 
 Mr. Malthus maintains them to be, and he applies 
 them accordingly. 
 
 (4) First, then, let us refer the sort of demonstration 
 they are supposed to afford, to the earliest periods of 
 history, with which it is, of course, the most natural 
 to commence, and it will not cost many words to show, 
 what is indeed sufficiently manifest, without spending- 
 any upon the subject, that it has no necessary or even 
 possible reference to that state. Supposing our first 
 progenitors, or any of their immediate offspring, to be 
 represented by the first figure in the geometric series, 
 1 ; and their means of subsistence by the correspond- 
 ing figure 1, in the second or arithmetical one : so 
 far there is a just and natural proportion between their 
 numbers and their food. Let the first period of dou- 
 bling take place, and we see their numbers represented 
 by the figure 2, and the proportion of food still ad- 
 justed to those numbers and expressed as amounting- 
 to 2. The increase in these numbers has brought with
 
 80 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 it no individual advantage, which, how^ever, is directly- 
 contradictory of the history of the species, but it has 
 occasioned no deterioration. Well : these numbers in 
 the former series again double, and amount to 4 ; but 
 here, for the first time, we observe a serious deficiency 
 in the provision for them, w^hich is represented to 
 amount to 3 only. In the third generation, therefore, 
 there occurs a deficiency of food, amounting to one- 
 third : no reason is stated for this, and indeed it would 
 be one of the hardest tasks ever assigned to the human 
 mind to frame one ; but it occurs in a string of corre- 
 lative figures, and consequently, it is to be regarded as 
 a demonstration, though one would think a person 
 must be dementated before he could propound or accept 
 it as such. But to proceed ; another generation comes, 
 namely, the fourth, whci-e, on precisely the same sort 
 of demonstration, it is shown that the number of per- 
 sons would be 8, and that their subsistence would be 
 only equal to supply 4, consequently just half enough. 
 The succeeding terms do not change the nature of 
 the absurdity, they merely enlarge it. The fifth, 
 sixth, and seventh places, namely the 16, 32, and 64, 
 which, were the laws of increase observed, would have 
 ratios for 5, 6, and 7 only, naturally refuse to have 
 any very intimate relation to each other, or, in] other 
 words, are apparently in no exact numerical propor- 
 tion ; however, I believe they can divide their shares 
 accurately enough by decimal fractions. In the seventh 
 duplication, we find the inhabitants would outrun their 
 subsistence in the proportion of 128 to 8, and conse- 
 quently have but one-sixteenth part of a fair share 
 each ; and in the ninth, the last term given, if nature 
 had her way, 256 would have to divide the subsistence 
 of 9 amongst them, and each would, therefore, only 
 have .03515625 of a ration each.
 
 Chap, v.] GEOMETRIC AND ARITHMETICAL RATIOS. 81 
 
 (5) It seems useless to pursue our autlior to the 
 third century, when the unit of population, according 
 to his theory, would have become 4096, and that of 
 provision, only 13; or to the end of two thousand 
 years, when the difference in the sum of these ratios, 
 he observes, "would be almost incalculable^." I 
 shall, therefore, proceed to shew in this chapter, and 
 throughout the succeeding work, that the very prin- 
 ciple of the calculation is erroneous, and that in every 
 step it takes, each threatening a still deeper descent 
 into the gulf of human misery, it is happily contra- 
 dicted by the evidence of facts, and the universal 
 experience of mankind. 
 
 (6) First, then, let us ask, how is it possible to 
 imagine this principle to exist, " from the commence- 
 ment of society," in theory even ? in practice it is 
 obviously impossible. I would ask, how, in a state 
 of things where there was certainly " room enough 
 and to spare," and in which all the motives to hu- 
 man exertion remained unabated, it is possible to 
 conceive, that as in the first term, the labours of those 
 expressed by the number 1, in the first or geometric 
 series, should produce adequate sustentation, expressed 
 therefore by the equal number 1, in the arithmetical 
 series; and in the next, when the geometric number 
 should have increased double, and consequently is 
 expressed by the number 2 ; and that these two 
 should, in like manner, produce sustentation equal to 
 their necessities, which is, therefore, expressed by 
 that figure — I say, how is it possible to conceive, 
 that in the very next step, when the last term 2 has 
 been similarly doubled, and become 4, that these 
 four should only produce a supply equal to the ne- 
 cessities of 3 ; and, in like manner, that 8 should 
 
 'Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 8. 
 Vol. I. Q
 
 82 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY : [Book I, 
 
 only be able to supply the. wants of 4 ; 16 produce 
 sufficient for 5 only; 32 for 6; 64 for 7 ; 128 for 8 ; 
 and 256 for 9 ? One naturally wishes to comprehend 
 the meaning of the author one reads, especially when 
 an idea is entertained of answering him ; but I aver, 
 that I cannot at all apprehend how Mr. Malthus 
 means to apply the principle which he deduces from 
 these ratios. In the " commencement of society," 
 from which he dates its operation, when, of course, 
 the earth was almost entirely vacant, and through all 
 its earlier stages, when it was scarcely more adequately 
 possessed, even to the present time, when he acknow- 
 ledges it to be not above a tenth part peopled, in 
 reference to the provision of nature ^, which, I appre- 
 hend, is the sole question, no idea can well be con- 
 ceived more at issue wh\i either common sense or 
 human experience, than the very existence of such a 
 principle as these connected ratios involve. Admit- 
 ting that, generally speaking, human institutions 
 favour the development of human industry, and that 
 they might, and always ought, to do so ; with a 
 sufficient field for exertion, " from the commencement 
 of society," it is impossible not to believe that each 
 successive duplication would be as successfully en- 
 gaged in producing for themselves and their families 
 the necessaries of existence, as was the first. Here 
 the golden rule could not fail to be justly applied : if 
 the labour of 2 individuals provided enough for 2, 
 for how many would the labour of 256 provide ? 
 Doubtless for those 256. And this would be the case 
 to the end of the two thousand years of which Mr. 
 Malthus speaks, when he supposes the difference 
 would be almost incalculable. 
 
 (7) I am willing to admit that the due proportion 
 
 ^ Malthus, Political Economy, p. 348,
 
 Chap, v.] GEOMETRIC AND ARITIOIETICAL RATIOS. 83 
 
 between numbers and their sustenance may be, and 
 sometimes has been, disturbed, and that occasional want 
 and suffering have been the effect in all stages of 
 society. And let those, whose theory I am opposing, 
 take this admission in its utmost latitude, coupled, 
 however, with another fact, from which it is impos- 
 sible to separate it, namely, that such fluctuations have 
 been far more severely experienced in the earlier than 
 in the later periods of society, and consequently the 
 wants and sufferings they occasion have been inva 
 riably the least felt in the most populous periods of 
 the history of every country upon earth. 
 
 (8) The last idea unfolds a still truer view of the 
 subject. That human food bears a full proportion to 
 the numbers of human beings engaged in producing 
 it, is not all ,• it is indeed very far from the whole truth. 
 Combined labour produces results which individual 
 exertion could never accomplish. As mankind, there- 
 fore, multiply in number, the products of their united 
 industry would greatly exceed the amount of any mere 
 arithmetical addition calculated on such an increase. 
 Their several shares of sustenance consequently perpe- 
 tually enlarge as their numbers accumulate, instead of 
 being diminished in the manner and proportion which 
 the table of the ratios under consideration pretends to 
 demonstrate. This is true of any country advancing 
 from barbarism to civilization, or, in other words, whose 
 population is regularly increasing: I shall hereafter 
 prove it true of our own in particular. It is, indeed, 
 hardly necessary to argue that united exertion, directed 
 by that enlarging intellect with which it is always 
 accompanied, produces results, which, compared with 
 those of individual and disconnected labour, exhibit a 
 real geometrical ratio. Hence, in the mechanical arts, 
 as well as in the pursuits of science, a man may achieve 
 
 G2
 
 81 THEORY OP SUPERFECUNDITY : [Book I. 
 
 more in a day, thus aided, than a solitary, unassisted 
 individual could perform in his whole life, were it 
 extended to the length of a patriarch's. The system 
 under consideration affects to prove, by the geometric 
 ratio, that whereas the labour of one individual would 
 produce sufficient for himself, that of 256 could produce 
 sufficient for 9 only ; whereas it might be far more 
 reasonably asserted, that these 256, mutually occupied, 
 would obtain individually nine times as large a share 
 of the necessaries and conveniences of life, as the 
 solitary individual ; indeed, it is a matter of doubt, 
 whether, in almost any situation under heaven, a soli- 
 tary individual could, unaided by his fellow-creatures, 
 continue to exist at all, notwithstanding the beautiful 
 fiction of De Foe. The wreck from which his hero 
 was supplied was but the store-house of human conve- 
 niences, furnished by previous conjoint industry. Ma- 
 thematical illustrations, therefore, are degraded when 
 applied to such a subject, and engaged in such a de- 
 monstration, as this. Geometry says, indeed, and truly 
 enough, as applied to matters within its own province, 
 that the whole is only equal to the sum of all its parts; 
 but, in the popular, and indeed, I may say, true signi- 
 fication of the term, as applied to the subject before 
 us, this axiom would be false. Regarding labour, the 
 great pillar of human existence, it may be said, that 
 the entire product of combined exertion almost infi- 
 nitely exceeds all which individual and disconnected 
 efforts could possibly accomplish. And how happy it 
 is for the human race that such is the case ! How 
 do the constantly operating motives of interest and 
 necessity conspire to carry into effect the benevolent 
 purposes of the Deity regarding his creatures ! Thus, 
 while the law of nature tends to the multiplication of 
 the species, their mutual convenience, as well as duty
 
 Chap, v.] GEOMETRIC AND ARITHMETICAL RATIOS. 85 
 
 and affection, lead to their permanent association ; and 
 all that distinguishes the social from the savage condi- 
 tion, or the highest state of civilization from the lowest, 
 is due to their union thus dictated and rewarded. 
 
 (9) But to return to the ratios. As their adverse 
 operation certainly cannot be dated from the commence- 
 ment of society, neither can it, by any possibility, be 
 assigned to any subsequent period between that mo- 
 ment and the present. " The history of the universe," 
 as an able writer observes, " has never yet presented 
 " the example in which the multiplication of food could 
 " not be more rapid than that of the existing popu- 
 " lation^"' "No record exists," says another, "of 
 " any extensive country fully peopled, and cultivated 
 " to its utmost capacity, or even approaching to such 
 " a state ^." These are assertions which I shall deem 
 it necessary to substantiate in detail. 
 
 (10) Nor, lastly, can the theory be now called into 
 being and applied to the present period, over-popu- 
 lous as its advocates deem nearly all countries, and 
 fearful as they seem to be in regard to their future 
 destiny. One of them has allowed, as has been 
 already shewn, that the earth might sustain ten-fold 
 its present inhabitants : in the mean time, then, that 
 " powerful instinct," with the recognition of which he 
 sets out, continuing, I believe, unabated ; the neces- 
 sity of food remaining, likewise, as strong as ever, 
 and labour being still, as was always the case, the 
 sole condition on which that food is bestowed ; and 
 the " foodful earth," I repeat, not being above a tenth 
 part possessed, it were surely redundant, and even 
 ridiculous, to attempt to prove, that to whatever 
 period it is meant to adjust this theory, it will not suit 
 
 ' Edinburgh Encyclopa?dia, Art. Po- * Quarterly Review, vol xvi., yi. 57, 
 liiical Economy, vol. xvii., p. 72.
 
 86 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY: [Book I, 
 
 the present one, excepting, indeed, its two first terms ; 
 and on these it may be just observed, that they are 
 in perfect unison ; the discord only commences at the 
 third bar, which increases throughout the rest of the 
 concert. If we may be allowed to date the commence- 
 ment of these ratios at pleasure, or use them as a sort 
 of political sliding-rule, to be constantly pushed for- 
 wards, if necessary, all apprehension of the future 
 miscalculations of nature may be disregarded, and 
 we may enjoy a present sufficiency, Avhich may be 
 thus demonstrated to be perpetual. But, seriousl}^, 
 without touching upon abstract principles, or appeal- 
 ing to the condition of an uncultivated world in proof 
 that the present cannot be the time when this system is 
 in operation, I shall demonstrate it, by simply stating 
 the fact, that the question amongst the nations amount- 
 ing, at the present moment, almost to a quarrel, is, 
 not which will not, but which shall be permitted to 
 feed their neighbours. Even in this country, one of the 
 most densely-peopled upon earth, which refused, only 
 a short time ago, and, as I think, wisely, to be fed by any 
 other; the circumstance of agriculture, the most essential 
 of human pursuits, remunerating those who are engaged 
 in it, in proportion to their capital, the most inade- 
 quately of all others, aifords a full, plain, and undeniable 
 proof of the utter fallacy of the system which represents 
 and maintains the production of human subsistence to 
 be slower than that of the increase of human beings. 
 I am aware that the question is mingled up with other 
 considerations, and that much difficulty and distress 
 exist in consequence of the imperfect distribution of 
 this overflowing abundance ; but with this, who does 
 not see that policy is chargeable, and not Providence ? 
 Let political economy then expound the causes and the 
 remedies of these occasional sufferings; or, rather,
 
 Chap, v.] GEOJVIETRIC AND ARITHMETICAL RATIOS, 87 
 
 may it let the matter alone, for its officious and cruel 
 intermeddling lias greatly contributed to them ; and, 
 above all, by adopting the inhuman and absurd notion 
 of the natural redundancy of human beings, amidst a 
 profusion which the ministers of the country, some 
 short while ago, positively assured us occasioned the 
 principal difficulties under which the nation laboured. 
 (11) But, if neither the first stages of society, nor 
 its subsequent progress, nor its present state, permit 
 us to suppose the principle I am rebutting has ever 
 as yet been in operation, — let us give this hypothetical 
 and fugitive argument, for such it is throughout, all 
 the benefit of that futurity into which its abettors 
 would have us to believe they see so clearly and so far. 
 It will then be founded on future contingencies, and 
 its demonstrations will resolve themselves into so many 
 prophecies. The face of the earth is hitherto, as 
 Franklin has observed, like an extended wilderness ; 
 here and there a spot smiles with cultivation, like an 
 oasis in the Desert; but let us, in behalf of the theory 
 in question, suppose, what has never yet existed in 
 any country, to exist universally, namely, the whole 
 improvable surface of the earth appropriated and 
 under cultivation, " till the wilderness had become 
 an Eden." The argument is now connected with 
 space, with which its principal author has no where 
 ostensibly associated it, and from which indeed he has, 
 on the contrary, been most careful to disconnect it. This 
 very period (if in the rolume of futurity there be any 
 such page) which this principle anticipates and re- 
 gards as the bankruptcy of nature, would be (and this 
 prophecy is at least as good as the other) the period 
 of her triumph, and that of Divine Providence. To 
 compute the produce of the earth thus universally 
 cultivated; if only cultivated as at present, almost
 
 88 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY : [Book I. 
 
 exceeds our powers of calculation. But, even this 
 mighty mass of production would, probably, sink into 
 insignificance, compared with the amount, all but in- 
 expressible in numbers, of that potential produce the 
 earth is prepared to yield, the vastness of which 
 baffles our very conception. Is it not more stupid to 
 doubt than to believe, that, still improved by that 
 necessity which has hitherto been the sole means, under 
 Providence, of bestowing plenty and conferring dignity 
 on the human race, and assisted by enlarging know- 
 ledge and increasing numbers, the future condition of 
 society should as far exceed even all our expectations 
 of improvement, as our present state has, by the very 
 same means, outstripped the most sanguine anticipa- 
 tions of preceding times ? When Sir Walter Raleigh 
 was memorializing King James, on the policy of feed- 
 ing his people with the produce of their own soil, 
 instead of impoverishing them to enrich foreign- 
 ers \ had he told the King that his islands, in two 
 centuries, should sustain above twenty millions of 
 souls, with their surface only partially and imper- 
 fectly tilled, and the " wastes of the sea " almost en- 
 tirely deserted ; and yet, that there should be such 
 an " over-production " in the necessaries of life as 
 to occasion universal distress to those who should 
 produce them^; it would have appeared a wilder 
 dream than were I memorializing his present Ma- 
 jesty, to assert that we could sustain, in the next 
 two centuries, thrice our present numbers, and that 
 not merely as liberally as we do at present, but with 
 an increase of the comforts and an accession to the 
 elegancies of life, e^s vast as have been made to the 
 mode of existence in this country during the former 
 
 ' Sir W. Raleigh, Obfervations ^ Lord Liverjiool's Speech on Agri- 
 touching Trade and Commerce ; Works, cultural Distress, 1822 ; Hansard, 
 vol.ii., p. 118.
 
 Chap, v.] GEOxAIETRIC AND ARITHMETICAL RATIOS. 89 
 
 period. I should have at least the experience of the 
 past to warrant my hopes as to the future, and on 
 what surer ground can our anticipations be built? 
 But it is rather singular, that while I should make this 
 prophecy, flowing as it does into the full current of 
 human experience, and another should assert what 
 steers directly counter to it, prognosticating a constant 
 diminution in the shares of the means of subsistence, 
 through the whole of that and all succeeding periods, 
 the political economists would raise a joint laugh at 
 my f&lly, and a burst of applause equally unanimous 
 at this unequivocal proof of his profound and superior 
 wisdom. 
 
 (12) Surely then, while we disregard the mere illu- 
 sions of hope, and follow only the sober lights and 
 leadings of experience, we cannot greatly err. In 
 the generous rivalry between labour and production, 
 who can ever dare to deny that nature has hitherto 
 been triumphant ? When an adequate stimulus shall 
 inspire and direct the corporeal and mental powers of 
 mankind to the raising of human food, who then shall 
 presume to pronounce that they will not achieve those 
 miracles in behalf of agriculture, which they have al- 
 ready done for the infinitely less important arts ? In an 
 age which professes to be that of advancing intellect in 
 reference to every other pursuit, are we to believe that 
 in this, which, beyond them all calls it into vigorous 
 exercise \ it has already come to a stand 1 In an age 
 which boasts of its numerous discoveries, must we 
 suppose that, in this necessarily philosophical avoca- 
 tion^, there are no " Arcana, which the Supreme 
 " Father of all has reserved in store, in order to reward 
 " the diligence and supply the wants which naturally 
 
 ' Dr. A. Smith, Wealth of Nations. = pii„y^ Nat. Hist., 1, xviii., c. 25.
 
 90 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY : [Book I. 
 
 " present themselves, wlien nations are rendered 
 " populous, merely by being virtuous, laborious, and 
 " frugal ^" ? For myself, I believe most firmly, that 
 should such a period be destined to arrive, it will 
 be that which shall least of all exemplify the theory I 
 am considering. On the contrary, it will be that of 
 the triumphs of nature, in which her noblest creature 
 will partake. Superior methods of improving the 
 fertility and increasing the products of the earth will be 
 discovered, and inexhaustible storehouses of the boun- 
 ties of nature laid open to mankind, as such shall be- 
 come, successively, necessary. Necessity has, indeed, 
 occasionally, given us some slight indications already 
 of what might be the result should such a state of 
 things supervene; and curiosity and science have 
 added some faint lights on the same subject. The 
 effects of minute cultivation, directed by intelligence, 
 will be a short, but, to the author, a favourite branch 
 of the ensuing argument ^ ; in the mean time, those 
 effects so produced are no new discovery, they are 
 as ancient as the first agricultural writer in the world. 
 Hesiod informs us of a truth as applied to this sub- 
 ject, which neither geometry nor arithmetic would 
 admit ; but which is nevertheless a fact, which com- 
 mon sense has acknowledged since it was exercised^, 
 " the half is more than the whole," In an aarricul- 
 tural sense, how often this experiment might be re- 
 peated and still be true, I cannot determine ; more 
 than once, as a much later writer declares, though 
 to us an ancient one, (so rapidly rolls time away, 
 either corroborating or rebutting tlie theory we 
 are considering ; let the reader reflect which !) I 
 mean Columella. He gives us, in his elegant work on 
 
 ' Harte, Essays on Husbandry, vol. i., ^ Book vi. 
 
 p. 33. 3 ^xedv ifii'Tv jTxvros, — Hesiod.
 
 Chap, v.] GEOMETRIC AND ARITIDIETICAL RATIOS. 91 
 
 aofriculture, an anecdote relative to a Roman father, 
 who having two daughters, gave a third part of his 
 land to the eldest on her marriage, as her dower, and 
 nevertheless found no diminution of his accustomed 
 crop. On the marriage of his other daughter, he gave 
 her half the remainder, and still his produce was not 
 at all lessened. He asks the reason why this was the 
 case, and answers, only because the remnant was so 
 much better cultivated than the whole had previously 
 been ^ The results of labour when directed to ao-ri- 
 cultural pursuits have, I think, been seldom duly ap- 
 preciated. Probably all those surprising ameliora- 
 tions, (only inferior to a new creation,) which are 
 known to have taken place in the vegetable as well as 
 the animal kingdom, are justly attributable to it; and 
 it is most interesting to observe, that notwithstanding 
 the claim of Diodorus Siculus in favour of his native 
 country, it is not ascertained that " the staff of life," 
 wheat, is indigenous in any climate upon earth ; on 
 the contrary, it has been supposed to belong to some 
 of the tribes of grasses, with which it is classed, melio- 
 rated by continued culture. 
 
 (13) The mention of this first and universal gift of 
 nature suggests a few observations in reference to its 
 possible fertility, not inapplicable in this place, and 
 least of all to the general subject. The Roman natu- 
 ralist, Pliny, notices more than once, its extraordi- 
 nary prolificness, under certain circumstances, and 
 draws an inference from the fact, the piety of which 
 may perhaps shock the principles of the philosophers 
 
 ' I subjoin the text of the above para- " dem fundi percipere solitum. Mino- 
 
 phrase, which nms thus: — " Refert " rem deinde filiam nuptui collocassein 
 
 " Grsecinus in hbro de vineis, ex patre " dimidia parte rehqiu agri. Nee sic 
 
 " suo ssepe se audire soUtum, Paridium " ex pristine reditu detraxisse. Quod 
 
 " quendam duas fihas, et vineis con- " quid conjecit ? iVwi melius scilicet 
 
 " sitiun habuisse fundum, cujus partem " postea ciiltam esse tertiam illam 
 
 " tertiam nubenti majori filiae dedisse " fundi jMrtem^ quam antea zmivcr- 
 
 " in dotem, ac nihilo minus ajque mag- " sam." — Columella, De Re Rustica, 
 
 " nos fructus cs duabus partibus ejus- 1, iv., c. 3.
 
 92 THEORY OF SUPERFECUXDITY: [Book I. 
 
 I am opposing ^ A much earlier writer, indeed the 
 first of profane historians, speaking of the astonish- 
 ing prolificness of certain descriptions of grain, as wit- 
 nessed by himself, which, however, he says, he cannot 
 bring himself to mention, as those who had not seen 
 it would deem his representation an outrage upon pro- 
 bability, says of wheat, in reference to the same region, 
 Babylonia, that " it never produces less than two 
 " hundred fold ; in seasons which are remarkably 
 " favourable, it will rise to three hundred. The ear 
 " of their wheat as well as their barley is four digits 
 " in size^." Of this, I repeat, he declares himself the 
 witness, nor shall I discredit the simple and ancient 
 historian, having long learnt not to contradict peremp- 
 torily what I do not happen to know, or am not able 
 fully to comprehend. On the contrary, the further 
 I have proceeded in this work, the more I have been 
 disposed to believe it. Convinced as I am, that the 
 prolific powers of nature generally rise in proportion 
 to the numbers of those who are engaged in developing 
 them, and adverting to the amazing population of 
 the plains of Babylonia, the fertility of which he is 
 describing, I am not greatly staggered by the ocular 
 evidence of Herodotus. And why should any one 1 
 Late observations have fully confirmed it. Duhamel 
 mentions his having counted 200 ears produced from 
 one grain of barley, in which there were 4809 grains ; 
 the straw yielding a sheaf ^. 
 
 (14) But to mention one instance more concerning 
 the almost inconceivable prolificness of nature under 
 minute culture, and that in reference to a description 
 
 ' Tritico nihil est fertilius : hoc ei na- dibile dictu) quadraginta paucis minus 
 
 tura tribuit, qnoniam eo maxime alebat gormina. Misit et Neroni similiter 360 
 
 hominem: utpote cum e modio, si sit stipulas ex uno f^auo. — C. Plin. Nat. 
 
 aptum solum, quale in Byzacio Africre Hist., lib. xviii. § 21. 
 
 campo, centeni quinquageni modii red- ^ Herodotus, "Clio, § 193. 
 
 dantur. Misit ex eo loco Divo Augusto » Duhamel, Husbaudrj', p. 113. 
 procurator ejus ex uno grano (vix ere-
 
 Chap, v.] GEOMETRIC AND ARITHMETICAL RATIOS. 03 
 
 of corn wliich an enlarging population lias in these 
 days been enabled to make their staft" of life — wheat. 
 Mr. Charles Miller, an individual well known in the 
 horticultural world, and son of the celebrated Philip 
 Miller, author of the Gardener's Dictionary, gives us 
 an experiment, at large, which he made in the Bota- 
 nical Garden at Cambridge, of which he was the Cu- 
 rator. The results of this experiment were published 
 in the Transactions of the Royal Society^, and verified 
 by Dr. Watson. I need hardly say that wheat is one 
 of those plants which, according to the phraseology of 
 agriculturists, stools ; that is, throws out lateral roots 
 capable of producing separate stems, indicating the 
 facility with which another principle of multiplication, 
 transplantation, may be resorted to, wdienever the ne- 
 cessity of human beings may require it. It was on this 
 principle of culture that Mr. Henry obtained the fol- 
 lowing result, which I give in Dr. Watson's own words, 
 referring the reader for the process to the paper al- 
 luded to. " The whole number of ears which, by the 
 " process before-mentioned, were produced from one 
 " grain of wheat was twenty-one thousand one hun- 
 '' dred and nine, wliich yielded three pecks and three 
 " quarters of clear corn, the weight of which was forty- 
 " seven pounds seven ounces; and, from a calculation 
 " made by counting the number of grains in one ounce, 
 " the whole number of grains might be about five 
 " hundred and seventy-six thousand eight hundred 
 " and forty !" Mr. Miller says, that had he made 
 an additional division of the plants in the spring, 
 as he found, by an experiment which he made of 
 the like nature, he might have done without at all 
 weakening them, the number of his plants would have 
 been at least four-fold: between two and three million- 
 
 * Philosophical Transactions, A, D. 17G8, vol. xli. p. 554,
 
 94 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY : [Book I. 
 
 fold return from one grain ! Does this savour much 
 of the arithmetical ratio ? Mr. Malthus speaks of what 
 his geometric one would amount to in 200 years, but 
 not all the arithmeticians in the universe could calcu- 
 late the prolificness of this grain for twenty of them. 
 
 (15) Many similar instances in regard to the pos- 
 sible multiplication both of plants and anim^als, espe- 
 cially those which are destined for human food, might 
 be adduced, but these may suffice ; and before I close 
 this view of the subject, I will just advert to an ob- 
 jection which Mr. Malthus seems disposed to make to 
 the successive increase of the means of subsistence, 
 even in his own arithmetical ratio ; founded, I think, 
 either on the natural barrenness of the soil that must 
 be successively taken into cultivation, or on some sup- 
 posed exhaustion in the fertility of that already occu- 
 pied. He says, " it must be evident to those who have 
 " the slightest acquaintance with agricultural subjects, 
 " that in proportion as cultivation extended, the addi- 
 " tions that could yearly be made to the former average 
 " produce must be regularly and gradually diminish- 
 " ing ." Supposing this idea is founded on the pre- 
 sumed incurable sterility of the soil now uncultured, 
 I would remark that nothing can be more incorrect. 
 Without pretending to an acquaintance with agricul- 
 ture, I know so much of it as to be assured that where 
 physical obstacles of an insuperable nature do not 
 interpose, fertility is in great measure the effect of 
 human industry ; nay, that that degree of sterility 
 which calls forth a superior degree of industry, is fre- 
 quently productive of a greater fertility, instead of a 
 less one^. But without multiplying words on this 
 topic, and to point to a standing proof of the fact, does 
 
 * Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 7, Linnfens, Inaugural Oration, inStilling" 
 2 See Aristotle, De Ecpub., 1. iv., c. 5* fleet, pp. 28, 29,
 
 Chap, v.] GEOMETRIC AND ARITIDIETICAL RATIOS. 95 
 
 not every one know that " lias the slightest acquaint- 
 ance with agricultural pursuits," that the most pro- 
 lific surface, beyond all comparison, in central Europe, 
 was, on the unanimous authority of all writers, espe- 
 cially agricultural ones, originally and naturally one 
 of the most sterile \ — I need not say I allude to the 
 Netherlands. The astonishing productiveness of that 
 country, far exceeding the wants of its immense popu- 
 lation, has induced many, in their imaginations at 
 least, to invest the soil with a sort of preternatural fer- 
 tility, whereas the reverse is the fact ; and that pro- 
 ductiveness, which varies even there, is perpetually 
 governed, not by the quality of the soil, but by the 
 density of the population^. This subject will be 
 attended to hereafter, when this interesting part of 
 Europe will be again adverted to, and an argument 
 grounded upon it urged in behalf of those of our poor 
 countrymen who are now beginning to be thought re- 
 dundant, and to be treated as such. In the mean time, 
 let those who charge this total ignorance of agriculture 
 upon such as hold that, as cultivation extends, the 
 average products do not decrease, bring us a single 
 instance which will not manifest their own. The fact 
 is, the products of the earth rise in their proportions 
 as mankind multiply; were there no other reason, 
 stercoration becomes so much more general in the 
 latter case, as greatly to increase the relative produce^, 
 the effects of which are such, that some have almost 
 imagined that, on a perfect system, it would return to 
 the soil the elements of a future increase amounting 
 
 ^ Abbe Mann, Communications to the 146, &c. &c. 
 
 Board of Agriculture, vol. i., p. 230, &c. ^ Coj^-iu-iunications to the Board of 
 
 Ilarte's Essays, p. 177. Louis Buona- Agriculture, Baron Poederle, vol. i., p. 
 
 parte, Historical Documents, &c. on the 247. Abbe Mann, vol. i., p. 232. 
 
 Government of Holland, p. 16. Rad- ' Paley, Moral Philosophy, b, vi.; c. 
 
 clifF, Report on the Agriculture of Flan- xi., p. 459. 
 ders;pp.l, 89, 90, 94, 105, 109, 128,
 
 96 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY: [Book I. 
 
 to as much as that from which it was derived ^ And 
 how wise and how kind is that provision of nature which 
 disposes in so essentially beneficial a manner of what 
 would otherwise form an intolerable and an accumu- 
 lating nuisance ! Were it not for this last considera- 
 tion, I should be disposed to believe, what many facts 
 seem to prove, and science itself to sanction, namely, 
 that the fertility of the soil depends more upon its per- 
 petual exposure to the atmosphere and its pulverization, 
 or in other words, to human labour, than to all other 
 circumstances combined^. 
 
 (16) But perhaps the author I have been referring 
 to may attribute " that gradual and regular diminution 
 " in the power of production^," which he so confi- 
 dently predicts would take place in an enlarging po- 
 pulation, to some supposed gradual exhaustion of the 
 natural prolificness of the soil in consequence of con- 
 tinued culture. But this is an idea fully as erroneous 
 as the former ; and again directly the reverse of the 
 fact, as might easily be proved by the history of agri- 
 cultural products in this or in any other country. To 
 instance England : in the thirteenth century, " the pro- 
 " duce of an acre of wheat was probably much under 
 " a quarter ^." In three centuries afterwards, Harri- 
 son informs us, that the same measure of land, " well 
 " tilled and dressed, will in many years commonlie 
 " yield sixteen or twentie bushels ^." I leave it to 
 agriculturists to determine the great increase which 
 has taken place in less than three centuries since. At 
 all events, from three to four times the produce is now 
 raised from the same extent of land that was raised. 
 
 ' RaclclifF, Report of the Agriculture ments, p. 67. 
 
 of Flanders. 3 Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 7. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 168. See Tail's Husban- •» Sir F. M. Eden, State of the Poor, 
 
 ity, p. 230. Sir Humphry Davy, vol. iii. Appendix, p. x. note. 
 
 P. R. S., Agricultural Chemistry, pp. ^ Description of Britain, Hollingshed, 
 
 159, IGO. Wimpey, Rural Improve- vol. i., p. 110.
 
 Chap, v.] GEOMETRIC AND ARITHMETICAL RATIOS. 97 
 
 less than six centuries ago ; leaving wholly out of the 
 question that root which has multiplied human sub- 
 sistence beyond any of the ratios contended for, and 
 to which our anti-populationists consequently enter- 
 tain an instinctive aversion ; I mean the potato, the 
 least exhausting of all crops whatsoever, of equal 
 bulk \ It is, therefore, sufficiently clear, that, with 
 an increasing population, land in all cases improves. 
 The idea of its exhaustion is totally out of the ques- 
 tion. Even the ancients knew better than this ; and 
 hence one of the most beautiful of their poets repre- 
 sents the fertility of the earth as unabated under the 
 unceasing culture of the husbandman ^. 
 
 (17) On the whole, therefore, we may conclude 
 that nothing like deterioration of soil exists in nature. 
 What Lord Bacon calls " satiety of ground^" cer- 
 tainly does, demanding a change and succession of 
 crops ; which seems a guarantee of nature for the con- 
 tinuation of all her useful products ; a law interdic- 
 tory of the continued cultivation of one to the exclu- 
 sion of the rest. If this be a just view. Dr. Franklin's 
 idea of overspreading the whole surface of the earth 
 with fennel, by the geometric ratio of multiplications, 
 is as futile as his notion of converting its substance 
 into solid gold by the help of compound interest: ex- 
 cept Providence favours fennel above any of the fru- 
 mentaceous plants. And, moreover, this " satiety of 
 ground" has, as it were, dictated a system of hus- 
 bandry which has not only secured the variety, but 
 increased the quantity, of all the useful products of 
 nature. 
 
 ' Newenham, Inquiry into the Progress of Population in Ireland, p. 15. 
 
 aiphrov, a.H.a[jt,a,Tov 
 acroTjusra/, iXXef/.iveov oc^oTpuv 
 
 ii-os us 'Ito;. — Sophocles, Antig. — 337 — 342. 
 3 Bacon, Nat. Hist. cent. vii. § 609. 
 
 Vol. I. H
 
 98 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 (18) Having thus answered tlie objections urged 
 against a further cultivation of the earth with every 
 prospect of an enlarging fertility, I shall conclude these 
 observations with a quotation from an author who has 
 ably illustrated many departments of human industry, 
 especially those connected with agriculture, I mean 
 Dr. Anderson : he says, " The alarms which have been 
 " raised by the speculations of ingenious but ill-in- 
 " formed men, respecting the inability of this country 
 " to support its present or probable future population, 
 " are entirely unfounded. Had I merely asserted, as 
 " indeed I have done, from my own knowledge of the 
 " facts here brought to light," (alluding to his pre- 
 ceding essays,) " that this country could sustain a 
 " hundred times its present population, it would have 
 " been considered as one of those vague and un- 
 " founded assertions which are now so common, and 
 " therefore disregarded. But after having traced the 
 " progress by which this melioration may be effected, 
 " through every step of that progress, with a minute 
 " attention to every particular, so as to render it im- 
 " possible for any person who is acquainted with 
 " these things to allege that any thing that is there 
 " said is not easily practicable, the demonstration 
 " becomes so complete as not to admit of a doubt 
 '■'■ in any ingenious mind ^" This author, it appears 
 from Mr. Malthus, wrote on the subject of the scarcity 
 that occurred in the beginning of this century, and, it 
 seems, asserted that increasing numbers engaged in 
 agricultural labour would, in any state not fully cul- 
 tivated, augment the relative quantity of provisions. 
 Mr. Malthus, as is not unusual with him, affects an 
 air of great superiority in the argument, and is witty 
 on the occasion and on the author. Nevertheless, if 
 
 ' Dr, Anderson, Recreations; vol. vi., p. 554.
 
 Chap, v.] GEOMETRIC AND ARITHMETICAL RATIOS. 99 
 
 tliere be any one point clear in tlieory, and demon- 
 strated by fact, it is that which he attempts to deride. 
 Mr. Malthus relies on " the known incredulity of the 
 ag-e," (of which, however, he has the least reason to 
 complain of any author I ever yet read,) asserting that 
 such an opinion would not be believed though one 
 should rise from the dead to confirm it. There is no 
 need of the miracle. Numbers who lived at that 
 period survive as yet, and are more unexceptionable 
 witnesses, in behalf of the real philosopher who 
 comes under Mr. Malthus's lash, because he fell 
 into the " curious" notion that an increase in popu- 
 lation " tends to increase relative plenty ^" A late 
 prime minister of the country is one of these wit- 
 nesses^. Twenty years afterwards, and within four 
 of the present time, when many millions had been 
 added to the population, and thereby given that addi- 
 tional stimulus to agriculture to which Dr. Anderson 
 alluded, he asserted, and, I presume, proved, in a long 
 and elaborate speech delivered in his place in the 
 British Parliament, that the unexampled sufterings of 
 the cultivators arose from over-production ! It is not 
 necessary, therefore, that one should rise from the 
 dead, nor the author himself from his grave, for I un- 
 derstand that, after a life of long and meritorious exer- 
 tion, he is descended thither, to witness the triumph of 
 the rational and benevolent principles he so ably ad- 
 vocated. Time has added the seal of truth to them, 
 and the nation is their witness. 
 
 (19) Whether the numbers and necessities of man- 
 kind will ever call into actual and general use any of 
 those agricultural experiments which have been al^ 
 luded to, or indeed revive that minuter system of 
 
 ^ Malthus, Essay on Population, p. ^ Lord Liverpool. 
 472, note. 
 
 II 2
 
 100 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 cultivation which we have every reason to believe 
 was resorted to very early in some of the most popu- 
 lous parts of the earth, and especially in Judea, it 
 remains for time to discover. Lord Bacon observes, 
 that " the setting- of wheat has been left off, because 
 of the trouble and pains ^" It was revived in this 
 country for a time, but is, I believe, again very gene- 
 rally abandoned, for a reason which is substantially 
 the same with that Lord Bacon assigns, and which it 
 would be hard to reconcile with the existence of a 
 superfluity of human beings and a deficiency of food ; 
 namely, because '' it does not pay:" expressions 
 which only assert, in other terms, that it is not wanted. 
 (20) I shall not prolong this part of the discus- 
 sion by entering into any calculations myself, in order 
 to show how many human beings any particular part, 
 or the whole of the earth, might sustain ; many be- 
 sides Dr. Anderson have already made them ; nor 
 shall I presume to determine with him that this king- 
 dom would support one hundredfold its present 
 numbers, or with Mr. Malthus, that the world would 
 only accommodate ten times as many as it does now. 
 I shall rather hazard an opinion, which, I trust, I shall 
 prove, before I have concluded this volume, to rest 
 upon surer grounds than mere conjecture, — that the 
 ratio of human increase will pause far sooner than 
 that of the means of subsistence. Nature does not love 
 to place her operations on the utmost boundaries of 
 possibility, nor to put in jeopardy the happiness, 
 much less the existence, of any of her oifspring, by 
 nice and exact calculations, liable to be disturbed by 
 accidental events. In all probability, she has not, 
 therefore, anticipated this universal and extreme cul- 
 ture, nor yet that general parsimony in the sharing of 
 
 ' Nat. Hist., cent, v., § 442.
 
 Chap, v.] GEOMETRIC AND ARITHMETICAL RATIOS. 101 
 
 its products, to which such views might seem to lead. 
 On the contrary, she appears to secure all her impor- 
 tant ends by the amplest means ; life is, of all those 
 ends, the most important : and, moreover, it is as 
 plainly her intention to unite pleasure with existence, 
 as it is to confer and perpetuate it. As it respects 
 sustentation, there is not the least evidence, through- 
 out all the tribes of animal life, that is not abund- 
 antly sufficient, as will be further shown hereafter. 
 Respecting man, as far as she is concerned, his pro- 
 vision is superabundant, not only satisfying his wants, 
 but soliciting his appetite by a constant succession of 
 grateful varieties, which increase around him the more 
 he multiplies, and the farther he advances in the social 
 system. Such has been the experience of the human 
 race hitherto ; and if we carry forth our ideas to the 
 end of time (if our anti-populationists will admit that 
 time is to terminate), when " the great globe itself, 
 and all that it inherits, shall dissolve," it will be at a 
 period probably when society shall have advanced to 
 a state of comparative ease, and in a time of more 
 universal plenty, when they shall be " marrying and 
 giving in marriage" — enjoying, as well as perpetuating, 
 existence — rather than suifering the last act of that 
 final tragedy with which the system I am opposing 
 threatens the human race. 
 
 (21) To advert, then, once more, to the geometric 
 and arithmetical ratios : In none of the states of so- 
 ciety already contemplated is their existence and 
 operation possible. There only remains one condition 
 to be examined in reference to them. It is that in 
 which, to give imagination the utmost latitude, the 
 means of subsistence shall have been developed 
 to the utmost extent. When the earth, by the 
 increase of its inhabitants, shall have its entire
 
 102 THEORY OF SUPERFECUNDITY. [Book I. 
 
 surface cultivated, and that cultivation carried on in 
 every part to the highest degree of perfection; the 
 great and wide sea also, " in which are things in- 
 numerable," fully explored, and yielding its utmost 
 tribute (but is that possible ?) to the sustentation of 
 human beings : in a word, when nature, however 
 solicited, can yield no further increase. Now, it must 
 be clear, from one moment's reflection, that the arith- 
 metical ratio of increase is a more impossible supposi- 
 tion in this last, than it was even in the first state of 
 human society. Whatever becomes of the geometric 
 ratio it is needless to enquire ; the arithmetical one has 
 come to a dead halt. Commencing from this period, 
 the first term cannot be doubled ; that is, the 1 turned 
 into 2; nor, in the second, that 2 into 3; nor, taking 
 the ratio at a more advanced stage, can a single unit 
 be added to any sum which the theory may be sup- 
 posed to have already generated. We have arrived 
 at an age of the world when, " by the singular pro- 
 vidence of God," these ratios, which, since the first 
 of time, have never been a very harmonious couple, 
 shall be finally divorced, and mankind left with their 
 geometric propensities as lively as ever ; but the earth 
 shall have been deprived of its arithmetical ones. 
 The bankruptcy of nature is announced, and its insuf- 
 ficient assets placed under the management of checks 
 which have already declared the principle on which it 
 is proper to make the dividend. The rich they will 
 " fill with good things," but the poor and hungry they 
 will " send empty away." I believe there is a slight 
 alteration in the reading of this old author, but it is 
 " another pleasing proof" how well Christianity can 
 be made to adapt itself to the times, and, under cer- 
 tain expounders, to the rich and great at all times. 
 (22) These ratios, therefore, express nothing, and
 
 Chap. V.J GEOMETRIC AND ARITHMETICAL RATIOS. 103 
 
 only prove what tliey express. The arithmetical one 
 cannot represent the increase in the products of na- 
 ture before the earth is entirely cultivated ; it is quite 
 as impossible it should do so afterwards. From first 
 to last, whether viewed with the lights of human 
 reason or experience, it is as ungrounded a sophism 
 as ever was presented to the mind of man. I shall 
 conclude my remarks on these ratios by observing, — 
 
 First, — The means of human subsistence, whether 
 animal or vegetable, increase in a proportion, the 
 ratio of which is in all cases greater, in many almost 
 infinitely so (as well as far more rapid), than those 
 assigned to the principle of human increase in the 
 theory under notice. 
 
 Second, — Human beings increase in a different pro- 
 portion, and one which is constantly regulated by their 
 co-existing numbers. 
 
 Third, — The geometric and arithmetical ratios of the 
 prevailing principle of population, false, as we have 
 seen, when considered separately, are, when combined, 
 still more contrary to truth and experience. If, there- 
 fore, the series of figures which is made to represent 
 the natural increase of mankind, and that which is to 
 show the increase of their means of subsistence, were 
 to be interchanged, or, in other words, turned topsy- 
 turvy, they might, though still in an inadequate 
 degree, exhibit that overflowing sufficiency which 
 Providence at present bestows upon the human race, 
 as well as that increasing and inexhaustible provision 
 which is laid up for all future generations of mankind.
 
 104 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OF THE CONDITION ON WHICH THE MEANS OF SUBSISTENCE 
 
 ARE BESTOWED, AND THE PRECEDENCE OF 
 
 POPULATION TO PRODUCTION. 
 
 (1) The researches of philosophy, as well as the 
 dictates of common sense and the evidence of uni- 
 versal experience, prove, beyond all doubt, an intention 
 in the Great First Cause adequately to provide for 
 all his animated offspring ; and that he is in the un- 
 ceasing act of fulfilling that intention. The same 
 lights will likewise serve to shew us that such provi- 
 sion is nevertheless conditional ; and furthermore, that 
 the very nature of the condition is in perfect accordance 
 with the benignity of his universal system : that, as it 
 respects mankind more particularly, it is made the means 
 not merely of preserving existence, but of conferring 
 and perpetuating happiness. That condition is ex- 
 ertion. 
 
 (2) Although this fact is essential to a right view 
 of that divine economy by which the gift of existence 
 is continued and rendered valuable to its possessors, it 
 would not, in a work which will necessarily carry out 
 the argument to a considerable length, have been 
 made a subject of distinct consideration, had it not 
 been for a very extraordinary position which seems 
 fundamental to the theory now controverted ; namely, 
 an asserted precedence in the production of food to 
 the increase of population ^ I am not sorry, however, 
 that the argument must necessarily take this direction, 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population; pp. 476, 477, 478, &c.
 
 Chap. VI.] PRECEDENCE OF POPULATION TO FOOD. 105 
 
 as it will thereby shew more fully the imperfect 
 grounds on which the present system of population is 
 built, and at the same time tend to illustrate still 
 more forcibly the perfect harmony of a happier prin- 
 ciple with the interests of human nature, and the 
 perfections of the Deity. 
 
 (3) Exertion, as the condition of existence, is the 
 catholic law of animated nature ; affecting, indeed, 
 her different tribes in very various degrees, proportioned 
 to their several means and necessities, but falling upon 
 the human race far the most onerously, and with what 
 might indeed be deemed, if hastily viewed, with undue 
 severity. But this law, as it respects mankind, be- 
 comes, when properly considered, the charter by which 
 he does not merely exist, but by which he holds the 
 supremacy over creation, and ultimately rises still 
 more elevated in intellect than in station. "It is ob- 
 " servable," says Lord Hale, " that as the wise God 
 " hath put all things in motion and action, the hea- 
 " venly bodies, the elementary natures, the meteors, 
 "the animals; so it is his wisdom to preserve man 
 " also in that bodily as well as mental motion, and by 
 " a kind of necessity drive him from sloth and idle- 
 " ness : if he will live, he must eat ; and if he will 
 "eat, he must labour^" 
 
 (4) To that primeval law, or promise (or more pro- 
 perly both) of the Creator, now so frequently quoted 
 to be controverted and ridiculed, but which the voice 
 of nature utters quite as distinctly as that of God, — 
 " Increase, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and 
 subdue it ; " is added another, equally important, 
 and which, in the present condition of our nature, 
 may be again considered both as a law and a pro- 
 mise, — "By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat 
 
 ^ Lord Hale, Origination of Mankind, p. 371.
 
 106 CONDITION OF SUBSISTENCE. [Book I. 
 
 bread ! " I hope there will be no cavil raised against 
 these terms, as I claim for them no additional force 
 or authority on the ground of divine inspiration. 
 They form that code of nature which has been ut- 
 tered in all languages, and observed in all nations ; 
 they bear the stamp of everlasting truth, which no 
 vain attempts either at argument or ridicule will ever 
 efface. 
 
 (5) There are, however, those who hold that this 
 first great law of nature is repealed and obsolete ; 
 and boldly call the breach of it, while clearly contem- 
 plating the tremendous consequences that must ine- 
 vitably ensue \ a " virtue^ " which they designate by 
 the specious name of " moral restraint." Touching 
 the second, they will have it, in flat contradiction to 
 common sense, that man's bread precedes the sweat 
 of his brow ; that production is prior to population. 
 It is ever thus with those notions which shock the 
 plain sense and feelings of mankind ; they commence 
 with impiety, and terminate in absurdity ; impiety 
 which a pagan would abhor — absurdity which a pea- 
 sant would instantly detect. 
 
 (6) But to state the principles of those whose 
 system I am opposing, as clearly as I can : having 
 exhibited two lines of progressive numbers, which, 
 without further proof, are to pass for demonstrations 
 of the rapidity with which mankind would increase, 
 and the comparative tardiness with which, at the 
 utmost, his means of subsistence could be made to 
 advance ; and connecting them so as to shew how 
 utterly inadequate the latter would be to suffice 
 for the former ; they maintain, that the principles, 
 thus adverse, are reconciled in practice by the ope- 
 ration of certain expedients, which make the numbers 
 
 ^ Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 3. « Ibid. p. 493; &c.
 
 Chap. VI.] PRECEDENCE OF POPULATION TO FOOD. 107 
 
 in the first line balance with those in the second ; these 
 are called " checks," and operate either to confine, 
 within narrower limits than nature designed, the proli- 
 ficness of mankind, or to thin their numbers if that 
 prolificness is not so restrained. Thus restrained and 
 checked, population is kept down to the level of food, 
 which of course it never exceeds. But it is to be 
 remarked that, according to their ideas, production 
 invariably precedes population. If, then, the quan- 
 tity of food already produced, not only regulates the 
 march of population, but precedes it, it seems to me 
 that the precedence in the two lines of figures referred 
 to is misplaced. The increase of food, or the arith- 
 metical series, ought to have been first announced, and 
 that would have then shown the utmost possible in- 
 crease of human beings ; all beyond which could only 
 have existed in idea, and the tremendous and still 
 increasing catalogue of evils and sufferings with which 
 it threatens mankind, could not then have haunted 
 even the imagination. If production invariably takes 
 the start, there can be little need for us to undertake 
 the rather difiicult task of regulating the number of 
 our fellow-creatures that are to follow. It would be 
 a sort of hyper-legislation to remodel our laws so as to 
 meet a tendency which can never be called into ope- 
 ration, and a theory which can never manifest itself 
 as a reality. I am fully aware that the above notion 
 is subservient to certain views of the state ol society 
 in different countries, taken for the purpose of sup- 
 porting the theory. It appears, however, totally 
 irreconcileable with the general principle which it is 
 brought forward to sustain. 
 
 (7) Before proceeding any further in the argument, 
 it may be proper to state what is meant to be admitted, 
 as well as what is intended to be disproved. It is
 
 108 CONDITION OF SUBSISTENCE. [Book I 
 
 fully conceded, and, indeed, forms part of the system 
 which is announced and defended in this treatise, that 
 the numbers of mankind, and the measure of their 
 means of subsistence, have a very strict and constant 
 relation to each other ; and, consequently, that popu- 
 lation cannot materially exceed the food necessary for 
 its support, no more than food can materially exceed 
 the demands of the population that raises it. And it 
 is this essential relation between numbers and food, 
 combined with and modified by the other wants and 
 necessities of the human race, which constitutes that 
 platform, if I may so speak, on which the social system 
 is erected, and by which it is compacted together. 
 Furthermore, it is not meant to be denied, that in 
 certain instances population and production may have 
 a mutual and simultaneous influence ; but the ques- 
 tion is, which of these, as an universal principle, 
 precedes the other ? and so long as causes shall be 
 allowed to precede their effects, so long will it be 
 acknowledged that population precedes production. 
 Political economists, indeed, make a jargon of human 
 lansfuap-e, as well as havoc with common sense, and 
 tell us that supply regulates demand ; and, in like 
 manner, on the subject of human increase, they assure 
 us that production precedes population : but we dissent 
 from both notions ; and, in respect to the latter, while 
 we readily admit that there is necessarily a very exact 
 connexion between population and production, we 
 maintain the precedence of the former; and, instead 
 of " population being limited by the means of subsist- 
 ence V' ^ favourite and fundamental axiom of the 
 theory under consideration, — we assert directly the 
 contrary, namely, that the means of subsistence are 
 produced and limited by the population. If the former 
 
 1 Malthus, Essay on Population, pp. 16, 350, &c.
 
 Chap. VI.] PRECEDENCE OF POPULATION TO FOOD. 109 
 
 position were true, it is liard, if not impossible, to 
 conceive how mankind could advance ; if the latter, 
 it is difficult to believe they will ever retrograde. 
 
 (8) Let us, then, examine the question as it re- 
 spects mankind either in their individual or collective 
 capacity ; omitting any reference to the " golden age " 
 of poetry, or the paradisiacal one of divinity, as well 
 as those exceptions from the general laws of nature 
 which are created by civil institutions, and which, 
 indeed, when properly considered, can hardly be 
 deemed exceptions. It will then appear that mankind, 
 generally speaking, " labour that they may live, and 
 live only because they labour ^" And, inasmuch as 
 the means of their subsistence are always of a perish- 
 able nature, and therefore cannot be long anticipated 
 or greatly accumulated, they live only so long as they 
 continue to labour. To say, then, that population 
 does not precede production, as it applies to human 
 beings in the mass, is to say that they labour before 
 they exist. And not to dwell exclusively upon the 
 more perishable necessities of our existence, all that is 
 valuable or ornamental in a social or national point of 
 view is attributable to this precedency, because, as 
 Pericles said to the Athenians, " Lands and houses 
 " can never acquire men, but are by men ac- 
 " quired I" 
 
 (9) What is true of mankind, considered gene- 
 rally, is still more evident when they are viewed indi- 
 vidually. As it regards the bulk of the human race, 
 every man labours for his subsistence ; and even those 
 who, at first sight, might be supposed, exceptions from 
 this law of necessity, are, in many cases, such as are 
 subjected to its severest operation, in having to render 
 
 * Lord Hale, Origination of Mankind, p. 371, 
 2 Thucyd., lib. i., ch. 143.
 
 110 CONDITION OF SUBSISTENCE. [Book I. 
 
 that mental exertion which is often far more " weari- 
 some to the flesh " even than bodily fatigue ; while 
 those very few who are considered as totally exempt 
 from its operation are only privileged to perform by 
 proxy what the rest are obliged to do personally, which, 
 as it respects the point at issue, amounts to precisely 
 the same thing. 
 
 (10) This law, therefore, is operative upon man, 
 both in his individual and collective capacity, and is 
 equally productive of the same results. Take an illus- 
 tration of both conditions from the inimitable novel of 
 Defoe ; when his hero, Robinson Crusoe, in his solitary 
 condition, had only himself to sustain, he limited his 
 labours to that sole object ; but when he found that 
 the number of his " mouths " was increased, he set 
 about rearing more tame goats, and took in and culti- 
 vated an additional quantity of ground ; and such, I 
 maintain, will continue to be the conduct of man- 
 kind — at all events, till human industry is pushed 
 to its final limits, which none have contended it has 
 yet approached. To these limits, however, the argu- 
 ment, as presented to us, seems to have no reference, 
 this precedence of food to population being one of 
 those inherent laws of nature which is represented as 
 operating from " the commencement of society," and 
 operating so as to confirm, instead of curing, those 
 evils which the principle of population is said to 
 occasion. 
 
 (11) I believe, however, that the advocates of the 
 prevailing system will hardly proceed to the length 
 of maintaining that human wants are not the spur to 
 human exertions ; but, perhaps, they rather wish, by 
 presenting the subject in a general and obscure point 
 of view, to convey the idea that it is some imaginary 
 surplus of food that precedes and occasions every in-
 
 Chap. VI.] PRECEDENCE OF POPULATION TO FOOD. HI 
 
 crease of population, tlioiigli it is very diflicult to per 
 ceive how such a position could be made to square 
 with their notions of a strong; and constant tendency 
 in human beings always to exceed the utmost limits 
 of their subsistence. But while we maintain a con- 
 stant sufficiency in nature to sustain all her creatures, 
 we deny the fact that there is, generally speaking, 
 that surplus ; and, furthermore, we assert, and shall 
 liereafter prove, that, were such the case, it would 
 have an effect directly contrary to what they suppose 
 — it would diminish, rather than increase, the natural 
 prolificness of the species. In the mean time there is 
 not an individual of that mighty mass of human beings 
 by whose labours the world is sustained, who does not 
 know and feel that he " works for his bread;" and both 
 the language and its meaning will survive the sophism 
 which they flatly contradict. 
 
 (12) But if labour, as the condition of subsistence, 
 be the catholic law of Nature, it is interesting to ob- 
 serve with what tenderness she administers it, tem- 
 pering it with those feelings of compassion or affection 
 which render it altogether an ordinance of mercy. It 
 has been observed already, that this law extends to 
 all animated life ; but, in one respect, the human race 
 stand pre-eminently distinguished from the brute 
 creation, in that, when a fellow-being may be no 
 longer capable of this labour, through age or sickness, 
 or prevented from beneficially exercising it by human 
 institutions or monopolies, the rest, by a little increased 
 exertion, perform his share ; and he enjoys, in some 
 humble measure, the eftect of that labour which he 
 can no longer yield. Still the law is not broken, it is 
 fulfilled vicariously. And the feeling of compassion 
 is deeply implanted in our nature, to answer this par- 
 ticular purpose, and in ours alone : amongst all the
 
 1 L2 CONDITION OF SUBSISTENCE. [Book I. 
 
 inferior animals, such sufferers are left to expire unas- 
 sisted, and, indeed, in many cases, are hurried out of 
 existence. A remaining state of life, equally incapable 
 of fulfilling, personally, the condition on which the 
 means of subsistence are conferred, and one among 
 human beings peculiarly helpless and protracted, that 
 of infancy, is not only defended, but supplied by one of 
 the strongest feelings of the human heart, parental 
 affection ; — a principle that not merely impels the 
 parent to those necessary additional exertions of which 
 the offspring is incapable, but, unsatisfied with pro- 
 ducing a mere sufficiency for the object of its solicitude, 
 prompts those additional and continued efforts which, 
 in most cases, would not be endured from merely per- 
 sonal considerations. The increasing prosperity of 
 mankind is fairly resohable into this feeling, and 
 many of their proverbial truths attest it. But still, it 
 must be observed, that Nature, whether in the instance 
 of our destitute brother, or our helpless child, never 
 allows her law to be broken ; she only permits, or, 
 more properly, enjoins, that, in such cases, it should, 
 as has been before observed, be obeyed vicariously. 
 
 (13) But, in arguing on the precedence of produc- 
 tion to population, Mr. Malthus descends into a mi- 
 nute examination of the subject, tracing it, as it should 
 seem, to its source, in doing which I shall attempt to 
 imitate him. In replying, in a subsequent edition, to 
 one of his opponents, he says, " in the course of the 
 " next twenty-four hours there will be about eight 
 " hundred children born in England and Wales ; and 
 I will venture to say that there are not ten out of 
 the whole number that come at the expected time, 
 for whom clothes are not prepared before their 
 ^' birth'." We may venture, however, to contradict 
 
 ' Dr. Short, New Observations, &c., p. 55. 
 
 (C 
 
 a
 
 Chap. VI.] PRECEDENCE OF POPULATION TO FOOD. 1 13 
 
 this. As he seems to have made a minute calculation 
 on the occasion, for what purpose is not very appa- 
 rent, he ought to have remembered that, in his 800 
 daily births, there would be, according to the calcu- 
 lations of an author he often quotes, founded on actual 
 observations, about twenty-four twins and trigemini^ 
 According to other authorities, there would be rather 
 fewer. A large proportion of these births being in 
 the lower classes of society, we may be sure that 
 most of the supernumeraries, at all events, would not 
 have had clothes prepared for them before their birth. 
 But, amidst all this affected precision, it is somewhat 
 astonishing, that it was not perceived that the state- 
 ment had nothing whatever to do with the matter at 
 issue, which, as applied to the instance adduced, is 
 simply this : — Whether the existence and consequent 
 expectation of these 800 unborn children, caused their 
 clothes to be prepared, or their prepared clothes caused 
 the existence of the 800 children ? If the latter be 
 the fact, which this argument implies, — if it imply any 
 thing, — then, I hope those resolutely self-denying and 
 patriotic old maidens, who are eulogized so highly by 
 the same author, and from whose merits I mean not 
 to detract, will beware how, like so many Dorcases, 
 they continue to make garments for the poor, espe- 
 cially for poor infants, with which employments many 
 of them are atoning for their conduct, and encouraging 
 in others, the fulfilment of the duties they would 
 not encounter themselves. Clothes, I admit, with 
 Mr. Malthus, are the only necessaries which infants 
 require from human labour ; if, then, provision, as it 
 respects them, precede population and occasion it, 
 " our breeders," as old Graunt calls them, breed up 
 to the products of the shuttle, rather than the plough. 
 
 ' Short, New ObseiTations on the Bills of Mortality. 
 Vol. I. I
 
 114 CONDITION OF SUBSISTENCE. [Book I. 
 
 If, then, Providence could only break tlie shackles of 
 the arithmetical ratio as it regards the production of 
 food, we may rest assured that the steam-loom would 
 keep pace with the geometric one, as it respects cloth- 
 ing, at least to such a distant period as might, as Mr. 
 Malthus himself owns, "be fairly left to Providence ^" 
 (14) But I should not be satisfied to dismiss this 
 subject without a more serious and appropriate view 
 of it, seeing that the consideration, tenderness, I may 
 call it, of Divine Providence, is peculiarly manifested 
 in the gradual way in which he augments the num- 
 bers of his rational offspring, giving timely warning of 
 every immortal being whom it pleases him to call into 
 existence, and an abundant opportimity, after each 
 accession to his universal family, for preparing ade- 
 quate subsistence. During the protracted period of 
 human gestation, parental solicitude has full time for 
 preparation ; and that preparation, as far as this feeling 
 effectuates it, (and here I defy the sophists to raise a 
 cavil,) is the consequence of the intimation nature has 
 already given. But to be minutely particular, and to 
 commence with a period previous to that which human 
 exertion has any thing to do with preparing the neces- 
 sary sustentation. That secretion which is to constitute 
 the aliment of the future infant, is the consequence ot 
 impregnation. Again ; the human being appears be- 
 fore the food of innocence is evolved in the maternal 
 bosom ; where it hangs, and is sustained for an equal 
 period, before it makes a demand upon any other source ; 
 and when it does partake of the products of the earth, 
 how small is the share that suffices to preserve in 
 health and beauty that infancy, the sight of which 
 gladdens and exhilarates every feeling heart ! From the 
 period of conception, two successive harvests, generally 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay ou Population, p. 354.
 
 Cliap. VI.] PRECEDENCE OF POPULATION TO FOOD. 115 
 
 speaking-, intervene ; always one, before the smiling 
 infant, often tlie living- nuisance of the theory I am 
 opposing-, asks a morsel from either the crops or the 
 flocks of the earth ; a demand which the exulting; 
 parent hears with gladness, and has already more than 
 anticipated ; I say more than anticipated, for it is the 
 feeling which this infancy has excited, and continues 
 to excite, that is the main stimulus of all those labours 
 and exertions which have elevated the social state of 
 man above the savage, and spread with plenty, and 
 adorned with magnificence, the richest nations of the 
 habitable globe. In a moral sense it has efi:ected still 
 more for mankind, converting exertions, which would 
 be otherwise selfish and mercenary, into those prompted 
 by disinterested and holy affections ; purifying the 
 feelings, and elevating the character of the human race. 
 The serpents of vice and sloth are still strangled from 
 the cradle ! 
 
 (15) Mr. Malthus, in the passage referred to, talks 
 somewhat complacently about illustrations ; he calls 
 them edged tools, and conceives, that in this allusion 
 to infancy, he has turned them upon his antagonist, 
 who does not know how to use them : how truly the 
 reader must judge. Many there are who think he him- 
 self has not been very happy in either the construction, 
 or application of his figures, I do not allude to his 
 figures of arithmetic, those remain for an examination, 
 which it will be seen how little able they are to 
 bear; I mean his figures of rhetoric, in the use of which 
 I think he has been as unfortunate as any of his oppo- 
 nents can have been. In his celebrated one of Nature 
 and Nature's feast, to wit, from which the expiring 
 poor are to be expelled, in favour of his privileged 
 guests, he, too, has meddled with " an edged tool," 
 which, while lacerating the feelings of those against 
 
 I 2
 
 116 CONDITION OF SUBSISTENCE. [Book I. 
 
 whom it was wielded, has incurably wounded his 
 own cause, or, to change the metaphor, has blackened 
 what he meant to illustrate. He has, I believe, at 
 length, quietly withdrawn it, as well as many other 
 similar passages, and seems quite indignant that it 
 should not be forgotten; and so it should have been, 
 by me at least, but that I see the principle, of which it 
 is an apt exemplification, and indeed a necessary con- 
 sequence, is retained to the full extent of all its revolt- 
 ing cruelty and insults. I make these observations in 
 consequence of some of his own, in which he has ex- 
 pressed himself with much apparent displeaure on this 
 head ; and shall further remark, that, after claiming 
 the merit of having " sufficiently pursued the principle 
 to its consequences," and drawn the " practical infer- 
 ences" from it^, any subsequent attempt, for very ob- 
 vious reasons, at an evasion of those consequences, 
 and concealment of those practical inferences, by 
 "softening conclusions," while tacitly retaining the 
 whole of them, and recanting nothing, are but slight 
 proofs, I think, of that candour to which it would 
 aftord me pleasure to admit his claim. 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, Preface, p. v.
 
 117 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OF THE PRECEDENCE OF POPULATION TO PRODUCTION, AND 
 ITS BENEFICIAL EFFECTS ON THE CHARACTER AND 
 CONDITION OF MANKIND, CONCLUDED. 
 
 (1) The law of nature, which makes labour the con- 
 dition of existence, or in other words, which establishes 
 the precedence of population to food — is like all her 
 other laws, and contrary to the spirit as well as the 
 letter of the supposititious principle of population, 
 — a law of benevolence. The necessity thus created is 
 the great and sufficient instrument not merely of fur- 
 nishing the means of subsistence, but of administering 
 to the enjoyments, securing the health, and enlarging 
 the abundance of mankind. It is the perpetual guar- 
 dian of the morals, and the preceptor of the intellect 
 of the human race. In accomplishing these sacred 
 purposes, it is the main, the infallible, and indeed the 
 sole, instrument. It has no substitute. It is unneces- 
 sary to enlarge on these points, they have been previ- 
 ously alluded to, and will probably be resumed. But, 
 in the mean time, it cannot be too often repeated, at 
 least till the contrary opinion is fully exploded, that 
 the precedence of population to production is not 
 merely to be defended as a truth, but to be asserted as a 
 principle upon which the prosperity of mankind de- 
 pends. If the food of the inferior animals is placed, 
 by the Supreme Donor, at some distance, as it were, 
 from them, so that one part of them must seek, and 
 the other pursue it, — that of man is still more remote 
 from him, and bestowed upon conditions more strict
 
 118 PRECEDENCE OF POPULATION [Book I.- 
 
 and multiplied ; hence the exercise not merely of liis 
 bodily powers, but of his mental faculties, is rendered 
 necessary to his very existence, nor can the terms be 
 evaded. Even in the least civilized state, when he 
 exists almost as a mere animal of prey, every element 
 that furnishes his food imposes seeming obstacles in 
 the way of his obtaining it. He cannot pursue his 
 prey into the air, or through the waters ; while, on 
 his native earth, the beasts of the chase are either too 
 fleet for him to take, or too powerful for him to con- 
 tend with, single and unaided. Hence, his necessi- 
 ties, in the very lowest stage of his existence, excite 
 and exercise his ingenuity, foresight and perse- 
 verance ; thence, too, originates that association which 
 constitutes the rudiments of civil society. His facul- 
 ties, mental and bodily, become thus developed and 
 enlarged; and, if he do not "keep down his numbers 
 to the level of the means of subsistence," which are 
 to be so obtained, he will multiply till he will be 
 carried forwards into a superior state ; and, like the 
 hero in the inimitable story referred to in the last 
 chapter, necessity will prompt him to tame and do- 
 mesticate some of the most useful of the surroundino- 
 animals, so as to render his supply of food more sure 
 and abundant ; pastoral habits will, therefore, be super- 
 induced upon predatory ones. Here again the intellect 
 becomes more enlarged, and I need not remind the 
 reader, that to this stage of society the sublimest 
 branch of human knowledge is generally traced ^ . 
 But mankind continue to multiply, and necessity 
 therefore dictates further advances. The asfricultural 
 arts, the offspring of human intellect, and peculiar to 
 man, succeed ; arts which, either in reference to their 
 essential utilit}^, or the elevation of their character, 
 
 ^ Pliny; Nat. Hist., 1. xviii., c. 25.
 
 Chap. VII.] TO PRODUCTION. H*-^ 
 
 the ancients invariably attributed to the tuition of 
 their deities ^ Pursuing these, every husbandman is 
 necessarily a practical philosopher. He studies the 
 soil, notes the seasons, selects the seed, interchanges 
 the crops, adapts the composts ; in a word, by means 
 the most studied, and efforts the most varied, he suc- 
 ceeds in meliorating and multiplying the fruits of the 
 earth, as w^ell as the animals destined for his use, far 
 beyond the first promises of Nature, even in the most 
 fertile soils and the most favoured climates ; subduing 
 to his purposes the very impediments which she seems 
 to interpose in his career. Population increases, 
 and elevates him to a higher step in the scale of 
 existence. Horticulture is now added, to which agri- 
 culture perhaps will be found at last to be but the 
 precursor; and with the earth thus tilled, still an 
 increasing number are unemployed in the operation; 
 to whom necessity dictates different occupations, the 
 results of which become successively and increasingly 
 essential to mankind thus circumstanced ; and which 
 are exchanged for the grosser products of labour, — 
 the means of subsistence. Nor can all these avoca- 
 tions afford employment to an entire population rapidly 
 advancinof in civilization. That leisure, therefore, is 
 created, which numbers, similarly urged, must devote 
 to those more intellectual pursuits by which so many 
 have distinguished themselves, and served and bene- 
 fited their fellow-creatures ; purifying their morals, 
 enlarging their knowledge, and exalting their genius. 
 Still, by whomsoever these elevated paths may be 
 opened to human research, necessity is the main cause 
 of their exploration. All the liberal arts owe their 
 origin and consummation to this principle. Nay, the 
 struggle for the distinctions of life, — for independence, 
 
 * Diodorus Siculus, 1. i.
 
 120 PRECEDENCE OF POPULATION [Book L 
 
 affluence, honour, power, — all may be traced to this 
 original impulse, exciting and operating upon the 
 feelings and the energies of the human mind. The 
 foundation of that social system, the lofty pinnacles 
 of which alone may strike our eyes, is necessity; 
 move this, and the whole fVibric sinks into ruin. 
 
 (2) So true is the principle I have been endea- 
 vouring to establish, that if we may believe the history 
 of mankind in past ages, or trust the evidence of our 
 senses in the present, even the gifts of Nature have 
 far less to do with the production of plenty in any 
 country, than have the effects of industry stimulated 
 by necessity. Thus while, on the one hand, necessity 
 can so conquer the very sterility of nature, as to pour 
 over a country where it perpetually operates, a plenty 
 and profusion, wholly unknown in more favoured re- 
 gions ; so, on the other, it can hardly be denied but 
 that nothing less than a population so large and over- 
 flowing as still to call into constant exercise this 
 mighty and efiicient instrument of human prosperity, 
 can save a country pre-eminently rich, and sponta- 
 neously fertile, from misery and degradation. This is 
 no new observation, much less a mere theoretical one. 
 One of the most experienced observers of the condi- 
 tion of the human race, at least in our days, remarks, 
 that, " Under the torrid zone, where a beneficent hand 
 " seems every where to have Scattered the germ of 
 " abundance, man, careless and phlegmatic, expe- 
 " riences periodically a want of nourishment, which 
 " the industry of more civilized nations banishes from 
 " the more sterile regions of the north \" I am 
 aware that I have partially touched upon this subject, 
 though, for another purpose, in a preceding chapter; 
 but the principle is so important to the general aro-u- 
 
 ' Humboldt, Personal Narrative, vol. i., p. 106.
 
 Chap. VII.] TO PRODUCTION. 121 
 
 ment, that the repetition may be excused if I still 
 pursue it a little farther. The fact, indeed, of a highly 
 prolific soil, inadequately peopled, tending to produce 
 want and misery, is too notorious to need much proof; 
 in addition to Humboldt's testimony, I will, therefore, 
 only appeal to the still more striking evidence of the 
 same truth, afforded by all the accounts of the recently 
 discovered islands in the Pacific Ocean, so scantily 
 peopled in reference to their extent ; and the fertility 
 of which is only equalled by the wretchedness and 
 cruelty which it produces \ 
 
 (3) On the other hand it is to be noticed, that, with- 
 out any of the peculiar advantages of soil or climate, 
 " countries most verging to a full state of population 
 " and production are uniformly observed to be those 
 " which sutler least from an excess of numbers";" and, 
 to apply the remark more minutely, different parts of 
 even the same country are perceived to be relatively 
 prosperous or otherwise, in proportion to the numbers 
 of their inhabitants, which, so far from being always 
 regulated according to the varying fertility of the 
 soil, are generally distributed in a contrary propor- 
 tion^. 
 
 (4) Nor are these remarks novel. Davenant, 
 who seems to have devoted his mind almost exclu- 
 sively to the development of the principles of national 
 prosperity, lays it down as an incontrovertible maxim, 
 that " where there are but few inhabitants and a laro-e 
 " territory, there is nothing but sloth and poverty ; 
 
 but when great numbers are confined to a narrow 
 ' compass of ground, Necessity puts them upon in- 
 
 ' Dwight, Travels in New England, Bishop Burnet, Observations, &c. Cra- 
 
 vol. iv., p. 97. Ellis, Tour through ven, Tour in Naples, &c., p. 146. Pol}'- 
 
 Ilawaii, pp. 328, 329. bins, 1. xii., Ext. 1. Thucyil., 1. i. Von 
 
 - Quarterly Review, vol. xvi., p. 57. Buch., Travels in Norway, p. 392. 
 
 ^ HartOj Essays on Husbandry, p. 7G. 
 
 ii
 
 ]22 PRECEDENCE OF POPULATION f[BookI. 
 
 " vention and industry, which, in a nation, are always 
 " recompensed by power and richest" He goes on to 
 give striking examples of these truths, for which I must 
 refer to his frequently quoted work, and shall only 
 confirm his opinions by the authority of a preceding- 
 writer, Sir Joshua Child, who truly observes, that 
 " most nations in the civilized world are, more or less, 
 " rich or poor, proportionably to the paucity or plenty 
 " of their people, and not to the sterility or fruitfulness 
 " of their land I" 
 
 (5) The stimulus creeited by population preceding 
 production, when thus universally felt, is not only the 
 cause of the production of sufficiency, but of the dif- 
 fusion of increasing plenty. Almost every individual 
 adding something beyond what is barely necessary to 
 the feast of nature, the general abundance enlarges to 
 profusion ; and I would here add an idea, not unworthy 
 of notice, that, as the division of labour has the effect 
 of greatly increasing its total products, so in the eco- 
 nomy of society the division and appropriation of food 
 has a direct tendency to multiply plenty, by preventing 
 waste. And of the many reasons why an increasing 
 population is invariably accompanied by increasing 
 plenty, this always constitutes one. In the mean 
 time, as Mr. Mai thus represents that even the virtues 
 are like marketable commodities^, the supply of which 
 will be regulated by the demand, (one of the most as- 
 tounding maxims ever advanced in the science of 
 ethics,) it is most singular that he should attempt to 
 deny that the production of the necessaries of life should 
 not be so governed. It is quite true, upon commercial 
 and manufacturing principles, that more food will not be 
 produced than is wanted ; but that food, when wanted, 
 
 ' Davenant, Ways and Means, pp. " Sir Joshua Child, on Trade, p. 192. 
 144,145. 2 Malthas, Essay on Population, p. 67.
 
 Chap. VII.] TO PRODUCTION. 123 
 
 may, and therefore will, be produced, is most certain, 
 on any view of the question. 
 
 (6) But the necessity created by the precedence of 
 population to food is a source of pleasure, and the gua- 
 rantee of the health of the human race. On these 
 grounds I shall not dwell, having already alluded to 
 this view of the subject. A word, or two, however, I 
 shall add as to its effects on character. It was re- 
 marked, as early as the time of Hippocrates, and by 
 that deep observer of human nature, that the very vari- 
 ation to which the seasons subject mankind in certain 
 regions of the earth, has the effect of elevating their 
 minds, a truth to which the present state of the 
 world seems to bear ample testimony. One of the 
 profoundest writers on geography, (whose death, I 
 regret to say, is recently announced, and, I fear, 
 before the completion of his work,) Malte-Brun, ex- 
 presses himself most unequivocally upon this point. 
 After having said that " the facility with which food is 
 " procured, obstructs the growth of industry and the 
 '' artsV' and that in one quarter of the world " fertility 
 "of soil produces famine^," he observes, "it is, per- 
 •" haps, to the peculiar nature of the soil and climate 
 " of Europe, to its being more intersected, more rug- 
 " ged, and more unproductive than that of Asia and 
 " America, that we owe that presence of mind, and 
 " spirit of bold enterprise and perseverance by which 
 " the natives are, in general, so distinguished^." These 
 observations present, in a somewhat different point of 
 view, the same important truth dwelt upon throughout 
 this section, namely, that it is to that necessity created 
 by a population great, in reference to the extent 
 and fertility of the country which it covers, and still 
 
 ■ ^ Malte-Brun, Geography, bookxxiii., ^ Ibid.,Geog., b. kxxiv,, p. 301. 
 p. 602. 3 Ibid., b. xxiii., COl.
 
 124 PRECEDENCE OF POPULATION [Book I. 
 
 increasing, that the superiority, thus manifested in in- 
 tellect as well as prosperity, is undoubtedly to be attri- 
 buted. So Pliny remarked of Rome ; stating, that the 
 multiplication of the human species, and the improve- 
 ment of the arts, were seen to advance together \ In 
 a word, the observation of another ancient writer, Dio- 
 dorus Siculus, is true, regarding human beings, in 
 every age and country of the world, — " Necessity is 
 the preceptor of man^/' 
 
 (7) That the constant employment, both of the men- 
 tal and bodily faculties, which this necessity renders 
 imperative on the species, must be favourable to their 
 moral elevation, is agreeable to reason, and, on a refer- 
 ence to various parts of the world where such is the 
 case, presents itself as an undeniable fact; which again 
 receives a melancholy confirmation in the embruted 
 condition of those regions of the globe favoured with the 
 utmost fertility, where the population is so checked, as 
 to brino- it down to the level of the means of subsistence 
 to be obtained with little labour and without anx- 
 iety. A celebrated divine of the New World has well 
 observed, that " where countries are so fertile as to de- 
 " mand little exertion, man will be idle and vicious. 
 " In the island of Otaheite, where subsistence is fur- 
 " nislied almost without human exertion, the inha- 
 " bitants, in proportion to their capacity, have been, 
 " probably, the most profligate on the globe^." 
 
 (8) Furthermore, this important instrument of hu- 
 man welfare. Necessity, is, as the very term imports, 
 irresistible in its operation, and infallible as to the 
 effects it produces. And it vvould afford a theme not 
 unworthy the pen of the profoundest philosopher, as 
 well as of the divine, to shew by what unfailing means 
 
 ' Pliny, Hist. Xat., iii. 3, ^ Dr. Dwight, Travels in Ne\y Eng- 
 
 2 Diod. Sic; 1, i. c. i. laud, vol. iv., p. 'J7.
 
 Chap. VII.] TO PRODUCTION. 125 
 
 and motives tlie Creator thus continues, increases, and 
 improves liis creatures. The impulse of afi'ection, first 
 sexual and then parental, forms the domestic charities ; 
 and these again enlarge into the social system, while 
 the necessity thus created is continued, by the still 
 augmenting numbers of those on whose behalf it is in 
 constant operation. 
 
 (9) Finally, this necessity is happily perpetual. 
 As the exertions of mankind increase the universal 
 plenty, an enlarging population makes fresh demands 
 upon their intellect and industry ; so that, as their 
 numbers accumulate, their prospects are still seen 
 brightening, and their happiness augmenting. That 
 it has been the plain purpose of Divine Providence to 
 reconcile these demands with the purposes of his un- 
 bounded benevolence, instead of making them the 
 means of inflicting future and unceasing sufferings on 
 his creatures, it is the purpose of this treatise to prove. 
 
 (10) Such seem to be the effects of this great 
 instrument of human prosperity. Necessity. And, far 
 different from a mere theoretical truth, its due conside- 
 ration is calculated to have a beneficial effect on the 
 human heart as well as conduct. To nations full of 
 people and riches, and far advanced in civilization, and 
 therefore always too prone to undervalue the capacity, 
 and despise the condition of others who may be in 
 more unhappy circumstances, and perhaps of a diffe- 
 rent complexion, and eager to act upon these impres- 
 sions to the utmost lengths of tolerated cruelty and 
 oppression, it teaches, amongst other salutary lessons, 
 the humiliating truth of what it is to which they owe 
 their exaltation. On the other hand, it opens a 
 brightening prospect to those who are often con- 
 demned as irrecoverably barbarous, as once our an- 
 cient ancestors were deemed. It points out the path
 
 126 PRECEDENCE OF POPULATION [Book I. 
 
 of progressive improvement, and prompts tliose peace- 
 ful and civilizing pursuits which can alone lead them 
 to prosperity and happiness. And lastly, it power- 
 fully encourages all those humane efforts which may 
 be made to disseminate those advantages to uncivi- 
 lized nations, of which they are at present ignorant 
 and insensible. In a word, it tells us this humanizing 
 truth, in the language of one of the noblest authors of 
 antiquity, " how that we ought not to imagine there 
 " is so mighty a difference between man and man, but 
 " that he is the most accomplished who has been re- 
 *' gularly trained by necessity through a course of 
 " industry and labour ^" 
 
 (11) The precedence of population to production, 
 then, is not a mere question of abstract knowledge, 
 but one of the utmost moral and practical importance. 
 And it is essential to the interests of mankind that it 
 should be so recognized, as erroneous views on this 
 subject have been already highly detrimental to the 
 interests of society, and threaten to become fatal to its 
 future prospects of advancement. The belief that 
 human beings have a constant tendency to increase 
 beyond their utmost means of subsistence, and that po- 
 pulation must be reduced and kept down to that level, 
 cannot but produce those cruel and disgusting conse- 
 quences which are already beginning to develope 
 themselves ; on the other hand, the thorough convic- 
 tion that mankind, while obedient to the laws of Nature 
 and of God, would only increase in that proportion 
 which should best conduce to their interests and hap- 
 piness, and that that increase would invariably pro- 
 duce a super-proportion of every thing necessary to 
 their existence, leads to efforts highly favourable to 
 the general welfare. In these opposite views of this 
 
 ^Thucydidesjlib. i.,84.
 
 Cliap. VII.] TO PRODUCTION. 127 
 
 great question, Mr. Maltlms and myself are at issue ; 
 and I am perfectly willing- to appeal to tlie past history 
 of the human race, as well as to their present condi- 
 tion, as decisive of it. That author has already par- 
 tially done so in his work under consideration, select- 
 ing several countries in Europe, and even making a 
 sort of voyage round the world in order to exhibit in 
 islands, countries, and continents, the principle he 
 espouses, as in active and necessary operation. I shall 
 follow him most minutely in this track, in the sequel ; 
 but in the mean time I shall observe, generally, on the 
 subject, that the erroneousness of his principle is, as 
 it appears to me, fully demonstrated by the result of 
 his own inquiries. The most densely peopled nations 
 he has examined, he cannot but acknowledge, are the 
 most prosperous ones ; while those, where there are 
 the fewest inhabitants, are, generally speaking, the 
 most wretched. Vv^here there is not one-hundredth 
 part of the population for which Nature has evidently 
 prepared, the inhabitants are supremely miserable ; 
 but there they are all intuitive and practical converts 
 to the notion I am opposing — they fully believe that 
 " population presses too hard against the means of 
 subsistence," and are more active than scrupulous in 
 their endeavours to keep it down to the proper " level." 
 (12) Thus it is that, exactly as this unnatural doc- 
 trine practically prevails, mankind are kept in a savage 
 state of existence, or they are reduced to it. In the 
 former case, " there cannot be a clearer demonstration 
 " of any thing," as Locke observes, " than the several 
 " nations of Americans ; who are rich in land, and poor 
 " in all the comforts of life ; whom Nature, having fur- 
 '' nished as liberally as any other people, with the ma- 
 " terials of plenty, i. e. a fruitful soil, apt to produce in 
 " abundance what might serve for food, raiment, and
 
 128 PRECEDENCE OF POPULATION [Book I. 
 
 " delight, yet for want of improving it by labour, have 
 " not one-hundredth part of the conveniences we en- 
 " joy. And a king of a large and fruitful territory 
 " there, feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a day 
 " labourer in Enoland ^" What can elevate the con- 
 dition of such but the law of Necessity, which they at- 
 tempt to evade, enforced by an increasing population ? 
 
 (13) In proof of the second idea, that men are gra- 
 dually reduced to barbarism by obeying the dictates 
 of the principle of population now opposed, we need 
 only appeal to the condition of any country upon earth 
 where the inhabitants have been constantly diminish- 
 ing*. As numbers have decreased, wretchedness has 
 invariably augmented. Nor is there any limit to be 
 placed to this retrogression, or any refuge of plenty 
 created by the enlarging void. Personal distress is seen 
 accumulating as the population diminishes ; and, if the 
 system of ignorance and selfishness advanced till the 
 last individual of the species, like the first-born, should, 
 to free himself from a rivalry in the favour of Provi- 
 dence, murder his sole remaining brother. Nature would 
 revenge the deed, and consign him to the death of 
 destitution and misery. 
 
 (14) View, on the contrary, the progress and effects 
 of the better principle. As men feel themselves co- 
 partners in the bounties of nature, which they see en- 
 larging in proportion to their numbers and necessities, 
 instead of regarding each other as rivals for an insufli- 
 cientand diminishing share of the means of subsistence, 
 their increase leads them to those combined and har- 
 monious exertions which infallibly issue in plenty and 
 happiness. Then is it that population, if not proscribed 
 and worried down by the Cerberean dogs of this 
 wretched and cruel system, really does press against 
 
 ' LockC; Two Treatises on Govcrament. p. 1 96.
 
 Chap. VII.] TO PRODUCTION. 120 
 
 " the level of the means of subsistence :" and still ele- 
 vating* that level, it continues thus to urge society 
 through advancing stages, till at length the strong 
 and resistless hand of necessity presses the secret spring- 
 of human prosperity, and the portals of Providence 
 fly open, and disclose to the enraptured gaze the pro- 
 mised land of contented and rewarded labour, — a land 
 (to use the beautiful phraseology of the East) of corn, 
 and wine, and oil ; overspread with flocks and^ herds, 
 overflowing with plenty, and brightening under the un- 
 clouded smile of heaven. There all the rural arts and 
 the pursuits of commerce are seen in a happy and 
 amicable rivalry ; till the pastures are clothed with 
 flocks, and the valleys stand thick with corn, while the 
 populous city sparkles to the skies, and the crowded 
 mart resounds with the voice of those whose heroic 
 calling it is to go down to the sea in ships, and occupy 
 their business in the mighty waters. The hill of science 
 meantime is seen swelling from the plain, and hiding its 
 aspiring summits in the mists of heaven ; unnumbered 
 votaries, crowding up its steeps, explore from its in- 
 creasing elevations, still enlarging and brightening 
 prospects in the horizon of futurity. All this is the 
 creation of necessity, or, in other words, the result of 
 increasing numbers pressing against the means of sub- 
 sistence. But let this necessity be relaxed : the hand 
 of industry is then enfeebled and paralyzed, the useful 
 arts and inventions are at first slighted, then forgotten, 
 and lost ; man relapses into that ease and sloth which 
 is natural to him ; and for which. He that made him 
 knew there was no adequate remedy, but necessity. 
 The numbers now become redundant, the checks are 
 unleashed and spring upon them, and they are thinned 
 more speedily, indeed, than they were recruited ; but 
 at every successive diminution they become more and 
 
 Vol. I. K
 
 130 PRECEDENCE OF POPULATION [Book I. 
 
 more superfluous to each other. The cky is gradually- 
 depopulated ; the mart is deserted, and at length re- 
 turns to a bare rock, where perhaps a few fishermen 
 build their huts on the foundation of ancient palaces, 
 and spread their nets where once a crowd of princely 
 merchants assembled. Cultivation disappears; the 
 boundless plain now scarcely makes " room " for a 
 few wretched shepherds, who migrate with their 
 scanty flocks across its rude and barren extent ; and 
 these again give place to the savage hunter, who 
 resumes once more his primeval haunts of solitary 
 wretchedness. Meantime the smile of Providence has 
 been gradually withdrawn ; all has darkened ; and 
 the gloom which settles upon the miserable remnant 
 who have survived the very memory of their name 
 and origin, hides them from the notice and curiosity 
 of the human race. All that concerns them, worthy 
 of the attention of mankind, is their ancient history ; 
 and this, indeed, affords a striking lesson. It proves 
 that Necessity, created by population, is at once the 
 strength, glory, and safety of every nation on earth, 
 which has yielded to its dictates. 
 
 (15) If it be said, that this conclusion addresses 
 itself to the imagination, I answer, that it appeals 
 still more strongly to experience and truth. Ex- 
 actly such has been the history of many of the 
 fairest regions upon the face of the earth, once 
 crowded with inhabitants, overflowing with plenty, 
 and invested with supreme dominion. Their popula- 
 tion was checked, no matter by what means, and 
 history speaks the melancholy consequences. Many 
 of the most ancient and most powerful nations of the 
 earth have experienced this doom. The cradle of 
 man seems to have become his tomb; the ruins of 
 immense cities and "solemn temples" swept, as it
 
 Chap. VII.] TO PRODUCTION. 131 
 
 were, with the besom of destruction, and without a 
 possessor, appear like the sepulchres of human great- 
 ness ; and the curious traveller who would gaze upon 
 them has to bear his provisions over desolate and 
 trackless plains, which once furnished inexhaustible 
 supplies for myriads. Nor have these catastrophes 
 been brought to pass by any miraculous interposition ! 
 The means of their destruction, checking the increase 
 of the species, whether by vice or oppression, would 
 produce the same effects on the proudest of the sur- 
 viving empires. They would produce it in our own ; 
 and the voice of history warrants me in saying, that 
 such a course would be irremeable. It seems as 
 though nothing could revive the energies, or restore 
 the prosperity, of a country whose population has 
 long continued to decline ; they will sink into ine- 
 vitable ruin, and it will be reserved for others who 
 feel the inspiring impulse they have quenched, to re- 
 colonize their nation, to restore its prolificness, and 
 fill it with inhabitants who shall better fulfd the de- 
 signs of Almighty Providence. 
 
 (16) With some, however, an appeal to the prin- 
 ciples of what is called Political Economy will have 
 much more weight than any proofs derived from the 
 principles of common sense, history, or philosophy. 
 I shall, therefore, close this argument by an appeal to 
 the great authority of the modern school, Ricardo. 
 He unequivocally asserts and maintains the pre- 
 cedence of population to production ; the miracle is, 
 that it should ever have been denied, or even doubted ^ 
 
 ' Ricardo, Pollt. Econ., p. 561. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OF THE PRECEDENCE OF POPULATION TO PRODUCTION, 
 
 AS A MAIN CAUSE OF PEOPLING THE EARTH; 
 
 WITH REMARKS ON EMIGRATION. 
 
 (1) The precedence of population to food has another 
 most important consequence which yet remains to be 
 pointed out, a result which none who acknowledge 
 the existence of a Deity can refuse to believe was in 
 his contemplation as Creator of the world, and one 
 which it is not conceivable could have been accom- 
 plished by any other means, consistently with that order 
 of things which he has been pleased to establish; I 
 mean, the peopling of the earth. I am aware of the diffi- 
 culties which environ this particular view of the sub- 
 ject, and have, therefore, intentionally separated it from 
 that branch of my argument to which it naturally 
 belongs, in order to give it a distinct consideration ; 
 being unwilling to connect what may, perhaps, be 
 denominated conjecture, with absolute certainty. The 
 reader may, therefore, reject the view of the subject 
 which is about to be presented to him, without any 
 detriment to the general argument ; for myself, I con- 
 fess, after having given it no slight attention, consult- 
 ing, as well as I have been able, the nature, necessi- 
 ties, and history of the human race, it has fixed itself 
 upon my mind as an incontrovertible truth. 
 
 (2) Were I called upon to express, in as few terms 
 as possible, and with the most scrupulous attention 
 to their arrangement, the procession of population to 
 that state of universal prosperity and happiness, to
 
 Chap. VIII.] ANCIENT MIGRATIONS. 133 
 
 wliicli, it is to be hoped, it is ultimately destined to 
 attain ; no form of language appears to me so succinct 
 and comprehensive as that already used by the most 
 ancient, not to say sacred, historian of the universe. 
 It is put into the mouth of the Deity himself, and is, 
 I humbly conceive, as sublimely appropriate as ano- 
 ther expression from the same source, which a great 
 heathen writer has selected as an example of the true 
 sublime; — it is the irrevocable benediction of the 
 Deity pronounced on man at his creation. " And God 
 " blessed them, saying. Be fruitful and multiply, and 
 " replenish the earth, and subdue it^" That is, 
 marry, — increase, — spread, — cultivate ! This is the 
 sacred canon of the system I espouse. The law of 
 Nature is quite as clear as that of inspiration, on this 
 head. And yet there are those who have the audacity 
 to proclaim, that this command is no command ; that 
 this blessing is a curse ; that the law is abrogated 
 long before its object is fulfilled. Let such cast their 
 eyes upon the world at large, or upon Europe, nay, 
 even on their own country, and tell us if the earth be 
 yet replenished, if it be yet subdued ? But it is no 
 wonder that such should inveigh against the Divine 
 principle of human increase and multiplication at the 
 present time, since they have declared it the source of 
 evil from the very " commencement of society." 
 
 (3) But to return. This process of Nature, or of 
 Divine Providence, is in striking conformity with the 
 idea already maintained at large, namely, that popu- 
 lation precedes production, originating that necessity, 
 of which the ultimate object is to subdue the earth by 
 culture. But, in order to this universal culture, it is 
 obviously necessary that mankind should be distributed 
 as well as multiplied ; and this previous and most im- 
 
 ^ nB'331; subigere ten-am. See also Locke, Treatise on Government, p. 191,
 
 134 PEOPLING OF THE EARTH. [Book I. 
 
 portaiit office necessity lias to perform. It is tlie great 
 and efficient cause of replenishing the earth, as well 
 as of subduing it. This it efiectuates by means 
 which are more powerful than perceptible, unless 
 we give a near attention to the subject ; then, indeed, 
 it will be clearly seen, by what adequate causes the 
 purposes of Providence are accomplished, to which, 
 even the weaknesses and ignorance of human nature 
 (I mean not its wickedness) are rendered finally sub- 
 servient. 
 
 (4) That necessity is the main spring of human la- 
 bour, with all its great and beneficial results, is undeni- 
 able ; but that man, however benefited by it, is naturally 
 averse from labour, especially that which is imposed 
 by necessity, is equally true ; and I conceive that it 
 was from the mutual operation of these seemingly ad- 
 verse principles, that mankind v/ere originally scattered, 
 and the earth, consequently, peopled. We have seen 
 the beneficial effects of the law of necessity ; and a 
 moment's consideration, I think, will convince us that 
 the principle which seems to oppose, or rather to mo- 
 derate, its operation, is hardly less essential to the 
 happiness and welfare of the species, especially in the 
 more advanced stages of civilization. The bare neces- 
 saries of existence are attainable in the savage state ; 
 but those advantages which are created and increased 
 by man, as he advances in civilization, are the conse- 
 quences of accumulated labour, which can be enjoyed 
 only in a state of comparative ease and independence. 
 This ease and independence are the prize for which 
 so many contend, the quickening motive of so much 
 of that individual labour, of which the united results 
 astonish even those who have contributed to produce 
 them. And if the hope of this excites man to such 
 beneficial exertions, it is rarely indeed that its possession
 
 Chap, VIII.j ANCIENT MIGRATIONS. 135 
 
 terminates them ; it merely gives tliem a voluntary and, 
 generally speaking-, liiglier direction ; and, by thus 
 abstracting a certain portion of labour from the com- 
 moner pursuits of life, it renders the remainder more 
 valuable, and, consequently, becomes its reward, as 
 well as its encouraging example. The benefits, then, 
 of this ease and independence, instead of being confined 
 exclusively to those by whom they are enjoyed, are, 
 in every well-ordered community, felt by every indi- 
 vidual who constitutes it. 
 
 (5) I would here, for a single moment, direct the 
 reader's attention to the few, but necessary, steps 
 in the divine regimen concerning the progress of 
 mankind. He multiplies them by the law of popula- 
 tion ; he preserves them in existence, and drives them 
 forwards in the path of civilization by that of neces- 
 sity ; while the principle now under consideration, 
 the desire of ease and independence, allures them to 
 more rapid and further advances in the same career. 
 Necessity, indeed, may be considered as a task-master, 
 rigidly apportioning and demanding their several la- 
 bours; this as a kind and voluntary co-operator, lighten- 
 ing their toils, and sweetening them by future hopes, 
 (another name for present enjoyment,) till they heighten 
 into pleasures. On the whole, I think it will not be 
 denied, that the tendency of mankind to independence, 
 not to say indolence, is, in the main, highly conducive 
 to the interests of society at large. However this may 
 be, I proceed to shew that, in union with the more 
 powerful stimulus, necessity, this feeling, the existence 
 of which is incontrovertible, has had the effect of dis- 
 persing mankind, and peopling the earth with human 
 beings. 
 
 (6) Whether man sprung from one common origin 
 or not, will be a subject of further consideration, not
 
 136 PEOPLING OF THE EARTH. [Book I. 
 
 as a topic of divinity, but as one of physiology, natu- 
 rally bearing on the subject I have here undertaken. In 
 the mean time, as it is equally maintained in the 
 theory I shall endeavour to establish, as well as in that 
 I am opposing, that man, in the first stages of society, 
 is so prolific as to increase rapidly, if not greatly 
 checked in reproduction, — and that he requires sub- 
 sistence according to his numbers. — if the laws of 
 nature are suffered to prevail, the consequence is 
 obvious — he must spread. 
 
 (7) In the commencement of society, (always 
 excluding in such remarks the primitive origination of 
 the species,) mankind appear to us in a condition of 
 degradation ; invested, indeed, with all their natural 
 powers and propensities, which form the elements of 
 future civilization, but each existing in a rude and 
 barbarous state ; like a Mild and ungrafted tree, whose 
 abundant but ungrateful fruits give the promise of 
 what it will produce under successful culture. Hence 
 is it that the propensity for ease and independence, 
 already alluded to, is exhibited in that degenerated 
 form, sloth, to which man is probably more prone than 
 any other animal in creation, and from which nothing 
 willingly rouses him but the call of pleasure. In his 
 necessary exertion, therefore, he combines as much as 
 possible these two propensities, and exists as a hunter ; 
 and, so congenial to his nature is this pursuit, that 
 what is originally encountered from necessity is con- 
 tinued for pleasure. Many ancient writers, particu- 
 larly Csesar and Tacitus, have forcibly described the 
 sloth and torpor of the savage state, disturbed only 
 at intervals by the necessary pursuit of prey. Be- 
 tween this and the nomadic condition there is but 
 a small distance, indeed they may be considered as 
 almost always partially identified; and it is in this
 
 Chap. VIII.] AN'CIENT MIGRATIONS. 137 
 
 rather indefinite and uncertain mode of life, in wliich 
 we find the greatest number of countries, when look- 
 ing into the earlier annals of mankind, and which still 
 continues, in no inconsiderable part even of the old 
 world, to this hour. This savage and wandering- 
 habit of life having partly subsided into the pastoral 
 state, and leading occasionally to some rude attempts 
 at agriculture, but without having fixed and defined 
 the possession of individucd property, seems to describe 
 that unsettled and inartificial state of existence in 
 which we first behold the greater part of mankind. 
 
 (8) This state necessarily implies a very thin po- 
 pulation — especially its first stage, that of hunting. 
 The savage tribes of America fix its maximum, as we 
 have already seen, at one in the square mile. Even in a 
 somewhat more advanced condition, we have sufhcient 
 proofs, were proofs necessary to convince us, that what 
 would now be deemed solitudes, were then felt to be 
 over-peopled. The Helvetii, for example, possessing 
 a country which extended beyond the boundaries of 
 modern Switzerland, comprising a portion of southern 
 France, in which, according to Caesar, (who seems not 
 very prone to underrate the numbers of his vanquislied 
 enemies,) there were only about six to the square 
 mile, including women and children^, wanted room; 
 angustos se fines habere arhitrabantur", — how incon- 
 siderable a number compared with that which is sup- 
 ported in the same extent of territory, with infinitely 
 greater plenty ! Again, Ariovistus demanded a third 
 part of the country of the Sequani, for a colony of 
 twenty-four thousand of his Germans^ ; a district peo- 
 pled at present with more than ten times tliat num- 
 ber. Many instances of the same kind might be 
 
 ' Cfpsar, Comment., 1. i., § 21 . => Ibid., 1. i., § 23. 
 
 2 Ibid., 1. i, ^ 2.
 
 138 PEOPLING OF THE EARTH. [Book I. 
 
 brought forward, but they are unnecessary ; the very 
 nature of the life under consideration implied a scanty 
 and scattered population. 
 
 (9) Such a population, however, beyond all others, 
 ould retain their habits with the utmost tenacity ; 
 
 wh ch, combined with that ignorance of agricul- 
 ture which was only gradually removed, and so 
 recently, as to be made a matter of authentic history 
 in every country, conspired to further the designs of 
 the Creator. Mankind, as they multiplied, would, 
 under these circumstances, spread themselves over a 
 large surface of country ; unoccupied districts would 
 soon have to be sought, at great and lengthening 
 distances, or the inhabitants of nearer ones dispos- 
 sessed, and pushed onward. The ties of kindred, 
 which are far from being weak, even amongst the least 
 civilized; but, more especially, mutual necessity, 
 whether for purposes of defence or aggression, would 
 induce them to move in bodies ; which, in all the 
 confusion inseparable from such wide and constant 
 migrations, would be kept distinct by the diversity of 
 languages, so as to form separate bonds of union ; 
 not only planting, but preserving, in their several 
 boundaries, different nations. Thus, Usher supposes 
 the confusion of tongues was intended for the very 
 purpose of distributing the human species ^ ; at all 
 events, it has contributed to that end, and has given 
 us something like a clue by which to unravel the 
 otherwise inextricable confusion, which the incessant 
 movements of the early population of the earth have 
 introduced into the history of the human race. 
 
 (10) Had mankind continued ri vetted to what, 
 perhaps, may be called the birth-place of the species, 
 the banks of the Euphrates, concerning the unrivalled 
 
 ' Usher, Annals, p. 4.
 
 Chap. VIII.] ANCIENT MIGRATIONS, 139 
 
 fertility of wliicli Herodotus delivers himself so empha- 
 tically \ and which, as a profound modern writer has 
 observed, profane history, from its earliest dawn, pre- 
 sents to us as overflowing with numbers, — they must, 
 as they continued to multiply, have crowded into 
 populous cities, or settled down to a more laborious 
 and minute cultivation of the surrounding luxuriant 
 plains : in which case, none, I think, will contend, 
 that the human race would have been so greatly mul- 
 tiplied, or widely dispersed, in so short a period, as the 
 earliest records of their history represent them to have 
 been. Indeed, I shall shew in the sequel, that, unless 
 human nature has since then undergone a physical 
 change, they could not have increased so rapidly, 
 if at all. But the dispersion of mankind took place, 
 to which allusion has been already made ; and there 
 were Nimrods in those days, as well as in our own, 
 whose propensities were made subservient to the de- 
 signs of Providence. Impatient, perhaps, of restraint, 
 and disdainful of drudgery, they deserted their native 
 seats, and the arts of civilization together, and dis- 
 persed themselves in every direction. " They mostly 
 " found countries overgrown with wood, and inhabited 
 " only by beasts. Hunting was their ready resource 
 " for a livelihood : arms their first necessaries. Their 
 " life was thus spent in action. They spread far ; had 
 " few neighbours, and with those few, little inter- 
 " course. Such people were inevitably barbarians ; 
 
 " BUT THEY WOULD, MUCH SOONER THAN MORE CIVI- 
 " LIZED PEOPLE, GIVE INHABITANTS TO EVERY PART 
 " OF THE GLOBES." 
 
 (11) Except, therefore, in some favoured districts, 
 which had early attracted, and continued to retain, 
 a crowded population, with all the superiority with 
 
 ^ Herodotus, Clio. § 193. * Mitford, Greece, vol.i., p. 7.
 
 140 PEOPLING OF THE EARTH. [Book I. 
 
 wliich it is ever connected, mankind long continued 
 migratory ; and by the impulses of nature to which 
 we have alluded, the love of ease and independence, 
 and aversion from habitual and necessary labour, 
 they were pushed through every surrounding region 
 of the world, settling where they could find seats in 
 which to indulo-e their inveterate habits, and still exist. 
 To this condition, which all history concurs in repre- 
 senting as once nearly universal, the reader's most 
 particular attention is called, as that whence must be 
 measured those astonishing advances which the civi- 
 lized world has made in every valuable and elevated 
 pursuit ; a state from which different nations and com- 
 munities have emerged at earlier or later periods, just 
 as population has been allowed to precede production ; 
 and one in which some yet remain, and will continue 
 so to do, while the checks are employed to keep down 
 the existing numbers " to the level of the food," or, 
 in other words, to perpetuate barbarism and misery. 
 
 (12) The history of the human species may then 
 be appealed to, in proof that the precedence of popu- 
 lation to food has been the chief means, not merely of 
 improving and civilizing, but of peopling the world. 
 The law of population, indeed, multiplied, but this 
 law co-operating, as we have seen, with the law of ne- 
 cessity, " scattered them abroad upon the face of the 
 earth ^:" and history, sacred or profane, in its early 
 stages, is little more than a rapid enumeration of the 
 migrations of different families of the human race, from 
 that of their first parents, of whom the poet sings, 
 
 " Tlie world was all tefore them, where to choose 
 Tlieir place of rest." 
 
 Hence, from the centre of their first dispersion, the 
 banks of the Euphrates, numerous tribes diverged in 
 
 * Genesis xi, 9.
 
 Chap. VIII.] ANCIENT MIGRATIONS. 141 
 
 every direction, each united together, as well as kept 
 distinct from others, by the almost insuperable barrier of 
 a different dialect, which was the cause, also, of that con- 
 tinued separation, whence, probably, grew those divers 
 manners and customs which become the more strikingly 
 distinguishable the more remote they are found from 
 that ancient place and period. These bodies of man- 
 kind, the laws of Nature, if not violently withstood, 
 would continue to increase ; so that the offspring tribes 
 would soon become parent ones, sending forth, in their 
 turn, fresh colonies. Moving bodies of men, there- 
 fore, proceeding from different points at once, would 
 begin to intersect each other's line of march, and 
 interfere with each other's progress ; and neighbour- 
 ing settlements would be founded, not merely on the 
 same continents, but in the same islands, consisting of 
 different tribes of mankind, of a language and origin 
 unknown to each other. Thus was it that the different 
 countries became gradually overspread and possessed ; 
 some of them as fully, perJiaps, as their barbarous 
 mode of existence, and inveterate habits, would bear. 
 It was at this period the arts of agriculture, whether, 
 as the ancients supposed \ of Divine institution, or 
 taught by necessity, became generally known and 
 practised^ ; a time, as opportune for the^^^ncient world, 
 as that of the discovery of the loadstone was for the 
 New. Their numbers continued to multiply, and pre- 
 cede the produce of the earth ; and only two alterna- 
 tives were presented to their choice, either to obey the 
 law of necessity, in conformity with the principles of 
 mercy and justice, and thus preserve their population, 
 and sustain it, by adding the labours of cultivation to 
 those of the chase ; or, on the other hand, regardless 
 of those principles, either to check their own increase, 
 
 > Diod. Sic, 1. v., p. 206. « Thucydidcs, 1. i., c. 5.
 
 142 PEOPLING OF THE EARTH. [Book L 
 
 in order to keep down their numbers to the level of their 
 food, or to destroy the possessors of the surround- 
 ing tracts, for the purpose of raising that level to their 
 increased numbers. Those that made the latter choice 
 remained in a state of barbarism inseparable from such 
 a determination, of which the world is not without 
 melancholy examples at the present period, on an 
 extended scale, and in some of its most fertile regions. 
 Those, on the other hand, that obeyed the voice 
 of Nature and of God, and pursued the better course, 
 or that were, by a fortunate compulsion, obliged to do 
 so, found themselves conducted through advancing 
 degrees of civilization to prosperity and happiness ; 
 their numbers still multiplying, and adding, at every 
 augmentation, fresh stores of abundance, as well as 
 new accessions of moral and intellectual wealth. Li- 
 mited to their own territory, they found it to be the 
 confines of prosperity. That salient source of all 
 human welfare, individual or national, Population, no 
 longer pouring itself forth into some distant void, now 
 flowed back upon the " shallows and the miseries" 
 which it had previously left exposed, every refluent 
 wave expanding and deepening, not the ocean of 
 vitality merely, but the abyss of Divine bounty ; the 
 depth and br'aiidth of either of which, we presume to 
 think, it is given to no mortal to fathom or explore. 
 " The river of God is full ! "' 
 
 (13) On the whole, then, I think it abundantly 
 clear, that the precedence of population to food, com- 
 bined with those principles of our nature which 
 have been the subject of this inquiry, have been 
 the prime cause of dispersing inhabitants throughout 
 the earth ; in effectuating this great purpose, it is 
 plain that the Supreme Arbiter of events has overruled 
 the weakness and ignorance of mankind, and made
 
 Chap. VIII.] ANCIENT MIGRATIONS. 143 
 
 them subservient to liis desi<rns. At all events, no- 
 thinf^ can be more certain than tliat the great work 
 of planting the nations was not performed when the 
 earth was full of inhabitants, but, on the contrary, 
 when it was comparatively void ; not by nations whose 
 numbers were the largest, but the fewest and most 
 scattered : in a word, not by those who had a real ne- 
 cessity to migrate, but whose ignorance allowed them 
 so to suppose, and whose barbarism made them fit 
 instruments for the purpose, rendering them in.sensible 
 of regrets or solicitudes either respecting the seats 
 they left, or those to which chance directed their 
 course. It was a work performed in ages of ignorance, 
 and in times of strife and suffering, though the results 
 have been so transcendently great and happy. Those 
 engaged in it might, like the husbandman, go forth 
 weeping, bearing precious seed, but a posterity has 
 come which sees the copious sheaves, and the universe 
 rejoices in the glorious harvest. 
 
 (14) Finally, I observe that, as the population of 
 the nations has increased, the necessity of these wander- 
 ings has diminished. I speak thus, advisedly, and in 
 defiance of the information, or, I would rather say, the 
 more formidable ignorance, of all the migration com- 
 mittees upon earth. I do not mean to contend but that 
 many soul-stirring occasions, many powerful impulses 
 may still carry numbers to distant climes, even to the 
 *' farthest verge of the green earth, to rivers unknown 
 to song ;" or that such impulses may not be commis- 
 sioned to effect some peculiar and important purposes 
 of Divine Providence : but I deny, in behalf of a prolific 
 but imperfectly cultivated country; — I deny, in behalf 
 of those feelings which endear to a grateful population 
 their native seats ; — I. deny, in behalf of the honour 
 and interests of the empire ,• and, in the name of truth
 
 144 PEOPLING OF THE EARTH. [Book I. 
 
 itself, that general deportations of our countrymen, by 
 wliomsoever contemplated, are necessary, — that they 
 are otherwise than unnatural in themselves, and cruel 
 in their consequences. To these topics I shall again 
 advert, if time and space suffice. In the meantime, if 
 we follow the guidance of nature, taking with us the 
 lights of human history, we shall doubtless arrive at 
 safe conclusions. We shall find tliat the main instru- 
 ment in these colonizing migrations was barbarism ; 
 their period, — those " times of ignorance which God 
 winked at," and rendered subservient to his benevo- 
 lent purposes : those purposes accomplished, that veil 
 of ignorance which seemed as effectually to conceal 
 the inexhaustible bounties of Providence from their 
 benighted eyes, as it does from those of some of our 
 political economists, was drawn aside, and the bosom 
 of Nature, in all its loveliness and sufficiency, was bared 
 to all her children. 
 
 (15) It has been already said, and, perhaps, too 
 often repeated, that as human beings have increased, 
 their condition has been ameliorated ; I must, how- 
 ever, add, that under these more auspicious cir- 
 cumstances, the ties of kindred and social affection, 
 and of attachment to country so dear to all generous 
 minds, have become strengthened, and rooted in the 
 very fibres of the heart ; to tear them rudely thence 
 would be to leave an incurable wound, or at least an 
 aching void, which no after-scenes of life could fill, 
 and least of all such as those the expatriated have gene- 
 rally to encounter. But in the Divine economy, no such 
 remedy is contemplated, and the desire of wandering, 
 and the necessity for it, except under the pressure 
 of perverse mismanagement, gradually cease together. 
 
 (IG) The subject of Emigration was intended to 
 be treated more distinctly, and somewhat at large,
 
 Chap. VIII.] ANCIENT MIGRATIONS. 145 
 
 in the present work ; but on fiirtlier consideration it 
 seems unnecessary to do so. The principle of popu- 
 lation opposed, and that meant to be established, 
 equally reject it ; either as a proper or an efficacious 
 means of adjusting the numbers of mankind to their 
 subsistence. I will not contend, indeed, but that 
 motives of the most praiseworthy kind, and leading 
 often to the happiest consequences, result from it 
 when individually and voluntarily undertaken ; but 
 whenever it is effectuated upon a large scale, and more 
 especially, conducted in a manner at all compulsory, 
 (always excepting the case where it is made a penal 
 infliction,) I cannot but think it highly objectionable. 
 It almost always then implies tyranny and oppression 
 in the country left, and as generally leads to injustice 
 and cruelty in that to which it is directed. Its efforts 
 have far oftener occasioned the diminution and dis- 
 possession of the original and rightful inhabitants, 
 (not to say their extirpation,) than the amelioration 
 of their condition, and the consequent increase of their 
 numbers ; which it cannot be doubted would have 
 speedily sufficed to occupy their own territory, had 
 they been civilized instead of subdued and oppressed. 
 (17) Much might be added regarding the suffer- 
 ings which have always ensued whenever any con- 
 siderable deportation of this nature has taken place. 
 Much also concerning the doubts which exist in all 
 reasonable minds, whether the countries and climates 
 to which they are transplanted will be ultimately 
 found favourable to the new inhabitants ; doubts which 
 it is possible a few more generations may solve little 
 to the satisfaction of those most concerned. Waiving, 
 however, these considerations entirely, — it only needs 
 to be added, that each of the systems now placed 
 before the reader equally rejects emigration as the na- 
 
 VoL. I; L
 
 146 PEOPLING OF THE EARTH. [Book I. 
 
 tural or proper resource of nations. Tlie principle of 
 superfecundity holds, that the vacuum thus occasioned 
 would be speedily supplied, but certainly by a less 
 vigorous or valuable class of society ; the national dis- 
 grace and expense of such attempts would, therefore, 
 be repaid, as they deserve, by a positive and direct 
 loss. On the other hand, the law of population un- 
 folded in this treatise, shews these national excisions 
 to be unnecessary and mischievous. No one, however, 
 can possibly contend that emigration can be more than a 
 temporary expedient, inasmuch as the countries which 
 receive it will themselves be replenished, and, accord- 
 ing to the prevalent theory, with a rapidity which will 
 allow but of a very short period for such accessions. 
 The remedy, therefore, would entirely fail when the 
 disease had become the most distressino- and inve- 
 terate. They have studied but very slightly the 
 volume of Nature, or at least comprehended its im- 
 port very imperfectly, who imagine that, in her most 
 momentous laws and operations, she is governed by 
 temporary expediency. 
 
 (18) But to return. The precedence of popula- 
 tion to food in the darker ages of the world has evi- 
 dently been the main cause of planting the nations ; 
 and, since mankind have become more settled and nu- 
 merous, of civilizing them : and were it possible for 
 our anti-populationists to reverse this principle, and 
 cause the food of mankind to precede their wants, and 
 to govern their numbers ; the world would again be- 
 come gradually depopulated, and sink into the bar- 
 barism from which it has been happily rescued.
 
 147 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OF THE CHECKS TO POPULATION, ENUNCIATED IN THE 
 PREVAILING THEORY.— WAR. 
 
 (1) I PROCEED now to the consideration of one of the 
 most important and essential branches of the argu- 
 ment, namely, those checks to population which occupy- 
 so large a space, and act so conspicuous a part, in 
 the theory under examination, since they have to 
 reconcile its adverse ratios to each other, and to shew 
 that their united effects harmonize with the history 
 and condition of the human race. How vain the 
 attempt, though made at the expense of outraging the 
 best feelings and most sacred principles of man- 
 kind, remains to be shewn. And I cannot but assert, 
 at the very threshold of the argument, that a theory, 
 however plausible, which, to the plain apprehension 
 of the many (who have attained to no slight percep- 
 tion of moral truth and feeling), arraigns the good pro- 
 vidence of God as insufficient to supply the wants of 
 his creatures, if they obey, conformably to his own 
 institutions, the most imperative laws of nature ; and 
 which, in order to rectify the error, announces a sys- 
 tem of expedients, that is a still greater insult upon 
 his essential perfections, has but a slender chance of 
 being otherwise than as false in principle, as it is 
 evidently pernicious in its consequences. 
 
 (2) These checks, however multiplied in the de- 
 tail, are resolved into three distinct heads, Vice, Misery, 
 and Moral Restraint. Far more insatiable and loatli- 
 
 L2
 
 148 CHECKS TO POPULATION. [Book I. 
 
 some than the triple-mouthed dog at the gate of Hell, 
 this Cerberus stands at the portal of existence, and 
 demands a perpetual sacrifice of human victims ; but 
 this consists, we are informed, of those " redundant 
 numbers," which are consequently to be devoted on 
 behalf of the whole. Wealth has a sop placed in its 
 hands, consecrated by this system, — " a patent for 
 food," and is therefore to escape scathless : defenceless 
 poverty is the appointed victim. I shall not particu- 
 larize the horns of this miscreated being; they are 
 represented as numerous, but the catalogue is too dis- 
 gusting to be unnecessarily repeated, they belong to 
 their respective heads, and are worthy of them. If I 
 am fortunate enough to destroy the pest, it will not 
 be by aiming at its extremities. At first, indeed, this 
 " delicate monster ^" shewed only two fronts, vice and 
 misery ; a third, however, was subsequently put forth, 
 to recommend, under a more comely mask, the whole 
 system, and was called " moral restraint," a name 
 which seems invented as a perfect specimen of irony : 
 but the slightest reflection will resolve this into the first 
 of these ancient and legitimate checks, or rather into 
 both the former, 
 
 " The force of nature could no farther go, 
 To form a third, are joined the other two." 
 
 The last check, however, being, as its author con- 
 fesses, an after-thought with himself", it shall be 
 made a matter of subsequent consideration in this 
 work. 
 
 (3) Let us then first examine the nature and effects 
 of the two original, and what are still dignified by the 
 appellation of " direct checks," — vice and misery. In 
 doing this, it is unnecessary to follow minutely the seve- 
 ral ramifications of the system, the question having to 
 
 ' Shakspeare, Tempest. » Malthus, Essay on Population, preface, vii.
 
 Chap. IX.] WAR. 149 
 
 be determined on general principles. It will abundantly 
 suffice to consider, under these heads, vice and misery, 
 which are to adjust our numbers to our food, those 
 " correctives of the redundant numbers of mankind," 
 as they are called, war, pestilence, and famine, under 
 one or other of which, most of those calamities, paraded 
 through the system under consideration, may be pro- 
 perly enough classed. War, the ancient leader and 
 champion of the whole, may be allowed to include in 
 his sweeping murders, that infanticide, which the 
 author, so frequently under notice, says, " appears to 
 to be very particularly calculated to answer the end" 
 in view \ as well as all those cruelties which take 
 away or abridge the duration of human life ; and if 
 you please, that self-immolation, which, however, is 
 usually occasioned by intemperance, profligacy, or 
 pride — rarely by actual want. Pestilence may muster, 
 in its spreading devastations, all those diseases wdiich 
 are supposed to be induced by a crowded population ; 
 and famine, all that abject poverty which is fatal to 
 human life. The operation of these various checks, 
 severally or combined, in by far the greatest, but the 
 worst peopled, part of the world, is thus emphatically 
 described by the author I am rebutting. " When 
 " population," says he, " has increased nearly to the 
 " utmost limits of food, all the preventive and positive 
 " checks will naturally operate with increased force. 
 " Vicious habits with regard to the sex will be more 
 " general ; the exposing of children more frequent; and 
 " both the probability and fatality of wars and epide- 
 " mics will be considerably greater, and these causes 
 " will probably continue to operate, till the population 
 " is sunk below the level of the food, and then the return 
 " to comparative plenty will again produce an in- 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 1G4.
 
 150 CHECKS TO POPULATION. [Book I, 
 
 " crease, and, after a certain period, its further progress 
 " will be again checked by the same causes \" The 
 operation of these cliecks in civilized life (if, under 
 these views of human nature, any such state exist) 
 is more diffusively explained, but in terms still more 
 abhorrent to one's feelings, such as (in addition to the 
 foregoing) " promiscuous intercourse, unnatural pas- 
 " sions, violations of the marriage bed, and impro- 
 " per arts to conceal the consecjuences of irregular con- 
 " nexions ^." These last are a sufficient specimen of 
 the preventive checks, as they are called, which, with 
 the positive ones, of a very similar nature, it is de- 
 clared, are " some of them in constant operation in 
 every country, with more or less force ^;" and " yet, 
 '' notwithstanding their general prevalence," he adds, 
 " there are few states in which there is not a constant 
 " effort in the population to increase beyond the means 
 " of subsistence ^." The disease of Nature is, therefore, 
 it seems, incurable, notwithstanding the loathsome 
 medicine which is to be perpetually administered. 
 
 (4) And is this the principle, then, which, as men 
 and as Christians, we are required to believe is that 
 by which a Being of infinite wisdom, purity, and 
 benevolence regulates his offspring? God forbid! 
 Which is the Deity, even in the dsemonology of pagan- 
 ism, (creation, as it was, of the impure and inliuman 
 imaginations of the heathen world,) whether placed 
 in Hell or Heaven, on whom so cruel and corrupt a 
 system could be filiated ? 
 
 (5) But the evidence which religion, natural and 
 revealed, gives against this daring and disgusting sys- 
 tem, constitutes a separate argument : it will, there- 
 fore, be only barely remarked here, that the wisdom of 
 
 1 IMalthus, Essay on PopiJation, p. 15. ^ HjJj^ ^ 12. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 11. 4 Ibid., p. 12.
 
 Chap. IX.] WAR. 161 
 
 tlic Supreme Being is as deeply implicated in the 
 suppositions it involves, as liis power and goodness. 
 These checks are not calculated to answer the end, 
 which they are brought forward, in this theory, to ac- 
 complish, namely, the adjusting of the numbers of 
 mankind to their food, nor have they ever done so, 
 at least so the facts recorded in history instruct us. 
 A very slight examination, and but little consideration 
 of the proofs adduced in its favour, will suffice to 
 shew us, that they are not generated by the assumed 
 redundancy, which they are represented as repress- 
 ing; — that they act the most vigorously, when they 
 are obviously the least wanted ; that, on the other 
 hand, when, as it should seem, they ought to be the 
 most efficient, they operate the least, if indeed at all. 
 In a word, the greatest havoc committed by these 
 " positive checks," as they are called, is when the 
 population is the thinnest; as it increases, they continue 
 to diminish their effi)rts, till it has become greatly 
 enlarged, when they are still more slight and inter- 
 mitted ; and, in many happy instances, they almost 
 entirely cease. The system, therefore, embodies a 
 tissue of contradictions and absurdities, which nothino- 
 can heighten, except the belief of its being that of 
 Nature and Providence. 
 
 (6) It is not, however, by any means the purpose of 
 this treatise to deny the existence of these checks; 
 but to shew that the principle of population never 
 necessarily called them into existence, or required 
 their interference in adjusting its numbers to the 
 means of subsistence ; and that these scourges of the 
 human race have always had the effect of aggrava- 
 ting, if not of creating, the very sufferings they are 
 supposed by the theory in question to remedy. I
 
 152 CHECKS TO POPULATION. [Book I. 
 
 shall consider these checks in something like the order 
 in which they are announced. 
 
 (7) First, then, in regard to that " great pest of 
 the human race," long the first and most fatal check to 
 their increase, — war. Perhaps it will be necessary to 
 enter, primarily, into a consideration of its princi- 
 pal causes ; referring the examination of its effects 
 to a subsequent view of the subject, in which the in- 
 fluence of an increasing population on the condition 
 of mankind will be placed under review, especially in 
 those times and countries appealed to for a contrary 
 purpose. 
 
 (8) The writer of the Essay on Population having, 
 as he supposes, in his first five pages, established the 
 principle of human increase, which he asserts to be 
 superior to that of the means of subsistence, and even 
 to the room which is provided for it, in the overwhelm- 
 ing disproportion already explained, states this to be 
 the simple cause of the atrocities we are about to 
 mention ^ Granting him his premises, the conclu- 
 sions, however " harsh," at which he has arrived, are 
 incontrovertible. War, therefore, with all its " pro- 
 " digious waste of human life, is occasioned by a 
 " perpetual struggle for room and food^." 
 
 (9) Now in all the wars which have desolated the 
 earth, and afflicted the human race, since their history 
 has been known ; and they have been so numerous 
 and continued, as to have caused a writer, often re- 
 ferred to on this point, to represent a state of warfare 
 as that of Nature^ (it is unquestionably that of unci- 
 vilized nature), it may be affirmed, that not one in one 
 thousand of them has ever been entered into, even 
 under the colourable pretext of " a struggle for room 
 
 - ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 73. « Ibid., p. 67. =* Hobbes.
 
 Chap. IX.] WAR. 153 
 
 and food ;" and, what is more to tlie purpose, there has 
 not been one solitary instance, in which svich a pretence 
 woukl have been valid. If, instead of Ambition, Re- 
 venge, Malice, Covetousness, Wantonness, and Cruelty, 
 being the causes of these breaches of the peace of God, 
 they were all in reality occasioned by want of food, or, 
 in other words, dictated by necessity, a reasonable ex- 
 cuse, if not an entire justification, on the plain prin- 
 ciple of self-preservation, is at once set up for these 
 multitudinous murders. In vain an inspired writer 
 tells us that wars and fightings proceed from the un- 
 reasonable and corrupt desires of our nature^, and innu- 
 merable authorities, inspired by truth itself, assure us of 
 the same deplorable fact ; the system which is now to 
 dictate to the philosophy and philanthropy of the age, 
 informs us, that their " simple cause is the superiority 
 " of the power of population to the means of subsist- 
 " ence . 
 
 (10) It is so palpably plain, however, that wars have 
 been constantly waged without even the shadow of 
 such a sanction, that it seems almost unnecessary to 
 pursue this branch of the discussion : this author, never- 
 theless, adduces numerous instances which, he con- 
 ceives, prove his position ; a few of these shall, there- 
 fore, be examined, on which I would be well content 
 to rest the whole argument, which indeed they very 
 fairly exemplify. 
 
 (1 1) In the commencement of one of his chapters, 
 he asserts, that a history of the early migrations of man- 
 kind " would illustrate, in a striking manner, the con- 
 " stant tendency in the human race to increase beyond 
 " the means of subsistence^," and speaks of the strong 
 goad of necessity as occasioning them ; in which I should 
 have agreed with him, had he included those equally 
 
 ' St. James, Epistle, ch. iv., v. 1, 2. ' Ibid., p. 65. 
 
 * Malthus, Essay onPopulation, p. 75.
 
 154 CHECKS TO POPULATION. [Book I, 
 
 strono,' and co-operating causes developed in my pre- 
 ceding- chapter. He proceeds to exemplify his meaning 
 by what he again calls a " striking illustration," and 
 striking indeed it is in its application, as Lord Bacon 
 remarks ; who, it is somewhat singular, has observed on 
 the very same passage of Sacred History, brought for- 
 ward, it appears, in his time, for a very similar pur- 
 pose, " Certainly I should never have brought that 
 example on that side^" It is that strife or war re- 
 corded in the Old Testament, between the herdsmen 
 of Abram and Lot^. This, I say, he thinks " a strik- 
 " ing illustration of that great spring of action which 
 " drove the less fortunate inhabitants of the o-lobe, 
 " yielding to irresistible pressure, to seek a scanty 
 " subsistence in the burning deserts of Asia and 
 " Africa, and in the frozen regions of Siberia and 
 " North America^,"' and which he ought, in fairness, 
 to have added, doomed them to encounter, in those 
 inhospitable regions and burning deserts which they 
 made their asylum, the malignant principle from which 
 they fled, which, according to this theory, is gifted 
 with an ubiquity refused by our divines to the Arch- 
 enemy of mankind. 
 
 (12) In direct opposition to this, I maintain that 
 the instance adduced is a striking illustration of a prin- 
 ciple directly contrary to that which the writer intends 
 to support. It furnishes not only a negative, but a 
 positive proof, that the means of human subsistence, 
 when properly developed, have a constant tendency to 
 increase beyond the primary wants of the human race. 
 It was not the "pressing necessities" of the households 
 of Lot and Abram that occasioned this contest, but 
 superfluous wealth, which, as a heathen writer ob- 
 served long ago, had been " the cause of war through 
 
 ' Bacon, "Works, vol. iii., p. 293. ^ Ibid., pp. 65, 66, 
 
 ^ Maltlius, Essay on Population, p. 65.
 
 Chap. IX.] WAR. 155 
 
 all ages and countries of the workP ;" and it is still, in 
 a great plurality of cases, the source of human quar- 
 rels and contentions, whether domestic or national. 
 Abram was " very rich in cattle," as well as in silver 
 and gold ; Lot also had flocks and herds and tents, so 
 that, altogether, "the land was not able to bear them." 
 Why ? Because it was insufficient to provide them with 
 subsistence? No! but because " their substance was 
 very great." It had increased upon them, after having 
 abundantly satisfied their necessities. Hence there 
 was strife between the herdsmen. To call this a 
 struggle for " room and food" is as gross a perversion 
 of the meaning of words as can be conceived ; it was 
 the rivalry of exorbitant wealth. Even before the 
 agricultural arts prevailed to any material extent, and 
 when pastoral pursuits, requiring so large an extent of 
 country, occupied them almost exclusively, the land 
 was still nearly unoccupied. " Is not the whole land 
 " before thee ?" said the generous Patriarch to his more 
 selfish kinsman, leaving him the choice ; when " Lot 
 " lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan, 
 " even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of 
 " Egypt as thou comest unto Zoar," and chose that 
 tract as his future residence, while Abram dwelt in the 
 more sterile region of Canaan. Thus the families of the 
 two brethren struggled, as Mr. Malthus represents it, 
 for room and food, in a country which afterwards susr 
 tained, in plenty and happiness, millions of their de- 
 scendants, when the hand of necessity, that mighty 
 and unfailing means of human prosperity, already 
 so much adverted to, had opened the secret and inex- 
 haustible springs of abundance ; and the strife ceased 
 as the fraternal families increased and multiplied. 
 (13) Certainly, then, this instance proves directly 
 
 ^ Justiiij 1. ii., c, 2,
 
 15G CHECKS TO POPULATION. [Book I. 
 
 tlie reverse of what it was intended to prove : it fur- 
 nishes, perhaps, as apt and forcible an illustration of a 
 contrary principle of population as can be conceived. 
 It overturns the ratios so often mentioned, not only as it 
 respects the magnitude of the absurdities they involve, 
 l)ut the very principle on which they are founded, and 
 shews that human industry, when properly developed, 
 has a constant tendency to increase the means of sub- 
 sistence beyond the natural increase of human beings 
 when entirely unchecked. It forcibly exhibits a fact 
 we are about to prove from profane history, that war, 
 generally speaking, does not originate in want, but 
 rather in those bad passions of mankind which wealth 
 and power too often engender : and finally, it instructs 
 us, by the event, of the disastrous consequences of a 
 hostile rivalry, or a forcible separation of the human 
 family. "We see what followed of it," says Lord 
 Bacon; "how that this separation, ad dextrcm, et ad 
 " sinistram, caused the miserable captivity of one bro- 
 " ther, and the dangerous, though prosperous, war of 
 " the other, for his rescue and recovery^" 
 
 (14) And this allusion of Lord Bacon reminds us 
 of the earliest war, properly so called, upon record ; 
 unless we may so call the murderous attack of Cain ; 
 which, at all events, was no struggle for room or food, 
 though quite as much so as most of those outrages 
 which, from that fatal hour, to the present moment, have 
 stained the annals of mankind. I now refer to the war 
 of the same noble Patriarch, Abram, with the tyrant 
 Chedorlaomer, not only as the first, at least upon re- 
 cord, but as originating in a cause more righteous, and 
 conducted to its conclusion with a magnanimity and 
 heroism greater than perhaps any since mentioned in 
 the universal page of history ; exhibiting " the friend 
 
 ' Eacon, Works, vol. iii., p. 298.
 
 Chap. IX.] WAR. 157 
 
 of God/' and, consequently, of man, in the strange at- 
 titude of a warrior and a victor ! But this, the earliest 
 campaign of all antiquity, is not alluded to by our 
 author, and for a reason obvious enough ; for though 
 uniting, either on one side or the other, almost all the 
 motives that have ever mingled in these bloody contests, 
 and exhibiting so fully, though succinctly, most of the 
 consequences with which they are attended, no human 
 ingenuity could reconcile any portion of its history to 
 the supposition of its being a struggle for room and 
 food. Chedorlaomer had enslaved the surrounding- 
 nations; they rebelled; he proceeded against them, 
 and conquered. But he did not extirpate the van- 
 quished to spread his own people over the conquered 
 countries; on the contrar}^, he carried their mouths 
 (as the Chinese express themselves) with him to his 
 own ; and, consequently, he could not have warred 
 from a want of room or food. Lot, the kinsman and 
 ally of Abram, and, no doubt, innocent of aggression, 
 was one of the captives ; otherwise the latter might 
 not, perhaps, have been so prompt to interfere in the 
 doubtful disputes of the neighbouring heathen. But 
 he no sooner hears, than prudently confederating with 
 his peaceful neighbours, he arms his own household, 
 and, planning his method of attack, he divides 
 them. Superior to the contemptible superstition 
 of those who, in after times, deemed all but them- 
 selves barbarians, he fell upon the enemy by night ; 
 and, still more unlike their cruelty, though he smote 
 and pursued them till he had recovered all the spoil, 
 the women also and the people, and especially his 
 brother Lot and his goods, there is no intimation that 
 he followed up the victory a step farther, or shed 
 an additional drop of blood ; much less did he as- 
 sume what were afterwards called " the rights of con-
 
 158 CHECKS TO POPULATION. [Book T; 
 
 quest," in seizing tlieir territory or enslaving a soul of 
 them. Nor did he, like the heathen of succeeding 
 times, sacrifice any portion of the bloody spoils of war 
 to his purer Deity ; but, through his Priest, who met 
 and refreshed him after his achievement, he devoted 
 a part of his own substance in solemn and grateful 
 memorial to his God ! refusing to receive, either as 
 a principal or a mercenary, any share of the spoils he 
 had recovered from those he had liberated : he was not, 
 however, unmindful of the claims of those who had 
 confederated with him. As to himself, " he had lift 
 " up his hand to the Most High God, the possessor 
 " of heaven and earth, that he would not take from a 
 " thread to a shoe latchet " — as it appears that, amidst 
 all those sublimer motives by which this wonderful 
 human being seemed always to be inspired, he was 
 not regardless of that fair fame to which none but 
 debased minds are insensible: "Lest," said the disin- 
 terested and noble-hearted Patriarch, "they should 
 say, I have made Abram rich ! " So much for this 
 godlike hero ; and the nations might beat their swords 
 into ploughshares, if they would consent to wait an 
 equal justification, before they again joined in their 
 crusades against human existence. 
 
 (15) I hope few will feel that this digression demands 
 an apology ; if it should, I would observe, that Mr. 
 Malthus himself has led me into it, by a reference 
 to the same book and to the same principal charac- 
 ters, with what effect is left to the reader's judg- 
 ment. I shall now quit the sacred annals, and 
 follow this author into profane history ; in which, I 
 think, it will appear as plain as it does from that 
 passage in the sacred books with which we have 
 both commenced, that those wars which have so 
 deeply disfigured its pages and disgraced mankind,
 
 Clmp. IX.] WAR. 1 59 
 
 have not originated in a deficiency of room or food ; 
 but, on the contrary, and to express myself in the lan- 
 guage of Polybius, " in the abundance of all necessa- 
 " ries, exceeding the demands of Nature \" " It is 
 " the lust of wealth," as the same author continues to 
 observe, instancing the Cretans in exemplification of 
 his assertion, " which gives birth continually to private 
 " contests and public dissensions and divisions, produc- 
 " ing murders and intestine wars" " — a view of the 
 subject, which the philosophy as well as the history 
 of human nature abundantl}^ confirms. 
 
 (16) But, supposing in this appeal we were occa- 
 sionally to find a horde of barbarians, who to excuse 
 their plundering irruptions into a fairer region, com- 
 plained that themselves and their families had not a 
 square mile each whereon to subsist ; or nations, pro- 
 fessing something like civilization, cursing their fate 
 and the sterility of their soil, because they could not 
 subsist their numbers in habits of inveterate sloth, or 
 by expatiating in the chase only ; knowing, as we now 
 do, that the very same districts would then have sus- 
 tained ten times their numbers, in at least a ten-fold 
 state of plenty, because they have since done, and 
 still continue to do so ; are we to take their recorded 
 murmurings as a proof of the evil of the principle of 
 population, against the experience of after-ages, and 
 even the evidence of our own senses ? God forbid ! 
 The plea of the sluggard for his wretchedness, or of 
 the highwayman and assassin for their crimes, would 
 be valid, were theirs admitted to be just. 
 
 (17) But before I give a further consideration to 
 the subject, I would make one important observation, 
 and it is this : — Mr. Malthus, in the discussion into 
 which I am about to follow him, has adroitly, and 
 most completely, changed his ground. His first five 
 
 ' Polybius, 1. vi., ex. 3. " Ihid,
 
 160 CHECKS TO POPULATION. [Book I. 
 
 pages, in which he thinks his theory demonstrated, 
 exhibit the increase of the human race, contrasted 
 with that of their utmost possible means of subsist- 
 ence : here he refers to the actual production of food, 
 which is totally and essentially different to the poten- 
 tial produce, which last is the sole point at issue ; at 
 least, the only one which I should deem it wortli while 
 to spend a single word about. And, moreover, I 
 must assert, most distinctly, and I trust it will be 
 clearly recollected throughout, that it is not because 
 I doubt population having been checked, or dispute 
 its having been checked by the means enumerated, 
 that I engage in this controversy; the fact has been too 
 obvious, in every age of the world to be denied ; but the 
 dispute is this : — whether, at any period of its history, 
 these checks have been necessary, and whether they 
 have increased the plenty and promoted the prosperity 
 of the human race. The assumption of this necessity, 
 is the foundation on which his entire theory is erected; 
 and, whether insinuated by indirect allusions, or as- 
 serted in plain terms, it is always implied. On the 
 contrary, it is my purpose to shew that these checks, 
 and especially the principal one. War, have been the 
 means of diminishing the natural plenty which man- 
 kind would otherwise have enjoyed ; of keeping them 
 in barbarism, or of reducing them to that state. And 
 in those ages and countries more especially, to which 
 the author under consideration has referred us, man- 
 kind have been so thinned by them, and their natural 
 increase diminished so greatly, that they could not, 
 even themselves, with the slightest semblance of 
 truth, make the plea which he suggests, namely, a 
 want of room and food ; to the struggle for which, he 
 attributes most of those wars that so lono- afflicted and 
 desolated many of the fairest regions of the globe. 
 (18) Let us inquire then, whether we are warranted
 
 Chap. IX.] WAR. ICl 
 
 by profane liistory, in describing tliat greatest pest 
 of human beings, war, as a struggle for room and food. 
 In pursuing this subject, I shall not pay much at- 
 tention either to chronological or geographical con- 
 nexion, but meet it by facts, in the order in which they 
 present themselves to my recollection. 
 
 (19) Ancient Scythia was probably possessed by 
 some of the earliest tribes of the human family ^, and 
 sent forth in succession those numerous bands which 
 in after times emerged to notice in various parts of the 
 old world, and, as it is now generally believed, even 
 in the new^, under a variety of names, but still pre- 
 serving very unequivocal marks of their original iden- 
 tity. But these ancient migrations were no struggle for 
 room ; the Scythians then were, and still are, a wander- 
 ing race, and that by choice, not from necessity. They 
 never yet adequately possessed even their own country. 
 The most ancient profane historian extant, corrobo- 
 rated by subsequent ones, informs us, that they did 
 not, with the exception of certain tribes^, cultivate 
 the ground ^, which he describes as excellent ^ ; but 
 led a pastoral and nomadic life '^ ; whole nations of 
 them, indeed, subsisting entirely by the chace"^; that 
 the rest were supplied, generally, by their cattle^ ; 
 and not by agriculture : and that, without towns or 
 fortified places, they made their constant abode their 
 waggons^ : in which fact he is confirmed by Hippo- 
 crates^*^. And, notwithstanding these habits of exist- 
 ence must have spread them over a vast tract of 
 
 ' Justin, 1. ii., c. 1. " Scytharum gens ' Herodotus, Melpom., § 23, 53. 
 
 " semper antiquissima." "In Scythia ^ Ihid., Melpom., §4G, 2. Justin, 1. ii., 
 
 " Saga renatum esse mortale genus." — c. 3. 
 
 Fortius Cato. ^ Ihiil., Melpom., § 22. 
 
 ^ Beloe, Trans, of Herod., vol. ii., ^ Ibid., Melpom., ^ 4G. Justin, 1. ii. 
 
 p. 419, note. c. 2. 
 
 =* Herodotus, Melpom., § .')2. ^ Ibid., Melpom. Justin, lib. ii., c. 2. 
 
 * Ibid , Melpom., ^^ 2. Justin, 1. ii., '" Hippocrates, He Aere, Locis, et 
 
 c. 2. Aquis, § iii., p. 292, 1. 48. 
 
 Vol. L M
 
 162 CHECKS TO POPULATION. [Book 1. 
 
 country, in proportion to their numbers ; still he re- 
 presents much of their immense territories as wholly 
 uninhabited \ I shall lastly remark, that he describes 
 them as "possessing the greatest abundance^." He 
 mentions the wars of this singular race at considerable 
 length, and develops the causes and consequences of 
 them ^ ; but it is needless to add, that a struggle for 
 room or food was too absurd a supposition to be ad- 
 mitted amongst the number of the motives to hostility 
 which were constantly exciting this restless race ; nor 
 did it ever become one. Centuries after, their pa- 
 ternal tribes are described by Horace as still in a 
 similar state ; 
 
 " Campestres melius Scythae 
 Quorum plaustra vagas rite trahunt domos * :" 
 
 Nor have they materially varied from this state of life, 
 to the present moment. " In every age," says Gibbon, 
 "the immense plains of Scythia, or Tartary, have 
 " been inhabited by vagrant tribes of hunters or shep- 
 " herds, whose indolence refuses to cultivate the earth, 
 " and whose restless spirit disdains the confinement 
 "of a sedentary life^" Mitford mentions them as 
 a race whose circumstances and manners have been a 
 preserved unaltered through hundreds of generations. 
 In this respect, he says, "the people of that vast 
 " country, called Scythia by the Greeks, and by the 
 " moderns, Tartary, are particularly remarkable. The 
 " description which Justin, after Trogus Pompeius, 
 " gives of the Scythians, is equally just, as far as our 
 " knowledge goes, for all former and all succeeding 
 " ages. They wander over, rather than possess, a, 
 " country of immense extent. Exercising nb tillage, 
 
 ' Herodotus, Melpom., vS 17, 18,20, 104, 105, 106; Melpom., ^ 1 ; Erato, 
 
 22,40,54. ■ §40, &c. 
 
 2 Ibid., Melpom., § 61. 4 Horace, Carm., 1. ill. 25. 
 
 3 Ibid., Melpom., § I ; Clio, ^s 73, » GibboH; Decline and Fall.
 
 Chap. IX.] WAR. ' IGIJ 
 
 " they claim no property in land ; tliey hold in ab- 
 " horrence and scorn the confinement of a fixed habi- 
 " tation, roaming perpetually, with their families and 
 " herds, from pasture to pasture, over a boundless 
 " wilderness \ Instinctively fond of wandering, they 
 " were likely to be inspired with a desire to wander 
 " among the possessions of their more settled neigh- 
 " hours. And though their manner of life is little 
 " above brutes, yet it has always been that of gre- 
 " garious brutes. They migrate in such multitudes, 
 " that their progression is scarcely resistible. War 
 " was, moreover, their peculiar delight, and mercy 
 " and human kindness were totally alien from their 
 " nature^." " Thrice," says the same author, " in very 
 " early times, these vagabonds are said to have over- 
 " run Asia ^ ; " and their subsequent migrations are 
 matters of too frequent occurrence, and of too much 
 notoriety, to be enumerated *. Nor will they, in all 
 probability, cease altogether, till the population of the 
 surrounding nations shall have so accumulated as to 
 render them impracticable. One of the latest of these 
 took place little more than half a century ago, when 
 nearly sixty thousand families removed at once from 
 the Wolga to the Balchaler Lake^. 
 
 (20) I shall pause a moment to remark, that the 
 tribe last mentioned had increased very slowly, if at 
 all, during upwards of a century; for which fact, so 
 contradictory to his theory, Mr. Malthus assigns a 
 " probable" reason, for which few indeed are ever at a 
 loss^; I prefer, however, the positive one assigned by 
 Hippocrates, who had observed the same fact more 
 than two thousand years ago, in reference to the 
 
 ' Mitford, Hist, of Greece, vol. i., 4 Rennel. 
 
 pp. 287, 288. ^ Tooke. View of the Russian Em- 
 
 2 Ilnd.; vol. i., pp. 288, 289. pire, vol. ii'., h. 2., pp. 29, 30, 31. 
 
 3 Ibid., vol. i., p. 290. "^ Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 97 . 
 
 M 2
 
 1G4 CHECKS TO POPULATION. [Book I. 
 
 same people, especially as every observation worthy 
 of notice has confirmed his view of the subject. It is 
 not " want of pasturage," or labour and distress, that 
 diminish the fecundity of the human race, but directly 
 the contrary, — indolence ^ 
 
 (21) But, to return; in none of the mig-ratory wars 
 of this people, such as those with the Cimmerians, for 
 instance ^, or with the Medes, when they seized upon 
 the government of Asia, in their perambulations, as 
 Usher says their contests may well be called''^; sub- 
 sequently pursuing their march towards Egypt, and 
 pushing forward, in various directions, till, after a 
 long absence, they returned to their own country, 
 where they had left their wives and children^, can 
 any human ingenuity construe their movements into 
 a search and struggle for room and food ? The very 
 supposition, as applied to an immense country, emi- 
 nently fertile by nature, and possessed, or, as Mit- 
 ford says, "rather wandered over than possessed," 
 by a handful of human beings, comparatively speak- 
 ing, is surely a satire upon the system it is meant to 
 support. I shall not, therefore, follow the same author 
 through the reasons he assigns for this desolation, in 
 his chapter on the pastoral nations : many of them ap- 
 pear to me sufficiently whimsical, but I shall content 
 myself with simply asserting, that the checks to 
 population, whatever they may have been, are the 
 original, continued, and still existing curses of the 
 country. What the system I am opposing represents 
 as the disease, is the sole remedy for this state of 
 existence. If ever this savage race of human beings 
 rise to the dignity of a civilized and intellectual 
 
 ' Hippocrates, De Acre et Locis, § iii., s Usher, Annals, p. 78. 
 P- ~^~- . •• Herodotus, Clio, § 105. 
 
 - Herodotus, Melpom., ^^12.
 
 Chap. IX.] WAR. 165 
 
 nation, it will be by means of the principle of in- 
 crease which that system pronounces as an evil. Man, 
 indeed, may continue to exist as a Nimrod, " a mig;hty 
 hunter before the Lord," and either preserve a wilder- 
 ness around him, or, like the Norman Conqueror, create 
 one ; but his indolence and ferocity are no proofs of 
 the evils of the principle of population; nor is one 
 iota of all the misery they occasion attributable to 
 Providence, or, in other words, " to the simple cause 
 " of the superiority of the power of population to the 
 " means of subsistence." 
 
 (22) I have dwelt the longer on this part of the 
 subject, inasmuch as it is generally supposed, that 
 from this people originally sprang those northern bar- 
 barians, to whose wars and irruptions Mr. Malthus 
 directs our particular attention, as well as the savages 
 of North America, whose habits appear so similar; 
 those of the south of that continent having proceeded, 
 as some believe, from the corresponding part of the 
 old world, southern Asia. However that may be, the 
 habits of barbarism are, in these cases, the same ; for 
 which the history of the species warrants us in assert- 
 ing, there is no cure but an increase of population ; and 
 it was natural, therefore, to consider these habits, in 
 reference to the question, and to trace them, as near 
 as possible, up to their very source. 
 
 (23) Many words will not be wasted on the wars 
 for empire waged by the Assyrian or Persian monar- 
 chies ; it being impossible that these should be con- 
 strued into " struggles for room and food." Their 
 common practice of desolating the countries they 
 conquered, and of increasing the population of the 
 central seats of their empires by their numerous cap- 
 tives, wholly negatives any such idea. Let the one 
 memorable war of Nebuchadnezzar against the Jews
 
 1G6 CHECKS TO POPULATION. [Book I. 
 
 suffice to exemplify tliis, when the latter were con- 
 quered, their country was desolated, and the principal 
 part of their nation carried away as captives, and 
 seated in the most densely-peopled district in his 
 empire, or probably in the universe, — " by the waters 
 of Babylon ^" 
 
 (24) Perhaps, having thus alluded to the first two 
 universal monarchies, I might as well here conclude 
 my observations on the quaternion ; for, as it regards 
 the subject under consideration, they may be all, most 
 properly, classed together. Concerning the third of 
 these, then, the Macedonian, none, I think, will pre- 
 sume to say, that Alexander, a name unrivalled in 
 the annals of warfare, commenced his wonderful 
 career, or wept at its termination, from a want of room 
 or food. As to the Roman triumphs, whether amongst 
 the distant Asiatics, or on the northern or southern 
 frontiers of that extended empire ; in Africa, in Ger- 
 many, or in the then almost unknown, and certainly 
 unoffending island we inhabit, not one of them had 
 any such apology. Without a hyperbole, the annals 
 of these boasted empires are written in blood ; their 
 history is but one continued series of aggressions and 
 cruelties, for which it is no extenuation to say, that 
 the Supreme Arbiter of events has ultimately over- 
 ruled them, for the good of mankind. But, were all 
 these accumulated horrors and atrocities resolvable 
 mto that invariable and irresistible law of animal 
 creation, necessity, or, in other terms, into the law of 
 population, as now expounded, they are, in the sight 
 of both God and man, excusable, if not even meri- 
 torious. But the universal and eternal Parent of 
 Mankind rolls back the impious accusation against his 
 providence ; and, if there be another world, and man 
 
 1 Psalm 137.
 
 Chap. IX. 1 WAR. 167 
 
 be a responsible creature, these outrag-es on liis peace 
 will have to be accounted for on a very different 
 principle to that of the modern theory of p()])ulation. 
 
 (25) Perhaps it may be objected, that most of the 
 foregoing' examples are upon too extensive a scale to 
 illustrate the point at issue, and that it is unsafe to 
 build any particular deductions on general views. 
 Indeed, it is thought, by tiie author to whom I prin- 
 cipally refer, that the subject is seen the clearest, 
 when the example is the most narrowed^; which I 
 cannot but think a singular axiom for one who has 
 erected his entire system upon generalities, and 
 neither a very safe nor a philosophical one as applied 
 to the subject before us ; because, in thus " narrow- 
 ing" our views, we may chance to take individual 
 exceptions for general rules, and personal and party 
 prejudices for universal truths. Before this work is 
 concluded, however, any objections of this nature will 
 be completely obviated, and the subject will be suffi- 
 ciently narrowed by being reduced to a matter of indi- 
 vidual calculation. But, in the mean time, to meet 
 this objection also, the consideration of war, as one of 
 the principal checks to population, as well as in fur- 
 ther proof of the fundamental errors entertained in the 
 hypothesis under consideration, both as to its origin 
 and necessity, will be further pursued in the form of a 
 more minute inquiry. 
 
 (26) I shall sum up the argument of this chapter, 
 in the words of Sir Matthew Hale, an authority on all 
 subjects on which he touched, and especially upon 
 that of population, on which his principal work was 
 written. "We never knew wars to grow merely 
 
 vJPON ACCOUNT OF THE FULNESS OF ANY COUNTRY ^" 
 
 > Maltluis, Essay on Population, ^ Hale, Orij,nnation of IVLinkiud, 
 pp. 163, 194, &c. § ii., c. xii. p. 240.
 
 168 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OF THE WARS, MIGRATIONS, AND COLONIZATIONS 
 
 OF ANCIENT GREECE, AS AFFECTED 
 
 BY POPULATION. 
 
 (1) I SHALL now examine the evidence afforded by the 
 history of Greece, in reference to the important question 
 at issue ; especially as the author I am still consider- 
 ing has directed our attention to the early condition 
 of that interesting country, as well as to the opinions 
 of its philosophers on the subject of the principle of 
 population. To these opinions I shall hereafter ad- 
 vert ; when it will be seen how greatly they have been 
 misrepresented ; and shall now consider whether the 
 condition of Greece, at any period of its history, 
 afforded the least colour for the deductions which are 
 professedly draMn from it, in favour of the notion of 
 human superfecundity. 
 
 (2) Again, however, let it be remembered, that 
 the principle I hope to establish, not only admits, but 
 requires, that in a country thinly peopled, as was 
 Greece, the inhabitants should be prolific ; but I shall 
 shew that that prolificness had never been allowed so 
 to develop itself, as to render the " direct checks" to 
 population even apparently necessary, or otherwise 
 than what they always are in themselves, as well as in 
 their effects, — direct and obvious curses. 
 
 (3) After having mentioned the early division 
 of Greece into small states, this author deduces 
 thence, that there was " considerable attention to 
 agriculture^" which he represents as a prevailing 
 
 ^ Malthus, Essay ou Population, p. 1G3.
 
 Chap.X.] AVARS, MIGRATIONS, &c. 169 
 
 pursuit, and intimates, tliat " each proprietor would 
 " be induced to cultivate his land to the utmost ." 
 Then come the inevitable consequences accord- 
 ing to his system. " Population," notwithstanding 
 all this cultivation, " followed the products of the 
 " earth with more than equal pace; and when the 
 " overflowing numbers were not taken off by the 
 " drains of war or disease, they found vent in frequent 
 " and repeated colonization"." These consequences, 
 he says, were brought home to every thinking person, 
 and were very clearly seen and distinctly traced to 
 their source. " The strong tendency of population to 
 " increase beyond the means of subsistence was, it 
 " seems, known to the legislators and philosophers of 
 " those times," who regarded the question, therefore^ 
 " as deeply affecting the happiness and tranquillity of 
 " society." To some of these " thinking persons," 
 happily for the argument, we can still appeal. 
 
 (4) And first, as it regards this supposition of the 
 minute and universal culture of Greece, on which basis 
 the whole argument necessarily rests. The free citi- 
 zens of the different states, we know were, in reference 
 to the extent of country they possessed, extremely few^. 
 It follows, therefore, as an inevitable conclusion, either 
 that the territories of Greece were not minutely subdi- 
 vided, or, if thus apportioned, that immense tracts still 
 remained unappropriated and uncultivated. Both of 
 these conclusions are partly the fact, and either of 
 them is fatal to all that has been advanced by Mr. 
 Malthus concerning Greece, even upon his own shew- 
 ing, when he says, that, in the absence of other pur- 
 suits, their ind\istry was principally directed to agri- 
 culture ■*. And furthermore, whatever part of the sur- 
 
 ' MalthuS) Essay on Population, p. ^ See Hume's Essay on Populousness 
 162. of Ancient Nations, p. 240. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 1C3.] " Malthus, p. 1G3.
 
 170 WARS, MIGRATIONS, AND COLONIZATIONS [Book I. 
 
 face might be under culture, we may be perfectly sure 
 that it was very imperfectly improved ; the single fact, 
 that it was generally committed to slaves ^, is, with 
 any one who has the least knowledge of the matter, 
 quite decisive. And, lastly, I have the authority of 
 some of the most " thinking persons" of Greece, for 
 concluding that, in the very brightest periods of Gre- 
 cian history, agriculture was so far from being fostered, 
 that it was positively despised. Plato expresses him- 
 self with the utmost indignation on the subject, ex- 
 claiming, " what shall we say of those free-born men 
 who voluntarily engage in servile employments V — 
 amongst the meanest of which he ranks — husbandry ^ ! 
 Nor does Aristotle, I am sorry to add, speak in much 
 more favourable terms concerning agricultural pur- 
 suits ^. 
 
 (5) Enough, therefore, has been advanced, were 
 we not to proceed a single step further in the argu- 
 ment, to prove that it is perfectly idle to suppose that 
 Greece, even in its brightest periods, was ever over- 
 peopled if its surface had been duly cultivated : and, 
 without adequate cultivation, had there not been one 
 hundredth part of the existing population, they would 
 have been still " redundant." 
 
 (6) But as the history of Greece is so frequently 
 appealed to, and furnishes, as I confess, so very forci- 
 ble an illustration of the principle at issue, I shall 
 pursue the present inquiry, in reference to that coun- 
 try, a little further. And, in resuming the considera- 
 tion, whether War, the check we are still examining, 
 is, or ever has been in reality, a struggle for room and 
 food, perhaps no civilized part of the earth, from its 
 early dawn to the present hour, is a fitter test whereby 
 
 ' Arist., P.olit., lib. vii., c. 9. Demost., ^ pi^to, Polit. 
 Orat. m Aristog. Plato in Critia. 3 Aristotle, De Repub., lib. iv.
 
 Chap. X.] OF ANCIENT GREECE. 171 
 
 to determine the argument ; no people, perhaps, hav- 
 ing ever been more ince.ssantly engaged in it, in every 
 possible form ; whether as invaders or as the invaded, 
 or in its still more horrid character of intestine hos- 
 tility. Some of the " thinking persons" amongst them 
 have recorded many of these ftital contests, and they 
 could not well overlook their causes, especially as it 
 seemed to be the peculiar taste and habit of both 
 their historians and their poets, to trace to their first 
 springs the course of those events which they set them- 
 selves to perpetuate. 
 
 (7) Greece was probably first inhabited by migra- 
 tions from the provinces bordering on the Euphrates ^, 
 which were certainly amongst the earliest parts of 
 the earth that became populous ; and where the arts 
 of civilization had been longest retained, or soonest 
 taught, by necessity. Passing into countries so pro- 
 pitious to human existence, either wholly or partially 
 uninhabited, the necessity of constant labour was re- 
 laxed, and they soon lost the traces of civilization, and 
 became " inevitably barbarous^," as they would have 
 done by degrees, under similar circumstances, at the 
 present day^. Barbarians, however, have a relish 
 for luxury, and even for excess, at least as strong as 
 their aversion from labour; their bread, therefore, was 
 to be raised by slaves, and their luxuries obtained, 
 not merely from the chace, but by continued plunder : 
 other criminal propensities might contribute their ex- 
 citements ; and all of them together, operating on a fe- 
 rocity of nature induced by such a mode of life, occa- 
 sioned those predatory attacks and piracies by which, 
 Thucydides informs us, the early Greeks principally 
 
 ' Mitford, History of Greece, vol. i., America, vol. ii., p. 32. Warden, Sta- 
 
 P- 292. tistical Accorint of the United States, 
 
 . 2 Ibid., vol. i., p. 4. vol. iii., p. 100. 
 
 ^ Professor Kalm, Travels in North
 
 172 WARS, MIGRATIONS, AND COLONIZATIONS ^ [Book I. 
 
 gained their subsistence ^, and which were held honour- 
 able amongst them^, as they were amongst the northern 
 barbarians^. So universal were they, that in very 
 early times the same historian says, that all the shores, 
 both of the continent and islands, were desolated*. 
 These were the wars of the petty associations which 
 we find to have been the first possessors of all coun- 
 tries. " Greece, thus, in its early days, was in a state 
 " of perpetual marauding and piratical warfare^;" and 
 the ancient inhabitants " had forms and modes of liv- 
 " ing quite similar to those of the present barbarian 
 " world ^." "Thinking," as Mitford paraphrases the 
 historian already quoted, " that a livelihood might be 
 " had anywhere, they were anxious for nothing more. 
 " For being always uncertain when a more powerful 
 " class might covet their territory, they had little en- 
 " couragement to build, or plant, or provide in any 
 " way further than for present need';" agriculture, 
 therefore, was unknown and unpractised^. Now, it is 
 evident that the principle of population could have 
 nothing whatever to do with dictating this state of 
 things. Struggle for room there could be none ; and 
 if there were any for food, it was that it might con- 
 tinue to be obtained on the conditions of barbarism, 
 namely, in idleness and by plunder. 
 
 (8) But the principle I am further about to prove, 
 in direct contradiction to the theory of Mr. Malthus, 
 and by an appeal to that country to which he has so 
 pointedly directed our attention, is not one that is only 
 discoverable in the obscurity of its early and barbarous 
 history. The further we advance, the more clear and 
 
 ' Thucydi.les, lib. i. e Tluicydides, lil). i.. c. 6. 
 
 2 Ibid., lib. i., c. 5. ' Mitford, Hist, of Greece, vol. i., p. 11. 
 
 3 Bartbolin, p. 437, 438. Thucyd., lib. i.. c. 2. 
 
 " Tbucydides, lib. i., c. 7. s Mitford, Hist, of Greece, vol. i., p. 1 1 . 
 
 * Mitford, Ilibt. of Greece, vol. i., p. 1 1,
 
 Chap.X.] OF ANCIENT GREECE.' 1*73 
 
 indisputable it becomes, that war is not a struggle for 
 the means of subsistence ; but, on the contrary, the 
 excess of those means is one of its most fruitful causes. 
 I think an early passage of sacred history heis been 
 fully vindicated from the disgrace of being " a striking 
 illustration of the principle " of population, so called ; 
 and, in like manner, Thucydides, on the very threshold 
 of his immortal work, instead of excusing his country- 
 men and arraigning Providence, by attributing those 
 calamitous contests he was about to relate, to the 
 " simple cause" of the superiority of the power of po- 
 pulation to the means of subsistence, maintains (as we 
 have also seen that Polybius does) exactly the reverse, 
 and traces the wars and mutations of Greece, — those 
 internal, as well as external conflicts, which ended in 
 their ruin, — to wealth of soil and territory ; to those 
 effects which superior riches always produced 
 
 (9) For the wars made upon this singularly inter- 
 esting people, in more advanced periods of their his- 
 tory, we find, to use the language of Herodotus, in 
 reference to one of the earliest of the aggressors, Croe- 
 sus, " various reasons were assigned, in some instances 
 " weighty ; but when such could not be found, frivo- 
 " lous pretexts sufficed^." Amongst these reasons we 
 may feel assured the Lydian monarch neither alleged 
 a want of space nor subsistence. It would be equally 
 absurd to assign any such cause to the still more im- 
 portant and ever memorable war of Xerxes. The 
 several causes for that waged by Philip are enumerated 
 in that monarch's celebrated letter to the Athenian 
 people (one of the most inimitable diplomatic produc- 
 
 MaXifTU 01 T'/is yri; » uoiffrn an tus povto, kki a/j.a vto aWoipuXuiv fJcuXyov 
 
 fiira.lioXa.i tui oix'/ito^mv ii^iv, — ^lec yap ivifhovXlvovTo. — Thllcyil. A. 2. 
 cc^iriiv yn;, al t£ ^vva/j-it; Titri f^ii^ov; ty- ~ lltTodotus, Clio, § 2G, 
 
 yiyvofji,iva.i ffruffii} hfXo'tavv, s| uv \(^ht-
 
 174 WARS, MIGRATIONS, AND COLONIZATIONS [Book 1 
 
 tions on record, which to this hour has made what is 
 known to be the worse seem the better cause ;) but 
 neither for that war which gave so fatal a blow to the 
 liberties of Greece, nor yet for that of the Romans, 
 when they finally perished, was a struggle for room 
 and food amongst the pretexts. 
 
 (10) It would require considerable ingenuity to 
 attribute any one of those numerous external contests, 
 in which the states of Greece were always too forward 
 to engage, whether single or confederated, to the 
 reason assigned by the system now opposed. One of 
 the most memorable of these, for instance, the inva- 
 sion of Sicily by the Athenians, which involved almost 
 all Greece in warfare, originated in a very different 
 cause. So far from the aggressors thinking of ob- 
 taining room or food by means of that expedition, 
 there is reason to think that they did not know any- 
 thing of the resources, and but little even about the 
 size, of the island which was to be invaded. 
 
 (11) But it is, more probably, to the intestine con- 
 tests of that wonderful people, that we were directed 
 to look for the development of that main cause of war 
 under consideration. And a country, where the small- 
 ness of the states, as we are informed, must have 
 brought the subject home to every thinking per- 
 son, seems well adapted to demonstrate so universal 
 a truth, if it had any existence, and to impress 
 it upon the attention of its historians, especially as 
 opportunities of exemplifying it were so unhappily 
 frequent. But the history of the internal contests of 
 Greece never once assumes the appearance of a con- 
 tention for the necessaries of existence. The first 
 invasion of Attica from the Peloponnesus was that of 
 Eurystheus ; and it is attributed solely to persevering
 
 Chap. X.] OF ANCIENT GREECE, 175 
 
 hatred to the Heracleids, who had taken refuge in the 
 former country ^ But " the earliest instance of any- 
 thing approaching to regular war^, " was that of 
 Thebes, immortalized by ZEschylus, Statins, and 
 others ; both the former intimate the causes, and the 
 latter of them has incurred the displeasure of the 
 critics by looking too far back for them, though nei- 
 ther of them have hit upon the real discovery, that 
 it was one of those struggles for room and food 
 which have taken place from " the commencement of 
 society." A greater than either of these, Homer, 
 whom some suppose to have been as accurate as an 
 historian as he was elevated as a poet, has left us in 
 no doubt touching the cause of one of the most 
 memorable contests of antiquity, the Trojan war, — 
 the rape of Helen. It is somewhat singular, that the 
 Father of History also, Herodotus, commences with a 
 war originating from a precisely similar outrage, the 
 rape of lo^. The forces the poet summons to the 
 contest, in his immortal catalooue, and which, meanina- 
 to represent as vast, he asserted, in the person of one 
 of his most experienced warriors, to be more numerous 
 than were ever previously beheld ^ and which he was 
 therefore not very unlikely to exaggerate, as Thu- 
 cydides plainly intimates he did^; give us a clue 
 whereby to estimate the population of Greece at that 
 period. The custom of the times demanding almost 
 all the free males of military age to go to the wars, 
 headed by their respective monarchs, and which we 
 incidentally see was pretty fully observed in this 
 instance, by intimations, throughout, of the chasms that 
 were left in Greece by this fatal contest, leads us to a 
 conclusion, which cannot but prove, most abundantly, 
 
 ' Thucydides, 1. i., c. 9. ■> 'AXX' ov^co rot'ovli rorro^h ti -Kah 
 
 ^ Mitford, Hist, of Greece, v. i., p. 31. oV</<^«. Horn., II. B. 799. 
 3 Herodotus, Clio, c. 1 . 5 Thucydides, lib. i., c. 10.
 
 176 WARS, MIGRATIONS, AND COLONIZATIONS [Book I. 
 
 tliat that celebrated war was not one for want of 
 room : the event proved that such an idea never en- 
 tered into the thoughts of the leaders, for they never 
 dreamt of retaining; any part of the room they had 
 conquered. It is hardly necessary to state, that it was 
 not a ten years' struggle for food. 
 
 (12) Perhaps the next event, of paramount import- 
 ance to Greece, was the return of the Heraclidae ; and, 
 it is needless to say, that this was neither prompted 
 nor promoted by any such cause. The desolating 
 wars that ensued, made indeed room enough, in one 
 sense, but lamentably lessened it in the only one ap- 
 plicable to the argument, by greatly diminishing the 
 means of subsistence for the remainder, and bringing 
 back the fairest parts of Greece to the verge of bar- 
 barism ^ ; an effect that has always followed, and will 
 still continue to follow, a long and effectual struggle 
 for room. It is true, that great spoliation and oppres- 
 sion ensued, and that the victors rewarded their 
 companions in arms and their abettors, as did the 
 Conqueror in this island ; but it is equally untrue, 
 in both cases, that the want alluded to had the 
 least to do with the enterprises which terminated so 
 similarly. 
 
 (13) But I am not attempting a history of the wars 
 of Greece, and I shall, therefore, not proceed ; other- 
 wise, the further we were to pursue the inquiry, 
 through all the intricacies of Grecian politics, the 
 less have those bloody intestine wars, which were 
 continually afflicting Greece, the semblance of ori- 
 ginating in " overflowing numbers^," or of being 
 the kind of struggles described. As the different 
 states became more civilized and powerful, the 
 objects of these wars are more clearly defined ; 
 
 ' Mitforcl, Hist, of Greece, vol. i., p. 144. » Malthus, p. 1C3.
 
 Chap.X.] OF ANCIEXT GREECE. 177 
 
 and, it is quite needless to say, that tliose alleged by 
 that author are quite out of the question. They have 
 been summed up in few words, by one that I have no 
 doubt he will allow to be no common observer — Lord 
 Bacon. He says, they '' made wars to set up and pull 
 down democracies and oligarchies ^" In other words, 
 they were the revolutionary wars of antiquity. In the 
 annals of that country, indeed, all the extremes of 
 human character seemed to have met, and all the vicis- 
 situdes of fortune to have been experienced. Their 
 ardour for liberty was always accompanied by a desire, 
 at least equally strong, of destroying that of the free 
 states of their own country by which they were sur- 
 rounded ; and their most enthusiastic declamations in 
 its favour were made amongst an unpitied multitude of 
 slaves, many of them the descendants of the original 
 possessors of the country, and vastly exceeding their 
 oppressors in number, by whom they were slaughtered 
 as it suited their pleasure or convenience, the latter 
 well knowing how to replace their loss. Their cause, 
 however, was well avenged, (if it is not being avenged 
 even at the present hour !) by the havoc their haughty 
 masters were perpetually perpetrating upon each 
 other ; under various pretences, it is true, but of which 
 the worst passions of the human heart were the real 
 and ill-disguised causes. " Full of envy, murder, 
 debate, and deceit ; implacable and unmerciful ; " 
 equally anxious to domineer, and impatient of re- 
 straint, the perpetual fluctuation of power amongst 
 them was but a change of the scene of domination 
 and cruelty. Holy would have been their wars, in 
 comparison with those in which they constantly en- 
 gaged, had they been waged under the plea of neces- 
 sity ; but their own historians, as well as others, 
 
 ' Bacon, Works, vol. ii-, p. 328. 
 Vol. I. N
 
 178 WARS, MIGRATIONS, AND COLONIZATIONS [Book I. 
 
 inform us too clearly concerning their real causes, to 
 admit us to form any sucli excuse for tliem. They 
 originated in ambition \ jealousy^, hatred^, revenge^, 
 rapacity^, tyranny''', covetousness"^, restlessness^; even 
 the most frivolous pretexts often sufficed^ ; nor was 
 their religion ^"^ wanting amongst the disgraceful causes 
 of their fatal quarrels, in which they generally did 
 ample justice to the motives by which they were ac- 
 tuated. In a word, they seemed " formed by nature 
 " never to be quiet themselves, nor to let others be 
 " so^^" Such is the language of the noblest historian 
 of Greece, and concerning the noblest of his country^ 
 men. But, amongst all these various pretexts, how 
 often is it that we meet with the slightest intimation 
 that it was a want of food and room that '' let slip the 
 dogs of war "? I have not the most distant recollec- 
 tion of meeting with one authentic instance of such 
 an excuse being upon record. 
 
 (14) If such an apology, indeed, be any where 
 suggested, we know enough of the state of Greece to 
 pronounce its falsehood. I have already adverted to 
 this fact, and shall only add, that, in some of the best 
 periods (as they are called) of Grecian history, we 
 know the number of the citizens to have been small and 
 still decreasing. Those of Athens, authentic accounts 
 represent as inconsiderable, compared with a modern 
 city of the first rank ^l The population of its mveterate 
 
 ' Tluicyd., 1. i. Polyb., 1. v., c. 9. Jus- " Herod., Clio, ^S 66. 
 
 tin, 1. viii., c. 1, &c. Raleigh, Hist, of « Herod., Tlialia, §47. 
 
 the World, 1. iii., c. 8, § 1 • '" See Mitford's Hist, of Greece, vol. i., 
 
 « Herod., Terps., § 91 ; Erato, 6 108. p. 181. Thucyd., lib. i., c. 112. 
 
 Tlnicyd., 1. i., c. 23. Justin, 1. iii.,'c. 2. " Tliucydides, 1. i. 
 
 « Thucyd., 1. i., c. 24. Justin, 1. iii., '^ Herodotus (Terps. § 97) makes the 
 
 <-■• 7- free citizens of Athens 30,000 ; but Be- 
 
 * Herod., Terps., § 79. 90 ; Erato, loe observes, " he is the only ancient 
 §88. Thucyd, 1. i., c. 24. " author who makes the aggregate of the 
 
 * Tlnicyd., 1. i. Livy, 1. xxxi., c. 41. "Athenians amount to more than 22,000 
 IMitford, Book I., p. 1S2. " individuals."— vol. iii., p. 238. See 
 
 « Polybuis, 1. v., c. 9. Bacon, vol. ii., Iluniu's Essay on the " Populousness of 
 
 P- ^-^- , Ancient Nations," Essays, &c., vol. ii., 
 
 7 Herod., Terps., § 97. Polybius, 1. vi., p. 230—234, 
 c. 1, Justin, vi., c. I.
 
 Chap.X.] OF ANCIENT CJRKECE, ITO 
 
 rival, Sparta, was still more diminished. Euripides, 
 I think, says, that Sparta was capable of sustaining- 
 twice the number of citizens that Lycurgus provided 
 for ^ ; but, instead of their having increased up to that 
 " level, " and beyond it, we learn, from Xenophon, 
 that the Spartan families were very much reduced in 
 number^; and we have it on the authority of Aristotle, 
 that there was, in his day, scarcely a twentieth part 
 of the inhabitants which it was capable of supplying 
 with subsistence, or the twentieth part of the force it 
 ought to have sent into the field ^. We are, there- 
 fore, certain that there were far from being super- 
 fluous numbers of the citizens, or even of their slaves 
 or helots, otherwise we have melancholy evidence 
 that they would have gone a much readier way to 
 work than fighting, to acquire either room or food for 
 them^. 
 
 (15) On the whole, therefore, we are so far from 
 being surprised at the fact, that we should have been 
 certain of its reality, had we not been assured of it, 
 that there were not only in the islands ^, but in the 
 peninsula of Greece, and even in the best cultivated 
 parts, vast " tracts which might have been allotted to 
 new colonists*'." 
 
 (16) As to the migrations of ancient Greece, a few 
 words may sufHce. Speaking of its early history, 
 Thucydides says, "it is certain Greece was not pos- 
 " sessed by any fixed inhabitants, but was subject to 
 " frequent migrations. Their only view of culture 
 " was to earn a penurious subsistence ; and, as they 
 '' thought they might every where find their daily 
 
 ' Plutarch, Solon. ^ Mitford, Hist, of Greece, vol. i., pp. 
 
 2 Xeii., Hoi., 1. iii., c. 3, ^S :'). 2.37, 238. 
 
 3 Aristotle, DeRepub., 1. ii. Dr. Gil- " Iliid., vol. iii., p. 216. Hume, Po- 
 lies' Translation, pp. lOfi, 107. pnlousness of Ancient Nations, Essays, 
 
 ■* See an atrocious I'xample of this in p. 23'J, 
 TlnicytUdes, 1. iv., c. SO, 
 
 N 2
 
 180 WARS, MIGRATIONS, AND COLONIZATIONS [Book I. 
 
 *' necessary support, tliey liesitated little about 
 " changing- their seats \" Hence, we are informed by 
 Herodotus, that the Hellenians often changed their 
 residence ^ Indeed, one of their latest historians 
 represents them as long exhibiting that spirit of emi- 
 gration which seemed to be once almost universal 
 amongst mankind. Averse from all the pursuits of 
 industry, even agricultural, and not desirous to settle, 
 they continued to wander, sending out colonies, occa- 
 sionally, even to very remote parts ^ Respecting the 
 two memorable migrations, the ^olic and Ionic, — the 
 former was occasioned by the political consequences 
 of an important event already alluded to, namely, the 
 return of the Heraclidae, and was a flight of the van- 
 c|uished party from slavery and oppression"*; the 
 latter was caused by disappointed ambition^. None 
 of the migrations which the history of Greece presents, 
 any more than these, could be reasonably traced to a 
 want of room and food ; and it is somewhat singular, 
 that in Attica, long one of the most populous and 
 powerful states, and, perhaps, the least fertile of 
 them all, the inhabitants, as Thucydides informs us, 
 were far more stationary than in any other, receiving 
 large accessions of emigrants, which he gives as the 
 reason why they sent colonies elsewhere ^. These 
 colonizations, however, are now represented as con- 
 nected with the principle of population, and, together 
 with the drains of war and diseases, making a vent for 
 its overflowino- numbers : reducinof them to the due 
 level, and thus bringing the subject home to the think- 
 ing persons of Greece : a few words may therefore be 
 devoted to their consideration. 
 
 (17) And first, it will be found so far from neces- 
 
 > Thucyd., 1. i., c. 2. •> Ibid, vol. i., p. 235. 
 
 '■* Herod. Clio, § 56. « Ibid., vol. i., p. 236. 
 
 3 Mitfojd, Hist, of Greece, vol. i., p. 11. « Thucydides, 1, i., c. 2.
 
 Chap. X.] OF ANCIENT GREECE. 181 
 
 sary to the theory of population about to be developed, 
 to deny that a scanty population, like that of Greece, 
 would, when unchecked, increase rapidly, that the fact 
 is directly confirmatory of it. And if the numbers, 
 thus increasing, still refused to cultivate the country, 
 or persisted in cultivating it very inadequately, it 
 would be obviously necessary for them to divide, in 
 order that they might retain their uncivilized habits in 
 less peopled districts. We may, indeed, attribute to the 
 earlier stages of society a high degree of natural fecun- 
 dity, and still believe that the population, constantly 
 diminished by the fatal eifects of the checks already 
 mentioned, could never, in any of the states of Greece, 
 have become superfluous, even in reference to their own 
 habits of existence. I am aware that it was occasionally, 
 and but very seldom, deemed so; far oftener otherwise. 
 I think the reason that it was ever thus regarded is 
 at once plain and undeniable. The public property 
 of the Grecian states belonged to the citizens, whose 
 numbers, and consequently shares, were, in each, 
 pretty accurately defined ^ Any considerable increase 
 of citizens, therefore, in a community where the pur- 
 suits of life were principally agricultural, and property, 
 generally speaking, was in land, would be regarded 
 as operating to the diminution of individual wealth. If 
 this statement be correct, it follows, from the reason 
 of the case, that the natural capability of the lands to 
 sustain a given increase of individuals, would have 
 little influence in reconciling the present owners to 
 relinquish a part of their shares for that purpose, and 
 such were already in possession of the power to decide, 
 as well as the property to be decided about. And I 
 put it to any one's common sense, whether, in any 
 country where the surface is appropriated, and where 
 
 ' Plutarch, in Vit. Lycurg.
 
 182 WARS, MIGRATIONS, AND COLONIZATIONS [Book I. 
 
 the rights of property are recognized, the same views 
 would not prevail, without the least reference to any 
 calculations as to the natural fertility and extent of the 
 country and the possible number of the inhabitants it 
 might sustain. In our own, for instance, where pro- 
 perty is entirely appropriated, had it not been for the 
 development of new sources of industry, every acces- 
 sion of population, for ages back, must have been 
 deported, though every such loss was seen to be a 
 direct robbery on the public weal. But this idea will 
 be again adverted to, when, in reference to Greece, 
 it will be given in the language and under the authority 
 of its ablest historian, Mitford. In the mean time, it 
 seemed necessary to premise thus far, as this view of 
 the question furnishes the key ta such of the migra- 
 tions as have been attributed to superfluous numbers 
 (and they are but few), and completely redeems the 
 argument, which concerns only the sufficiency of Divine 
 Providence, from the thinking persons of Greece, or 
 the selfish ones of any other country ; some of whom 
 seem but too well disposed to determine it upon the 
 principle of the familiar fable, the Dog in the Manger. 
 (18) Under these circumstances, I admit that there 
 might now and then have been, in some of the states 
 of Greece, more citizens than allotments, or rather than 
 unmonopolized allotments, and that public colonization 
 was then resorted to under imposing formalities. 
 Sometimes the supposed redundancy of numbers, not 
 even discoverable by the strong lights of selfishness 
 itself, was delivered forth from some inspired oracle ; 
 but it would often be hard to resolve their responses 
 on these occasions into want of room. That of Del- 
 phos, for instance, which commanded Grinus, king of 
 Thera, to send a colony to Africa, headed by his son 
 Battus, as a cure for his want of utterance : which, as
 
 Chap. X.] OF ANCIENT GREECE. 183 
 
 Justin tells us, " seemed only a piece of mockery, be- 
 " cause of the scarcity of men in the island Thera, from 
 " whence they were commanded to send a colony to so 
 " vast a country as Africa." The intimation was, there- 
 fore, disregarded. But Apollo was not thus to be 
 slighted, and naturally seeing- further into the principle 
 of population than the Therians, if he saw into it at 
 all, knowing' that its evils are always the greatest, the 
 fewer are the inhabitants, he very properly sent another 
 of his checks, pestilence, amongst them. Thus com- 
 pelled, they obeyed, and though "their number was so 
 small as scarcely to fill one ship," they sailed to their 
 destination, and dispossessing the native inhabitants, 
 founded Cyrene^ 
 
 (19) Colonization was indeed not unfrequently dic- 
 tated on this oracular authority, and often under cir- 
 cumstances of equal absurdity^, which, considering that 
 the bane and downfall of Greece was the declininof 
 number of its citizens, is almost enough to countenance 
 the idea of certain divines, that it was the Arch-enemy 
 himself that inspired them. Just so is our redundancy 
 of numbers announced, or rather denounced, at the 
 present time by our equally inspired authorities. If 
 old Hobbes had had to deliver the responses on these 
 occasions, there would have been more of wisdom and 
 patriotism, though, perhaps, somewhat less of divinity 
 in them : his maxim in an increasing population was, 
 " Live closer and cultivate better." It was the plea- 
 sure of Providence, however, as has been already re- 
 marked, that social industry was not the early bias of 
 mankind ; it was from following other propensities that 
 the world became early possessed, when it would have 
 become as rapidly civilized had it not been for the 
 
 ' Justin, Hist., 1. viii., c. 7. lib. xii., c. 10. Herod., Mulp., § 151. 
 
 2 Diod. Sic, lib. iii., p. 201. Ibid.,
 
 184 WARS, MIGRATIONS, AND COLONIZATIONS [Book I. 
 
 " checks to population," tlie operation of wliieli conti- 
 nued some of the most favoured regions in that semi- 
 barbarous state, in which, notwithstanding- our par- 
 tialities, we have, during a long period of time, to re- 
 gard Greece, " destitute, in a great measure, of all the 
 " useful arts, and particularly agriculture and com- 
 " merce V' and subsisting by mutual plunder^. Colo- 
 nizations, therefore, under these circumstances, were 
 but the continuation of those migrations we have 
 already alluded to, prompted by the same motives, and 
 carried into effect by the same means. Those publicly 
 resolved upon might, perhaps, be for the purpose of 
 disposing of such as were deemed redundant upon 
 a principle of calculation already explained ; but far 
 the most numerous ones were of a less public nature, of 
 which " the leaders were often no more than the pirates 
 " and buccaneers of modern times. On a savage coast 
 " they seized upon a convenient port, set slaves to cul- 
 " tivate the adjoining lands, and themselves continued 
 " their cruises^." The frequency and extent of these 
 ancient emigrations is proved by the same names hav- 
 ing been often given to different and distant places*. 
 
 (20) The ease, indeed, with which colonization was 
 effected in those times, and the positive taste maritime 
 Greece had for such adventures, combining with so 
 many other powerful motives, would rarely permit the 
 alleged reason of want of room and food to be even 
 their apparent cause. Nay, so far from any material 
 impediments having been thrown in the way of them, 
 we find the inducements which led to them, Avhatever 
 they might be, frequently quickened by direct and 
 alluring invitations. The Trachinians, for example, 
 
 ' History of the Colonization of the ^ Mitford, Hist. Greece, vol. i., p. 242. 
 Tree States of Antiquity, p. 27. Hist. Colonization, p. 31. 
 
 2 Thiicydides, lib. i., c. 14. ■» Mitford, Ilibt. Greece, vol. i., p. 32.
 
 Chap.X.] OF ANCIENT GREECE. 185 
 
 having-, in spite of the geometric ratio, greatly de- 
 creased in number, invited an additional colony from 
 Sparta^ : the Sybarites, being in like manner reduced, 
 petitioned for reinforcements from Athens and other 
 parts of Greece ^ ; and Timoleon, after having liberated 
 Sicily, finding it depopulated, caused it to be pro- 
 claimed throughout Greece, that lands and habitations 
 should be avs^arded to all who v\^ould repair to that cele- 
 brated island ; so anxious w^as he for a supply of citi- 
 zens from the mother country ^\ The beautiful and 
 fertile island of Cyprus was almost entirely uninha- 
 bited, a striking proof of the state of population in 
 those times. The Phenicians, therefore, to whom it 
 appertained, bestowed lands upon any who would clear 
 and cultivate them. Settlements were consequently 
 made from Laconia, from Argos, Athens, and other 
 parts, till, from a wilderness, it became a rich and po- 
 pulous country, producing plenty of corn, and famous 
 for the excellency of its wines and oil"^. Even Egypt 
 itself, then certainly one of the most densely peopled 
 countries upon earth, but which experience had made 
 fully sensible of the advantage of increasing num- 
 bers^, sought for accessions of inhabitants by means 
 of colonization^. 
 
 (21) In addition to these direct invitations and 
 inducements, other motives to emigration would pre- 
 vail; and amongst so restless and superstitious a 
 race, some of them would certainly be of a very sin- 
 gular nature. Let one example of these suffice, — the 
 founding of the celebrated colony of Tarentum, which, 
 had not its origin been distinctly marked, Avould no 
 doubt have been carried with the rest to the account of 
 
 > Thucyd., lib. iii., c. 92. Diod. Sic, •• Mitfoid, Hist. Greece, vol. i., p, 238. 
 
 lib. xii., ch. 287. » Diodonis Sic, lib. i., c 6. 
 
 2 Diodonis Sic, lib. xii.. c, 10. ^ Herod., Eratu, § 22. 
 
 3 Ibid., lib. xvi., c. 13.
 
 1 86 WARS, MIGRATIONS, AND COLONIZATIONS [Book I. 
 
 tlie great cause, want of room and food. In the vin- 
 dictive war of the Spartans upon the Messenians, the 
 former, it appears, had taken an oath that they would 
 not return to their country without accomplishing the 
 destruction of their enemies. The war was protracted 
 twenty years ^ and Sparta was so thoroughly emptied 
 of its free male population, that its numbers were rapidly 
 retrograding. To remedy this, those who had in the 
 mean time arrived at the military age, and had conse- 
 quently joined the army, not having taken the oath, 
 were sent to Sparta for the purpose of recruiting the 
 diminished inhabitants, and the result was the birtli of 
 a number of citizens, to whose spurious parentage not 
 even the institutions of their Lycurgus could reconcile 
 the returning victors : these, therefore, went forth, 
 headed by Philanthus, one of their number, and Taren- 
 tum was founded^. The relation may serve to shew 
 (and it is introduced for no other purpose) how little 
 the want of room had to do with colonization in this 
 instance. A cause not very dissimilar to the foregoing, 
 only that the parties were reversed, led to those nu- 
 merous and more ancient colonizations which took 
 place at the termination of the Trojan war, and one of 
 which, it would be insulting the reader's intelligence 
 to prove, originated in the reason assigned. 
 
 (22) But of all the causes that contributed to 
 Grecian emigration, those political commotions which 
 were incessantly dividing and agitating all the states, 
 were unquestionably by far the most powerful^. By 
 these we not only see the greatest characters and their 
 adherents constantly driven into exile, but whole par- 
 ties at once escaping from their country, and settling 
 beyond the reach of successful domination. If Bri- 
 
 ' Justin says ten years, lib. iii., ch. 4. ^ Herod., Terp., § 42j Melpom., § 147, 
 
 ^ Strabo, lib. vi. Justin, l.iii., cli. 4.
 
 Chap.X.] OF ANCIENT GREECE. 187 
 
 tisli history bears ample testimony tliat tliis is the most 
 efficient of all causes in promoting colonization, how 
 mucli more does that of Greece? — torn as it was by pow- 
 erful factions, so evenly balanced, as to make changes 
 constant, and to keep the restless and vindictive pas- 
 sions, which accompanied them, in perpetual activity. 
 (23) But whatever might be the motives of the 
 colonists of Greece, one thing is remarkable in their 
 conduct ; and, if we must believe them to have retained 
 the habits of the mother states, which it is difficult to 
 suppose they did not, it not only shews how little the 
 consideration of mere room had to do with these 
 expeditions, but indicates how inadequately, all this 
 while, the interior parts of ancient Greece were, in all 
 probability, populated. " It is remarkable," says 
 Mitford of these colonizations, " that the Greeks 
 *' never seem to have coveted inland territories. They 
 " always chose maritime situations, and if driven from 
 " these, they sought others of the same kind, rather 
 " than be excluded from the sea ^" They, therefore, 
 left, like the Dutch in Ceylon, the interior parts, gene- 
 rally the most fertile in any country, to the abori- 
 ginal inhabitants^. And again, the maritime situa- 
 tions which they seized and retained, they caused to 
 be cultivated by slaves ; a fact as little in accordance, 
 as the former, with the idea that these settlements 
 were made for want of room. Again, the bare cir- 
 cumstance of slaves being a valuable and market- 
 able commodity in the mother country, as well as in 
 the colonies, and that " men as well as cattle, 
 continued to be the principal objects of plunder^," 
 negatives, at once and for ever, the assumption, that 
 human beings had become, in any sense of the term, 
 
 1 Mitford, Hist. Greece, vol. i., p. 24 1, ^ Mitford, Hist. Greece, vol. i., p. 182. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 241 . Strabo, lib. vi.
 
 188 WARS, MIGRATIONS, AND COLONIZATIONS [Book I. 
 
 " redundant." Moreover, it proves another impor- 
 tant trutli, liowever paradoxical it may sound, that it 
 is wealth and civilization, or, in other words, an aver- 
 sion from sordid labour, and a wish for property and 
 respectability, either in possession or prospect, which 
 have been the main motives of colonization in all 
 countries, and will ever remain so. But to this im- 
 portant fact I must again advert hereafter. 
 
 (24) Nor should it be lost sight of, that Greece 
 received colonists as well as sent them forth, and in 
 the first period of her history, certainly in far greater 
 numbers ; nor, perhaps, otherwise, in her last : and 
 still, the early times of Greece were those of her 
 greatest colonizing efforts. Athens, for instance, was 
 probably the most forward in these ; and it may be 
 well doubted, whether she ever sent into distant 
 countries, numbers equal to those she was perpetually 
 receiving ; the probability is, that the latter greatly 
 exceeded. In an enumeration about three centuries 
 before our era, taken by Demetrius Phalerius, it ap- 
 pears that there were, in Athens, 21,000 citizens, and 
 nearly half as many, namely, 10,000 strangers \ a 
 proportion of the latter wholly unequalled in any 
 existing city or country in the world. These were 
 not slaves or menials, for they are distinguished in 
 the enumeration from such ; and that they would not 
 have an effect on the population of the place and 
 country, the institutions of Solon notwithstanding, it 
 would be idle to suppose. Indeed, Thucydides in- 
 forms us, that the privileges of citizens were fre- 
 quently conferred upon those " who have," says he, 
 '' from the remotest time, continued to enlarge that 
 " city with perpetual accessions of inhabitants ^." Nay, 
 his elder contemporary, Herodotus, expressly attributes 
 
 ' (iirolxoi, Alhenoeus, lib. vi., c. 20. ^ Thucyd., lib. i., c. 2.
 
 Chap. X.] OF ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 189 
 
 the progressive increase of tlie Hellenians, or Greeks \ 
 to their liaving incorporated many nations, barbarians 
 and others, with their own^. 
 
 (25) Athens, however, I admit, was distinguished 
 amongst the Grecian states, for her encouragement and 
 distinguished reception of strangers, and she found her 
 account in it, — these enriched as well as replenished 
 her population, and constituted her, in point of com- 
 merce, the Holland of antiquity ; and both probably 
 received far more colonists than they ever sent forth. 
 But it must likewise be remarked, that neither the 
 effects of these colonizations on the mother country, 
 nor the fate they experienced, are reconcileable with 
 the supposition, that they were the " vent," or re- 
 medy of overflowing numbers. More room, in a literal 
 sense, they unquestionably made in the country they 
 left : did, then, the struggle for it, which war is repre- 
 sented to be, become less constant and bloody ? Room 
 enough they certainly found, in the seats in which 
 they settled ; were they consequently delivered from 
 the operation of that fatal check? Directly the reverse. 
 The contests in which both the parent and offspring 
 states mutually engaged^ are on record, and fully 
 prove, that to whatever motives the wars of Greece 
 may be attributed, the principle of population is 
 guiltless of them. 
 
 (26) In concluding these observations upon Greek 
 colonization, I shall give a single additional proof 
 that, whatever were their causes, the one suggested 
 by Mr. Malthus is palpably erroneous ; a proof which, 
 had it previously occurred to me, would, perhaps, have 
 rendered all the preceding ones unnecessary. Nume- 
 rous and powerful as the Ionian colonies had become, 
 
 » Vid. Steph. in veth. 3 Herod., Polym., ^ 97. 
 
 « Herod., Clio, § 58.
 
 190 WARS, MIGRATIONS, AND COLONIZATIONS [Book I. 
 
 it was seriously proposed by tlie Lacedsemonians to 
 transport them into some part of Greece, where they 
 might be under protection from the Persians. To this 
 the Athenians, and probably the lonians (very wisely) 
 objected, but upon grounds perfectly distinct from 
 want of room : had this been felt, and Greece fully 
 peopled \ the expulsion of the adherents of the king, 
 which was, at the same time, proposed, could not 
 have created it. 
 
 (27) A single sentence may be given to the far 
 more important subject of Roman colonizations, the 
 effects of which have been so deeply and permanently 
 felt throughout so many countries, and down to the 
 present hour. Let it suffice to observe, that the policy 
 and objects of these are clearly pointed out by the 
 author of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, 
 but the want of room and food is not amongst them. 
 On the other hand, we know that they constituted one 
 of those constant drains upon the native citizens, 
 which were the cause of diminishing their number, 
 and consequently of hastening the fall of that mighty 
 empire. The Roman agriculturists, which, whether 
 as poets or prose writers, form a very interesting class 
 of authors, give us too clear an insight into rural 
 affairs at that period, to allow us to suppose, for one 
 moment, that the Roman colonies were sent forth in 
 consequence of want of room and food at home. With 
 accumulating property, and increasing luxury, deso- 
 lation was making rapid advances, even in the very 
 heart and centre of the empire ; and Tacitus informs 
 us that, even in his day, the fields of Italy, formerly 
 so minutely cultivated and highly productive, were 
 left, in great measure, untilled. 
 
 (28) I will prolong these remarks, on the subject 
 
 'Plerocl., Calliope, 105. Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis.
 
 Chap.X.] OF ANCIENT GREECE. 191 
 
 of colonization, so far as to make a short allusion to 
 still more modern times. Let us then advert to Spain. 
 But the very mention of the country is enough ! 
 What with forced, and what with voluntary coloniza- 
 tion, the expulsion of the Moors, and the emigrations 
 to the Indies, her inhabitants, one would think, have 
 been sufficiently checked. But, alas, no ! still, as they 
 have been diminished, they have become increasingly 
 redundant ; and through what Mr. Malthus calls the 
 " vent " for these, prosperity, happiness, and cha- 
 racter have likewise escaped, and abandoned the coun- 
 try, perhaps for ever ! 
 
 (29) I shall conclude, by again referring to the 
 striking illustration the history of this country affords 
 of the principle at issue, and which, I think, is in full 
 conformity with that of Greece. It was in the Eliza- 
 bethan age that this great country commenced " the 
 heroic work of planting," which is destined to make 
 her the mother of mighty nations. With the motives 
 of these enterprises, want of room or food had nothing 
 whatever to do. These were — the spirit of enterprise, 
 the lust of gold, religious persecution, political animo- 
 sities ; in short, very similar reasons, with those shewn 
 to have been the main springs of Grecian colonization ; 
 and these settlements, once formed, were constantly 
 replenished by the same causes as those already 
 noticed, in reference to the latter country. As a 
 further proof of a striking similarity, in both instances, 
 and as an additional demonstration that want of room 
 is always one of the last pretexts that can ever be 
 assigned for wars, the colonists of two branches of the 
 European states, England and France, forming a mere 
 handful of human beings, scattered over a vast and 
 fertile continent, had hardly settled in their respective 
 possessions, before they renewed, in the solitudes of
 
 192 WARS, AND COLONIZATIONS OF GREECE. [Book I. 
 
 America, those struggles by which the paternal king- 
 doms had so often afflicted each other, and shaken 
 Europe from its centre to its circumference. But this 
 is not the point which I wish to leave, more particu- 
 larly, in the reader's recollection. It is rather the pe- 
 riod at which this colonization was first fully effected — 
 the earlier part of the seventeenth century ; — a period 
 when at least a moiety of the surface of this country, 
 unrivalled in fertility, was not even touched by cul- 
 tivation : it is upon record, that narrow and ignorant 
 men were then found asserting that the country was 
 surcharged with inhabitants, and they were success- 
 ful, not only in disgracing the literature, but, partly, 
 the policy of the country, by their dogmas. Hence, 
 England poured forth some of her best blood, and 
 long felt the consequences of her unwise conduct. 
 Time has given the lie to the selfish suppositions 
 of those days and men, and " yet their posterity 
 approve their sayings," at least as applied to the 
 present moment, which, with weak minds, is always 
 the only one worthy of notice ; and, were it possible 
 that the notion I am opposing should obtain in this 
 country, and, at the same time, the art of printing 
 could be forgotten, and the history of that great colo- 
 nizing period should be consequently left in the 
 obscurity in which that of Greece is involved, future 
 political economists, when tracing up to that period the 
 peopling of vast continents from this empire, would, 
 doubtless, attribute the emigrations of the seventeenth 
 century to a " struggle for room and food."
 
 193 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OF ANCIENT GREECE. THE CHECKS TO POPULATION PROVED 
 TO BE UNNECESSARY AND PERNICIOUS IN THAT COUNTRY. 
 
 (1) Having, in the preceding' view of Greece, shewn 
 that war, and what is supposed to answer the same 
 end, expatriation, were never rendered necessary by 
 the principle of population, it may, perhaps, be thought 
 that, in reference to that country, the subject has been 
 sufficiently pursued. It will appear, however, other- 
 wise, when the reader is reminded that hitherto only 
 one, and that the least important, view of the question 
 has been taken ; the negative argument, if I may so 
 express myself, being far less striking than the posi- 
 tive one, which the due consideration of the checks 
 invariably suggests. The former, indeed, serves to 
 shew that they are unnecessary ; the latter that they are 
 pernicious, that they often create, and always increase, 
 the evils which it is imagined, by the system I am op- 
 posing, they are constantly redressing : in a word, that 
 it is their absence, and not their presence, that is essen- 
 tial to the well-being of mankind. 
 
 (2) The question, then, which remains to be an- 
 swered, as it respects Greece, is, whether " the over- 
 flowing numbers" taken off by the drains of war, or 
 finding their vent in colonizations \ occasioned the re- 
 turn of comparative plenty^ . More particularly, let us 
 inquire whether war, which was far more instrumental 
 in keeping down the population of that country, than 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 163. ^ Ibid., p. 15. 
 
 Vol. I. O
 
 194 CHECKS TO POPULATION IN GREECE [Book I. 
 
 all Other causes combined, was the means of conferring 
 that blessing. 
 
 (3) And can this really demand an answer? 
 Where has it been that plenty has not been connected 
 with peace, as its inseparable consequence ? Where, 
 but in the system I am opposing, which is as utterly 
 regardless of the experience, as of the feelings, of 
 mankind ? In vain does a poet of the country, to which 
 we are both appealing, denominate peace the " Parent 
 of Wealth^;" wealth, it seems, is the daughter of 
 war : in vain does a Divine Bard exclaim, that men 
 shall " refresh themselves with the abundance of 
 peace ^ :" war only, it appears, makes way for their 
 refreshment. 
 
 (4) As it respects Greece, never was there a prin- 
 ciple hazarded more at variance with truth. Prospe- 
 rous and plentiful indeed would the country have been, 
 if this check could have contributed to plenty and 
 prosperity ! But it occasioned, as one of its historians 
 observes, " those calamitous times in which not only 
 the fortunes of this people were continually wasted^," 
 but the sufferings of the bulk of the inhabitants must 
 have been extreme ; for, to the horrors of war, those of 
 pestilence and famine were often added* : all checks 
 to population, and which, being of the same species, 
 mutually engender together and perpetuate each 
 other. Thus " wearied and weakened by perpetual 
 war"^, to use Sir Walter Raleigh's expressions, they 
 sunk into that condition which, as he intimates, they 
 well deserved ; aifording a threatening proof of what 
 the checks, when fully unkennelled, will do for any 
 
 ^ Fragment of Euripides, Polyb., lib. * Raleigh, Hist. World, b. ili., ch, 15, 
 
 xii., ex. 7. ^10, p. 448. Diod. Sic, 1. xiii., c. 15, 
 
 ^ David, Ps-alm xxxvii. 11. p. 353. Ibid., 1. xi., c. 15, p. 249. 
 
 3 Polyb., lib. ii., c. 62. Hampton's ' Raleigh, Hist. World, b. iii., ch. 8, 
 
 Transl, vol. i., p. 263. § 1.
 
 Chap. XI.] UNNECESSARY AND INJURIOUS. 195 
 
 people, though blessed with the finest country and freest 
 institutions upon earth. 
 
 (5) Unnumbered proofs might be adduced of the 
 distressful and ruinous consequences of these continued 
 wars, including almost the entire history of Greece ; but 
 I shall abstain from selecting any, and thereby escape 
 the reproof of Cicero, levelled at those who employ 
 unnecessary evidence where there exists no doubt. 
 
 (6) One of the effects of this check, however, of a 
 perfectly different nature from the foregoing, and of a 
 still darker character, I will not forbear to point out, 
 and that is, its moral consequences. These let a hea- 
 then witness describe, and one, moreover, inured to the 
 contemplation of them. " In seasons of peace and 
 " affluence," says Thucydides, " communities, as well 
 " as individuals, have their tempers under better regu- 
 " lation, because not liable to that violence which 
 " flows from necessity. But war, which snatches 
 " from them their daily subsistence, is the teacher of 
 " violence, and assimilates the passions of men to their 
 " present condition^" As to the other direct checks, 
 as they are called, famine and pestilence, this great 
 writer plainly traces them to the former, and attributes 
 to them the same debasing effects ; especially to pes- 
 tilence. In his memorable account of the plague of 
 Athens, amongst other striking observations, he 
 ascribes the flood of daring licentiousness and profli- 
 gacy, which then burst in upon the citizens, to this 
 afflicting cause ^; audit is remarkable how he has been 
 confirmed in this respect by the observations of more 
 modern historians of the same dreadful scourge^. 
 
 (7) In these guilty wars, therefore, the bad pas- 
 sions in which they originated, were kept alive ; 
 
 ' Thucyd., lib. ili,. c. 82. seilles. Dr. Quincy's History of the 
 
 ® Ibid., lib. ii., c. 53. Plague in London. Dr. Hodges' Loi- 
 
 ^ See M. Bertrand, Hist. Peste a Mar. mologia. See Diod. Sic, lib, xv., p. 418. 
 
 02
 
 196 CHECKS TO POPULATION IN GREECE [Book I. 
 
 and were aggravated, instead of being allayed, by 
 their consequences. To instance their effect in only 
 one state, but that the most forward in furthering the 
 operation of this check, which was ultimately her 
 destruction^— Athens ; the author already quoted 
 so frequently, after having described the profane- 
 ness, violence, and profligacy, which reigned within 
 her walls, at an eventful period of one of her most 
 bloody and protracted wars, adds, " with such a 
 " weight of calamity were the Athenians now on 
 " all sides oppressed. Their city was one scene of 
 " death, and the adjacent country, of ruin and devas- 
 " tation. In this their affliction, they naturally called 
 " to mind the following prediction, which the most 
 " aged persons informed them had formerly been made. 
 " ' A Doric war will come, together with a plague ; 
 " ' there had, indeed, been a dispute before, whether 
 " ' their ancestors, in this prediction, read Xoi/xov, a 
 "• ' plague, or Xi/xov, a famine ; but, in their present cir- 
 " ' cumstances, they all agreed, with probability, that 
 " ' Xoi/xov was right ^.' " He adds, however, his opinion, 
 that on any future occasion the other interpretation 
 might, in all likelihood, be adopted with equal pro- 
 priety. At all events, considering the close connexion 
 between these checks, it is as striking an example of 
 paronomasia as could, perhaps, be possibly adduced. 
 
 (8) The effect of these checks, especially that of 
 war in all its forms, on civilization, need not be pointed 
 out. Mitford observes, that, during their long conti- 
 nuance, " Peloponnesus was relapsing into a state of 
 " anarchy and barbarism, like that in which it had 
 " existed before Pelops and Hercules^" 
 
 (9) Before I proceed to exhibit the contrast which 
 
 » Raleigh, Hist. World, b.iii.,c.8,§l. ^ Mitford, Hist, of Greece, vol. i., 
 2 Thucyd.j lib. ii., c. 54. p. 144.
 
 Chap. XL] UNNECESSARY AND INJURIOUS. 197 
 
 I have in view, I would conjure the reader again to 
 pause a moment, and consider seriously whether it is 
 likely that the principle of population can be that of 
 Nature, which demands checks that necessarily either 
 afflict or degrade the species, and that, in their ope- 
 ration, while professing to rectify the numbers, are, 
 even in apprehension of a heathen, corrupting the 
 morals and debasing' the character of mankind : or 
 rather, let him determine, whether any but " the fool 
 who says in his heart there is no God," can believe 
 that the great system of human, nay, immortal exis- 
 tence, is balanced and upheld by means and instruments 
 like these. 
 
 (10) The states of Greece are considered by the 
 author I am examining, to be peculiarly adapted for 
 exhibiting the principle of population in its operation 
 and effects. I do not think it necessary to controvert 
 this. Certainly they were sufficiently numerous to 
 exhibit the state of society in a variety of different 
 aspects ; and though, perhaps, not so unconnected 
 with each other as their several institutions seemed 
 to imply, still they were sufficiently independent to 
 pursue frequently lines of policy diametrically oppo- 
 site. In reference to the question under consideration, 
 though none were entirely exempted from the scourge 
 of the great check of the species we have been consi- 
 dering; yet some of them were so much so as to war- 
 rant us in making this final appeal to the compara- 
 tive condition of certain states of Greece, differently 
 affected by it, in favour of the more humane prin- 
 ciple of population. Turning, therefore, from the 
 darker pictures, which we have sufficiently contem- 
 plated, and which may be revived, if necessary, by 
 opening again, and almost promiscuously, the history 
 of the dominant states of Greece, let us now take a 
 short view of the condition of those which were most
 
 198 CHECKS TO POPULATION IN GREECE [Book I. 
 
 free from the scourge of desolating wars ; and where, 
 according to the system I am opposing, the numbers 
 ought consequently to have been most redundant, and 
 the distress proportionably great and aggravated. 
 
 (11) The portion of this surprising people, whose 
 story presents the fewest points of attraction to the 
 enthusiastic eye, and least abounds with those soul- 
 stirring incidents on which history loves to expatiate, 
 was, perhaps, Asiatic Greece ; the superior power on 
 which they were dependent suffered them to enjoy their 
 institutions, but compelled them to enjoy them in peace ^ 
 Under these circumstances, there were necessarily no 
 great statesmen or generals produced, but philosophy 
 and the arts were most successfully cultivated : to what 
 a hitherto unrivalled, not to say unapproachable, 
 pitch of perfection the latter had attained, let the 
 Cnidean Venus testify ; and in a still sublimer depart- 
 ment, those first and greatest efforts of human genius, 
 the poems of Homer, to the immortal honour of 
 having produced whom, Asiatic Greece has probably 
 the fairest claim'; certainly, Grsecia Proper the slen- 
 derest one. The distinction of having given birth to 
 the Father of History is undoubted. Here, then, the 
 master check was not suffered to officiate, the struggle 
 for room and food was scarcely known ; and yet, instead 
 of increasing penury being the consequence, inevitable 
 according to the theory I am examining, the pros- 
 perity of these communities is the theme of writers 
 well calculated to decide on such a subject. The 
 magnificence of their structures gives complete proof 
 of their extraordinary public wealth ; and it is fair to 
 conclude, that private property, answerable to it, was 
 extensively diffused and permanently enjoyed. The 
 paucity of historical materials is in itself no incon- 
 
 ^ Mitford, Hist. Greece, vol. iii., 2 cieero judged Homer to be prior to 
 pp. 217, 515, Herod., Clio, J 169, &c. Hesiod j m other priority is contestable.
 
 Chap. XI.] UNNECESSARY AND INJURIOUS. 109 
 
 siderable proof of this ; tliat country, and even indi- 
 vidual, being- generally in the happiest condition, 
 whose career of existence affords the fewest incidents 
 of striking interest. 
 
 (12) Something, however, may be here urged 
 about the ample space they so long enjoyed, though 
 not very consistently with the rapid advances of the 
 geometric ratio : nevertheless, to obviate the objec- 
 tion, we shall transfer the examination to Graecia 
 Proper ; though, from circumstances already suffi- 
 ciently adverted to, the examples of peace will be 
 rarer, and their duration more limited. 
 
 (13) Megara is an interesting example of the im- 
 portant fact I am advancing. ''The Megareans," as 
 Isocrates says of them, " possessing in reality neither 
 " land nor port, and whose mountains are destitute 
 " even of mines, nevertheless, through the laborious 
 " cultivation of their rocks, and by a diligence in 
 " manufacture and commerce which overcame dis- 
 " advantages of situation, profiting on the contrary 
 "from that situation, to preserve the peace of their 
 " narrow territory, though surrounded by warring 
 "neighbours, flourished singularly^ and had among 
 " them the wealthiest families of Greece^." 
 
 (14) To adduce another instance on a larger scale, 
 and of a totally different nature, as exhibiting the 
 same happy effects of peace on a people, not, like 
 the former, engaged in foreign pursuits, but in the 
 cultivation of their own soil and territory, and with 
 the utmost aversion from leaving it for distant seats ; 
 a condition which the spurious principle of population 
 would speedily deliver up to universal want and 
 misery. My present quotation is from Polybius, and 
 
 ' Mitford, Hist, of Greece; vol. iii., ^ Isoc. de Pace ; quoted by Mitford, 
 p. 512. vol. iii., p. 512.
 
 200 CHECKS TO POPULATION IN GREECE [Book I. 
 
 its extreme appositeness must excuse its length. 
 " Elea," says that celebrated historian, "far exceeds 
 " all the other parts of the Peloponnesus, both in 
 " NUMBER OF INHABITANTS, and in the natural riches 
 "which are there produced. For there are many 
 " among this people who are so fixed in the enjoyment 
 " of a country life, and so satisfied with the abundance 
 " of which they are possessed, that in the course of 
 " two or three generations," (three or four doublings, 
 according to the geometric theory,) " they are never 
 " known to visit even the capital of the province. 
 " This affection for the country is chiefly nourished by 
 " the high regard which, by the constitution of the 
 " government, is shewn to those who are settled in it ; 
 "for justice is administered among them in every 
 " district : and great pains are employed, that they 
 " may always be supplied with every thing that is 
 "necessary to life. The motive that inclined their 
 " legislators first to invent such laws, and to give such 
 " attention to their safety, seems partly to have been, 
 *' that the province itself was of very wide extent, but 
 " principally because the inhabitants lived, in ancient 
 times, a kind of holy life; when their country, on 
 account of the Olympic games that were celebrated 
 in it, was regarded by the Greeks as sacred and 
 ' inviolable, and the people all enjoyed a full repose, 
 secure from danger, and exempted from the mise- 
 "ries of war^". He afterwards, indeed, mentions, 
 that they had been obliged to have recourse to arms 
 in their own defence, which had introduced a perni- 
 cious change in their way of life. Still the traces of 
 their ancient manners, he says, were retained, and 
 especially their attachment to the peaceful avocations 
 of a country life ; and he censures them for not restoring 
 
 1 Polyb., lib. vf,, Hampton's Transl., vol. ii., pp. 139, 140, 141, 
 
 u ... 
 
 (C
 
 Chap. XI.] UNNECESSARY AND INJURIOUS, 201 
 
 them entirely, and, with them, that uninterrupted 
 peace they formerly enjoyed, the effect of which he 
 describes in glowing language ; and shews that it 
 might be maintained " by the help of that abundance 
 which the continuation of peace necessarily bestows ^" 
 
 (15) The instance of Elea, as given from this 
 author, is no exempt case, but a mere example of the 
 universally acknowledged fact, that the " struggles " 
 of war never produce food, but that it is the absence 
 of that check, a state of peace, that brings plenty. 
 This was, at least, his settled opinion in reference to 
 Greece ; in proof of which, he enables us to extend 
 this appeal to the whole of the Peloponnesus. He 
 contrasts those " calamitous times," as he truly deno- 
 minates them, " when the people's fortunes were 
 " continually wasted by their wars either against the 
 " King of Macedon, or by civil wars among them- 
 " selves," with his own age; "when," says he, 
 " they live together in perfect peace and union, and 
 " possess all things in the greatest abundance^." 
 
 (16) What makes the foregoing proofs the more 
 conclusive, is, that they are taken, not only from au- 
 thors of the highest character, but contemporary with 
 the periods, and witnesses of the facts they describe ; 
 and, as it respects the last, when colonization, what- 
 ever might have been its effect, had long totally ceased, 
 and, as he informs us, wars likewise. The plenty 
 described, therefore, is not only conclusive as to the 
 checks of famine and scarcity having no existence, but 
 that what is called moral restraint had, likewise, no 
 being ; as it would be, indeed, whimsical to imagine 
 that such a "virtue" could exist among such a people 
 in a time of distinguished affluence. 
 
 (17) I shall only add another instance from conti- 
 
 ' Polyb., lib. iv,, c. 7. ^ n^^j,^ iii,_ ^_^ g, 52.
 
 202 CHECKS TO POPULATION IN GREECE [Book I. 
 
 nental Greece — that of Molossis, and principally 
 taken from an interesting account of that state, given 
 in the concluding volume of the learned Mitford's 
 history of that country. This little kingdom was 
 happily situated at a distance from both the domi- 
 nant republics which were continually embroiling all 
 Greece. " With an advantageous constitution, and 
 " force sufficient for defence, but not tempting to seek 
 " conquest, the Molossian people seem, for ages, to 
 '' have been in more fortunate circumstances than were 
 " common around them." Their territory "contained 
 " the Oracle of Dodona, highly revered always, but 
 " especially in the earlier ages, which gave it a de- 
 " gree of sacred character," and was, moreover, pro- 
 tected by an almost inaccessible frontier, inclosing a 
 very fertile and well-watered interior. Thus, " by ad- 
 *' vantage of situation and constitution, exempt from 
 " great troubles, in comparison with many of the states," 
 it was, in a degree, free from the direct check of war. 
 We hear but little, if any thing, of its colonies ; and 
 unhealthiness, either from climate or crowded towns, 
 was so far from supplying a vent for the " redundant 
 numbers," that we learn the climate was altogether 
 advantageous; and, like the Eleans, the inhabitants 
 were dispersed throughout the country, and " not con- 
 fined to crowded habitations within city walls." One 
 of the last glimpses we have of them in their prosperity, 
 is when they had established a lasting peace with the 
 little republics by which they were surrounded, and 
 were enjoying its effects " in a fortunate historical 
 obscurity ^" At last they unhappily emerge to notice 
 as a rich and populous people, becoming the spoil of 
 the most cruel and insatiable, as well as the mightiest, 
 power that ever was suffered to chastise the human 
 
 ' See Mitford's History of Greece, vol. v., History of Molossis, p, 14— 21t
 
 Chap. XL] UNNECESSARY AND INJURIOUS. 203 
 
 race, — Rome; wlio destroyed tlieir cities, seized their 
 wealth, and slaughtered or sold them for slaves ; re- 
 ducing, in a single day, a flourishing country to the 
 desolation from which it has not recovered to this 
 hour^ 
 
 (18) But the author I am engaged in answering, 
 seems to prefer exhibiting the subject in a contracted 
 point of view ; and, therefore, in his first pages, in 
 which he pronounces his theory to be demonstrated, 
 he presents the whole earth as an island, and con- 
 ceives that his argument still further triumphs by the 
 illustration. On the same ground, he has appealed, 
 most emphatically, to Greece, and, certainly, that, of 
 all nations, presents the question in this form the most 
 distinctly. Let us, therefore, lastly, inquire whether 
 the principle of population, as it is called, was demon- 
 strated with peculiar force in insular Greece. The 
 room here was, of course, physically circumscribed, 
 and could not be extended; the islands were receiving 
 colonies, rather than themselves colonizing; let us, 
 then, examine, in reference to two or three of these, 
 either too remote or too powerful to be constantly 
 dragged into the wars and fightings of Greece, whe- 
 ther they were plunged into that want and wretched- 
 ness which the theory I am opposing, pronounces as the 
 inevitable consequence of an unchecked population ; 
 contrasting their situation with what we have already 
 seen to be that of those powerful states of Greece 
 where the inhabitants were duly checked, and, ac- 
 cording to the phraseology of the system, brought 
 down to the level of the means of subsistence. 
 
 (19) Cos, an island, small, and sufficiently dis- 
 tant, and almost too insignificant withal to attract the 
 notice of the elder Greek historians, rose most rapidly 
 
 ' Heylin, Cosmog., 1. ii., p. 1 98, T. Livius, 1, xlv.
 
 204 CHECKS TO POPULATION IN GREECE [Book I. 
 
 to prosperity, in consequence of not being involved 
 in these struggles for room, and becoming an asylum 
 to those who were. It was scarcely twenty miles 
 long, and five wide ; but it soon contained a mul- 
 titude of inhabitants ; and after the ruin of their prin- 
 cipal city, by an earthquake, a new one speedily arose, 
 wliich vied in splendour with the first in Greece. 
 This took place in the twentieth year of the Pelopon- 
 nesian war^; and there was abundant time to put the 
 principle of population, and its consequences, to the 
 test, in the many hundred years which followed ; 
 during which, we find it described, by Diodorus Sicu- 
 lus, as becoming very populous, and growing, more 
 and more, both in public revenues and in the private 
 wealth and riches of its inhabitants, till it rose to that 
 state and grandeur which, says he, it now' enjoys^. 
 It is quite natural to suppose, that their advances in 
 useful knowledge, as well as the higher refinements, 
 kept at least an equal pace ; and, to this interesting- 
 fact, the Coan names, of Hippocrates and Apelles, 
 will ever bear witness. Now, however, all is changed, 
 except the face of Nature itself; vestiges of ancient 
 taste and magnificence are scattered in every direction, 
 and applied to the commonest purposes^, affording a 
 memorial of the difference between an overflowing, and 
 what our modern philosophers choose to denominate a 
 redundant population, and one checked down " to the 
 level of the means of subsistence." 
 
 (20) The more celebrated island of Cyprus has 
 been already mentioned as inviting colonists to its 
 shores ; and it is sufficiently plain, that the induce- 
 ments were soon very effectual. We find, from Hero- 
 
 'Tluieyd., 1. viii., c. 41. la Grece, quoted by Mitford, vol. iii., 
 
 ^ Diodorus Sic, 1. xv., c. 76. p. 513. 
 
 ^ M. Gouffier, Voyage Pittoresque de
 
 Chap. XL] UNNECESSAfeY AND INJURIOUS. 20d 
 
 dotiis, that at least six distinct races, wliicli he 
 enumerates, were early settled in the country \ With 
 the increase of its inhabitants, it grew in prosperity 
 and abundance ; so that, from the wild and unculti- 
 vated state in which we noticed it to have been ori- 
 ginally, it became "■ a rich and populous country, pro- 
 " ducing plenty of corn, and famous for the excellency 
 " and abundance of its wines and oiP." It is calcu- 
 lated that it then contained at least one million of 
 inhabitants ^: the qviestion, therefore, is, whether the 
 principle of population had, as predicted, reduced 
 these to want and wretchedness. On the contrarj^, it 
 is as undeniable a fact as any history records, that it 
 was wealth which occasioned their ruin, by exciting 
 the insatiable rapacity of the Romans. One of their 
 own historians, Ammianus Marcellinus, plainly ac- 
 knowledges it. Cato was the murderous plunderer 
 whose death, by suicide, would have been prevented 
 by the hangman, had he lived in any age or country 
 where liberty and justice were more than names. At 
 the present moment, Cyprus may, perhaps, contain 
 a bare twelfth part of its former inhabitants*; and 
 their individual degradation has corresponded with 
 their numerical diminution. 
 
 (21) Crete maybe the next instance. Not exempt, 
 indeed, from intestine broils, nor yet wholly free from 
 foreign aggressions, yet secured, during considerable 
 periods of its history, from any thing approaching to 
 the equal operation of the check under consideration, 
 by its insular situation ^, and by its naval supremacy, 
 which, Aristotle says, it seemed naturally formed to 
 hold in Greece^; Crete enjoyed a measure of pros- 
 
 1 Herod., Polym., § 90, ■• Ibid. 
 
 2 Mitford, vol. i., p. 238. * Aristotle, De Repiib., lib. i., C. 10. 
 
 3 Maltc-Brun, Geog., b. xxvi., p. 88. ^ Ibid., lib. ii., c. 10.
 
 206 CHECKS TO POPULATION IN GREECE [Book I. 
 
 perity proportioned to that exemption ; and, while it 
 so grew in population as to liave acquired, in Homer's 
 time, the epithet of Hecatompolis, from its hundred 
 cities, it sustained that population in so much happi- 
 ness, (which, we are assured, is always measured by 
 the plenty of food^,) as to obtain from Pliny and 
 Solinus the distinction of Macaros and Macaro- 
 neson. Even the epithets, of a less favourable nature, 
 which were frequently applied to Crete, were, in all 
 probability, to be traced to their superior wealth, 
 exciting the envy of the surrounding states. Polybius 
 stigmatizes them for their love of amassing riches, 
 and their habit of increasing them ^. It is observable, 
 that Aristotle does not sanction the accusations which 
 were usually cast upon Crete ; on the contrary, he 
 says, that some of its institutions were preferable to 
 those of Sparta, especially those relating to that ge- 
 neral provision which spread their " Andreia, orcom- 
 " mon tables, and afforded food to persons of either 
 " sex, and of all ages, in the country ^ :" a plain 
 impossibility, we are now told, even applied to that 
 wretched remnant of our population, the public poor ; 
 Nature having provided no such room at her table, 
 whatever the Cretans did*. We have reason to 
 believe, that their institutions were preserved, and 
 their freedom enjoyed, for the long space of thirteen 
 
 ^ Malthus, Essay on Population. philosopher. He remarks, that the 
 * Polybius, lib. vi., ex. 3. fidelity of the Perioeci (for so was the 
 ^ Aristotle, De Repub., 1. ii., c. 113. lowest and most numerous class in 
 _ * Pe-rhaps it may be said, this regtJa- Crete denominated) formed a striking 
 tion extended only to the citizens. I contrast with the conduct of the Helots 
 doubt, and indeed disbelieve this ; but, of peninsular Greece *. We may, there- 
 admitting it was so, still that the servile fore, rest assured, that they were suffi- 
 class (for Crete shared, in this respect, ciently fed, and had a place at Nature's 
 in the universal disgrace of Greece) table ; the impossibiUty of such a thing, 
 was in circumstances of great compara- for any considerable length of time, ac- 
 tive prosperity, is sufficiently plain, cording to our modera economists, not- 
 from an incidental observation of that withstandhig, 
 
 * Aristotle, De Repub., lib. ii.
 
 Chap, XI.] UNNECESSARY AND INJURIOUS. 207 
 
 hiindred years : and, populous as was tlie country, we 
 know that it did not fall by the weight of its numbers, 
 to use a curious expression of Puffendorf, but became 
 another victim to the insatiable cruelty and avarice of 
 Rome, which, as again one of her own historians 
 candidly confesses, T" si vera volumiis Jioscere/'J co- 
 veted the conquest of so noble an island. That reason 
 was abundantly sufficient, and the inhabitants were 
 exterminated ^ ! 
 
 (22) But the last instance I shall adduce is, by 
 far, the most interesting one, — Rhodes. Compared 
 with all the states of continental Greece, this happy 
 island seemed to have enjoyed a long state of peace, 
 and its infallible consequence, prosperity ; such as few 
 countries ever experienced, either in measure or dura- 
 tion, and fewer still ever deserved so well. The 
 maritime power, which, like the other islands pre- 
 viously mentioned, Rhodes also possessed, if it did 
 not preserve its contracted territory absolutely invio- 
 late, at least protected it from many of those " strug- 
 gles " which constantly convulsed the continental 
 states, while the justice and moderation which its 
 people observed in all their naval affairs, made their 
 maritime laws those of the civilized world, being 
 adopted by Rome, and wrought into her Pandect. 
 The materials of a lengthened eulogium present them- 
 selves to the recollection of every moderate scholar, 
 and are, I confess, passed over with reluctance. But 
 enough has been already said on this branch of the 
 argument. The Rhodians maintained their liberties for 
 the unexampled period of about two thousand years, 
 and Rome had again the disgrace of annihilating them. 
 The recorded charge against them, of universal 
 luxury, proves that, unchecked as was their population^ 
 
 ^ Fionas, I. iii,, c. 7.
 
 208 CHECKS to POPULATION IN GREECE [Book t. 
 
 comparatively speaking", still their numbers did not 
 exceed tlie means of subsistence, but the reverse. 
 But their institutions solemnly record a still more 
 interesting proof of this fact, so important to our present 
 argument. In Rhodes, the poorest and most destitute 
 individual was never deemed redundant, much less 
 pernicious ; this discovery these heathen left for the 
 politico-theologists of our present Christian age. They 
 preserved their poor, universally, with the most sacred 
 care. " They laid it down, as a rule, that every man 
 " should work for his maintenance while he was able; 
 " but, when no longer able, he should be as well main- 
 " tained at the expense of the stated" How " ab- 
 surd';" our modern theorists being the judges! 
 especially in such a crowded population, and so con- 
 fined a territory, as that of Rhodes. Favoured, how- 
 ever, beyond the lot of most other countries upon 
 the face of the earth, the Rhodians maintained their 
 liberty and enjoyed their growing prosperity for the 
 unexampled duration of nearly twenty centuries ! nor 
 were either endangered or destroyed by the principle 
 of population, — the parental evil of human beings, 
 according to Mr. Malthus. No. Rome, as has been 
 said, had, at length, the infamy of extinguishing this 
 ancient state ; and Christendom the double disgrace 
 of tolerating " the malignant and the turban'd Turk," 
 in trampling down the wretched remnant of human 
 beings, which Rhodes still contained, to " the level of 
 human subsistence ;" — a retrograde operation, which 
 would never be completed till it had extinguished the 
 species. 
 
 (23) It may be again, perhaps, expected, that I 
 should shew that the arts kept pace with the advance 
 
 ' Dr. Campljell, Political Survey, vol. ^ Malthus, Essay on Population. 
 i.,p.32.
 
 Chap. XI.] UNNECESSARY AND INJURIOUS. 209 
 
 of prosperity and population ; but here, alas ! we have 
 nothing- but remembrances to appeal to. That wonder 
 of the world, a monument at once of genius and 
 humanity, their Colossus, which long- held forth the 
 lamp of salvation to benighted mariners struggling 
 upon a dark and tempestuous ocean, has fallen ; and, 
 ages ago, has been carried off, piecemeal, by Jews 
 and jobbers. One's heart sickens at these recitals. 
 Let us, therefore, here terminate the appeal to Greece ; 
 but, in concluding with this interesting portion of it, 
 Rhodes, it is impossible not to be reminded of a still 
 nobler, and far more extensive and powerful island, 
 whose habits and institutions, especially those of mercy, 
 are so similar. And she, too, has raised her monu- 
 ment of compassion, that sublimer Colossus, which, 
 bestriding the whole land, bears in its uplifted hand 
 the lamp of divine charity, and guides the ship- 
 wrecked in the storms of fate, into a haven of quietude 
 and peace, till the voyage of life is ended. The selfish 
 and sordid economists, meantime, are loud in their 
 invectives concerning the cost of supplying with its 
 sacred oil that hallowed flame which has been kept 
 burning for so many generations, and which ascends to 
 heaven ; a more acceptable sacrifice than all the heca- 
 tombs that ever bled upon the altars of the nations. 
 Let these impious and inhuman meddlers beware ! An 
 institution of so holy a nature, so long established 
 amongst us, so eminently useful, and so deeply 
 revered, nothing less than a moral and political earth- 
 quake, that would overthrow to their very foundations 
 the remaining institutions of the country, can overturn 
 and destroy ; and if it fall, it will be the signal of the 
 downfall of the empire ! May the interval be short ; 
 for it will be one of accumulating misery and degrada- 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 CHECKS TO POPULATION IN GREECE [Book I. 
 
 tion ; or, rather, may the nobler prmciples and better 
 fortunes of our country prevail. 
 
 (24) A review of the story of Greece, however 
 transient, and for whatever purpose, cannot fail to 
 awaken in our minds a train of conflicting feelings, 
 which it is as vain an attempt to reconcile as to describe : 
 a land of unrivalled liberty, and courage and genius, 
 as it respects its citizens ; but, alas ! these were the 
 few ; to the rest it was a land of slavery, and suffering, 
 and degradation, equally unexampled. It was to a 
 fundamental error respecting the great principle of 
 population, very similar to the one I am rebutting, 
 that I fearlessly attribute the misfortunes and ruin of 
 the Greeks. Had they been anxious to increase the 
 number of their citizens, rather than of slaves, their 
 prosperity would have been enlarged beyond all con- 
 ception ; while the liberation of the latter would have 
 rendered that prosperity perpetual, by forming a bar- 
 rier against the tyranny of the few who, whether 
 oligarchs or democrats, were the oppressors and the 
 parricides of Greece. In a word, had they, in a tem- 
 poral sense, known, in their day, the things that made 
 for their peace, and consequently chained up the 
 Apollyon of the species, the check we have been 
 considering, Greece might, probably, at this moment, 
 have been the existing example of whatever can 
 elevate the intellect or ennoble the character of man, 
 instead of being the melancholy proof of the mutability 
 of all human distinctions. 
 
 (25) In the mean time, that a country in which 
 Nature mourns the desertion and desolation of some of 
 her fairest scenes, amidst devastations which scores 
 of centuries have not repaired and repeopled, should 
 be appealed to, in proof that human beings rapidly
 
 Chap. XL] UNNECESSARY AND INJURIOUS. 211 
 
 outgrow the prolificness of the mother earth, unless 
 their natural increase be constantly repressed, is 
 indeed surprising, and may serve to shew us the 
 nature of a system whicli can require or admit such 
 demonstrations. Few, on the other hand, I think, can 
 retire from the contemplation of Greece, without very 
 different impressions ; such, indeed, were prompted 
 by some of the very scenes we have been describing, 
 nearly two thousand years ago, then in ruins, and 
 in ruins still. " Ex Asia rediens," writes Sulpicius to 
 Cicero, " cum ab ^Egina Megaram versus navigarem, 
 " coepi regiones circumcirca prospicere. Post me erat 
 " Mgina, ante Megara, dextra Piraeeus, sinistra Corin- 
 " thus : quae oppida quodam tempore florentissima fue- 
 runt, nunc prostrata et diruta ante oculos jacent. 
 Ccepi egomet mecum sic cogitare : Hem, nos homun- 
 culi indignamur, si quis nostrum interiit, aut occisus 
 " est, quorum vita brevior esse debet, cum uno loco tot 
 " oppidum cadavera projecta jaceant M'' Little thought 
 the moralizing Roman, that the imperial city itself 
 would have to swell the catalogue of those desola- 
 tions ; that her high places would be covered with a 
 heap of ruins, and all around become a solitary and 
 pestiferous desert ; that so vast would be the decrease 
 of his countrymen, that his national name would 
 become totally lost, and the very language he used 
 silent for ever. Let the professors of the modern 
 philosophy, who, while preaching and prophesying 
 against population, and strangely pointing at the ruins 
 of ancient empires and magnificent cities, whicli have 
 been destroyed, whose names yet live in history, (to 
 say nothing of so many others, " the memorial of which 
 has perished " with them,) tell us, before we submit to 
 their hazardous dogmas, whether " destructions are 
 
 ' Cicero, Epist. ad Famil., torn, i., lib. iv., c. v., pp. 193, 194. 
 
 P 2
 
 212 CHECKS TO POPULATION IN GREECE. [Book I. 
 
 come to a perpetual end?" And if tliey cannot so assure 
 us, whether, instead of endeavouring to hinder the na- 
 tural increase of our countrymen, the patriot's fears and 
 endeavours ought not to take another direction, lest, 
 following the same fate, the mightier capital of his 
 own country should, in turn, bow its lofty head, and 
 sink into the dust, and the posterity of Britons also 
 be " minished from among the children of men !"
 
 213 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OF THE WARS AND IRRUPTIONS ON THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 THEIR CAUSES IRRECONCILEABLE WITH THE THEORY 
 OF HUMAN SUPERFECUNDITY. 
 
 (1) But the grand liistorical proof of tlie supposed 
 superfecundity of mankind, — demanding, in ancient 
 times, that great master check to numbers, always 
 deemed redundant, war, — is that series of irruptions 
 from the north of Europe, so formidable in themselves, 
 and so important in their consequences, which are 
 now simply resolved into a necessary and continued 
 struggle for room and food. 
 
 (2) As in the work under more particular conside- 
 ration, together w^ith many others of the same class, 
 the terms " redundant numbers," — " superfluous popu- 
 lation," — and other equivalent expressions, are per- 
 petually repeated^, it had been w^ell, if those who use 
 them so freely, had, agreeably to the advice of Lord 
 Bacon, first defined them. All population, every num- 
 ber of human beings, even down to a unit, are, without 
 corresponding exertion, (since the golden age, at least,) 
 strictly redundant ; as men cannot now^, even in the 
 imagination of poets, subsist upon the spontaneous pro- 
 ductions of the earth ; and the fewer they are, as has 
 been already shewn, the more redundant they become 
 to each other. Is the question, then, as to numbers 
 being redundant, or otherwise, to be determined by 
 mankind in their savage or civilized state ? Or, in other 
 words, is " the proper level of food," so much talked 
 
 > Malthus, Essay on Population, rp. 66, 68, 70, 72, 74, 78, 82, &c. &c.
 
 214 WARS AND IRRUPTIONS [Book I 
 
 about, accommodated to habits of inveterate sloth, to 
 indicate the number of human beings which ought to 
 exist ; or is that number to be deemed superfluous or 
 otherwise, by the abundance of Nature, as developed 
 by human industry, which, meanwhile, still more ele- 
 vates the " level of character, '" than that " of food ? " 
 I am fully aware, that the barbarian would resist the 
 latter mode of decision, though, in so doing, he would, 
 as certainly, reject the sole means of his civilization; 
 he being, of all mankind, the first to discover, and the 
 most prompt to rectify, the natural superfecundity of 
 his species. In the immeasurable solitudes of prolific 
 nature, the savage sees the principle of population far 
 more clearly than it is now supposed to have been 
 discovered by the sages of Greece \ in the crowded 
 porticos of Athens. In opposing that principle, there- 
 fore, the farther I go back into antiquity, and the 
 more barbarous the region referred to, the less clear 
 will my argument appear; but it will never become so 
 obscure, as not to shew, most triumphantly, that, in no 
 period or place of the world, has the great check of 
 the species, war, been " a struggle for room or food." 
 (3) On better consideration, however, I must re- 
 tract the assertion, as it respects the latter necessary 
 of human life, food ; possibly there may have been 
 struggles of that nature, but still under circumstances 
 which further confirm the principle for which I am 
 contending throughout : efforts of sloth to obtain that 
 by violence which the bounty of Nature would have 
 bestowed in infinitely greater abundance, on the sole 
 condition of peaceful industry ; these have been, pro- 
 portionably, the most frequent, as well as fatal, where 
 mankind have been the fewest, and, consequently, dis- 
 tributed over the largest space. Indeed, as so much 
 
 ^ Malthus, Essay ou Population, p. 163.
 
 Chap. XII.] ON THE ROMAN EJIPIRE. 215 
 
 is said concerning- different ratios, in reference to the 
 principle of population, I will hazard an assertion, which, 
 if it is not a universal truth, is one that will admit of 
 very few exceptions, namely, that, under equal circum- 
 stances, room and food, instead of being- proportionate, 
 are in inverse ratios to each other. But as it respects 
 the northern nations, whose irruptions have been so 
 emphatically appealed to, a slight consideration will 
 suffice to shew that their wars were not amongst the 
 struggles in question. 
 
 (4) In examining their state of society in its early 
 periods, I still think it necessary to repeat, that, while 
 disproving the supposed redundancy of their numbers, 
 I have an eye to truth only, and not to any precon- 
 ceived principle of population. That which I shall 
 attempt to establish, yet more, perhaps, than that which 
 I oppose, admits, and, indeed, requires, an extraor- 
 dinary degree of prolificness in a scanty population, 
 but it accounts for the fact on principles totally dis- 
 tinct from, and indeed opposite to, the latter. All I 
 shall now attempt to prove is, that, notwithstanding 
 that prolificness, their numbers never had so accumu- 
 lated as to become redundant, even in their state and 
 mode of existence ; and that, by violently checking 
 them, they, in effect, postponed that period of prospe- 
 rity and abundance, as well as of mental improvement, 
 which would otherwise, in all probability, have ante- 
 dated the glory and strength of Germany and Gallia 
 many centuries. 
 
 (5) Reserving for a further and more enlarged 
 view of the subject, the effects of an increasing popu- 
 lation, when no longer checked down to the level of 
 the existing means, as preceding and prompting pro- 
 duction, and ultimately issuing in the civilization of 
 the people I am about to consider; and purposely
 
 210 WARS AND IRRUPTIONS [Book I. 
 
 postponing, to that branch of my argument, their 
 deeply degraded condition in their ancient state, at 
 least as far as I can keep that consideration distinct 
 from the objects of my present inquiry, I now proceed 
 to examine whether, even with their slothful habits 
 and imperfect knowledge of cultivation, the irruptions 
 so frecpiently, and, on this subject, so confidently 
 appealed to, were or were not occasioned by redun- 
 dant numbers. The author under more particular 
 notice asserts that they were ; and founds, in favour 
 of his views concerning population, a long argument 
 upon their history, which extends throughout an entire 
 chapter, taken almost exclusively from Gibbon: which 
 I mention in order to remark that the deliberate judg- 
 ment of the very author from whom he has selected his 
 facts, and one of no mean intellectual attainments, is, 
 in this instance, as in many others, of not the least 
 weight whatsoever with him, because, founded though 
 it was upon incontrovertible truths, it clashed with the 
 theory he had previously imbibed. He notices, also, 
 the opinion of Montesquieu, which coincides on the 
 point at issue with that of Gibbon, for the purpose of 
 giving it a similar contradiction, and Montesquieu is 
 doubtless a competent authority on a subject to which 
 he also had directed the energies of his capacious mind. 
 The opinion of a fellow-traveller, Dr. Clarke, who, in 
 traversing the very scenes which seem to have con- 
 firmed Mr. Malthus in his opinion of the redundancy 
 of the population of Scandinavia in former times, who 
 pronounced what had been written relative to the 
 " Northern hive," as it is called, to be " nonsense," is 
 also utterly disregarded. But this is not so surprising, 
 as that the authority of an author contemporary with 
 some of the occurrences alluded to, and that author 
 Caesar, is rejected as to the real cause of those internal
 
 Chap. XII.] ON THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 217 
 
 migrations of tlie Germans, because it did not recognize 
 " a foresight of the necessity of discharging their re- 
 " dundant population \" Our author solemnly argues 
 the point with him, which, however, Caesar cannot 
 resign without relinquishing at the same time all pre- 
 tension either to veracity or common sense ; for he had 
 already said, that, notwithstanding these annual mi- 
 grations, immense regions were still lying entirely 
 waste". 
 
 (6) The authority of such writers as these being- 
 rejected, that of Machiavelli is made to replace it, 
 who gives us a quotation, as Gibbon supposes, from 
 Deacon Paul. He tells Pope Clement the Vllth, in 
 the first sentence of his History of Florence, addressed 
 to that Pontiff, a story about the vast multiplication of 
 the people north of the Danube, so that great numbers 
 of them are obliged to leave in search of fresh quar- 
 ters; which they accomplish, it appears, with the 
 utmost possible fairness, dividing themselves into 
 three parts, with a proper proportion of the different 
 ranks in each — a far fairer scheme of p^eneral emio-ra- 
 tion than any ever yet propounded by our modern 
 political economists ; and, indeed, the only one that 
 ought to be listened to for a moment. They cast lots; 
 and the division on which the lot falls marches off to 
 seek its fortune, leaving the rest to enjoy themselves 
 and their possessions at home, with more room, and 
 in freedom. This relation he gives in the present 
 tense, and without a figure of speech, just as correctly, 
 I think, as if it were put in the past ; and, " these 
 " inundations and redundancies of people," says he, 
 " were the destruction of the Roman Empire^" 
 The account, altogether, is sufhciently absurd ; but I 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 74. ^ Machiavelli, Op., p. 1. 
 2 Ceesar, Comm., 1. iv., § 3.
 
 218 WARS AND IRRUPTIONS [Book I. 
 
 have no objection to take it as a true statement, if 
 accompanied by those other facts which, though occur- 
 ring in the same sentence, Mr. Malthus has omitted. 
 The latter asserts, that mankind multiply up to their 
 food — doubling every 25 years, if they have plenty 
 of it. While the Northern barbarians, checked as 
 they were in all possible ways, thus multiplied to such 
 " unsustainable numbers," to use Machiavelli's expres- 
 sion, which Mr. Malthus has omitted, how happened 
 it that the Romans did not exceed them in that mul- 
 tiplication, but, on the contrary, that -the Western 
 Empire, as he informs us, was so weakened by the 
 removal of the Emperor to Constantinople, as to occa- 
 sion, ultimately, its downfall ? It will be difficult for 
 Mr. Malthus, I think, to reconcile these facts to his 
 own theory ; of that which I shall propound, it might 
 be quoted as a proof. 
 
 (7) It may be further observed, that, having taken 
 up the representation of Machiavelli, to the rejection 
 of that of Gibbon and Montesquieu, in discovering 
 the natural consequences of this " redundancy of num- 
 bers," as he expresses himself, Mr. Malthus differs 
 still more widely from his own authority than he does 
 from the others. Machiavelli, so far from developing 
 the effects of population in war, pestilence, and famine, 
 pursues it to civilization, plenty, and peace : in 
 another of his works, he says, " Germany and 
 " Hungaria (whence these inundations came) are 
 " better cultivated and improved, so that they can 
 " now live plentifully at home, witliout rambling 
 " abroad ." 
 
 (8) Let us now proceed to consider the assertion, 
 that the events above mentioned, " the most horrible 
 devastations;" — "incredible destruction of the hu- 
 
 ■ Discourses on Livy, p. 343.
 
 Chap. XII.] ON THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 219 
 
 man species," as well as " famine " — " pestilence," 
 so long- and so deeply felt " througliout the fairest 
 " portions of the earth, may be traced to the simple 
 " cause of the superiority of the power of population 
 " to the means of subsistence." The fact of these 
 horrible devastations, occasioned by the irruptions of 
 the northern nations, is undisputed, — it is tlieir causes 
 only wliicli concern the present question. 
 
 (9) Various were the motives which urged the 
 northern barbarians, as they are often denominated, 
 to those irruptions which are amongst some of the 
 most striking facts recorded in history. Some of 
 these, as alleged by themselves, would be deemed not 
 only justifiable, but even honourable, in any age or 
 country of the world ; such as their wars in defence 
 of tlieir native liberty, or for its recovery when en- 
 slaved, and their retaliations for unprovoked injuries 
 and aggressions. But that ferocious spirit, too natural 
 to man, which their habits of life so much encouras'ed, 
 and their religion itself heightened, joined with that 
 restless and migratory propensity which pervades the 
 species when in the first rudiments of society, doubt- 
 less led to many of those irruptions which were so 
 formidable to the civilized world. To these the allure- 
 ments of a milder climate, and the luxuries of civilized 
 life, may occasionally have been added. Now and 
 then, though but very rarely, the want of a sufiicient 
 expanse of country is alleged ; but, to believe this 
 reason valid, we must discredit every other fact which 
 is recorded of them, whether derived from themselves 
 or from the observations of their only historians. 
 
 (10) It is not diflicult to imagine what led some 
 writers to speak of these restless tribes as extremely 
 formidable in numbers, as well as in personal strength 
 and ferocity. Their unknown origin, strange and
 
 220 WARS AND IRRUPTIONS [Book I. 
 
 savage appearance, the suddenness of tlieir attacks, 
 the panic fears of those against whom they proceeded, 
 motives of palliation when the latter were vanquished, 
 and of vain-glory when they were victorious, — all these 
 operated as so many causes for exaggeration ; while 
 their moving in whole communities, not only of war- 
 riors, but including their old men, women, and 
 children, (whose numbers, it hardly needs to be 
 noticed, must always have greatly preponderated,) 
 swelled those irruptions apparently to a most formi- 
 dable amount. But, had they been duly analyzed, 
 they would have been deemed contemptible, though 
 they had comprised, as they often did, the entire 
 inhabitants of the country they occupied. Such, for 
 instance, as those of the Cimbri, the Helvetii, the 
 Suevi, and others. The number of one of these 
 entire nations has been already noticed, from Caesar ; 
 and his spirit of exaggeration, when his own exploits 
 were the subject of his pen, may be learnt from his 
 setting forth the inhabitants of Britain as so prodi- 
 giously numerous^, though the representation was 
 totally irreconcileable with the rest of his accounts of 
 the country. But it is from such descriptions that we 
 may best determine whether those regions, which won- 
 dering ages, from the Monk Jornandes downwards, 
 have denominated the officina gentium, — vagina na- 
 iioniim, See, had the plea of want of room for their 
 murderous migrations. 
 
 (11) The vast country which Tacitus, in his celebrated 
 Tract, denominates Germany, he describes as friendly 
 to vegetation, the soil productive of corn, and well 
 stocked with cattle ^ but, indeed, his evidence is su- 
 perfluous, as to the fact of the natural adaptation of 
 
 \Csesar, Coram., V. 10. Homiuum ^ jacitus, De Mor. Germ., 5 5, 
 est infinita multitudo. *
 
 Chap. Xir,] ON THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 221 
 
 that extensive region to tlie production of all that is 
 necessary to human subsistence. At that period the 
 great proportion of it had never been reclaimed by 
 man from the wildest state of nature. Its general 
 description, therefore, was that of a cheerless scene, 
 covered with the gloom of forests, and deformed with 
 wide extended marshes \ full of unprofitable heaths 
 and unhealthful pools ^ Caesar mentions several of 
 these forests^, one of which he describes as five days' 
 journey broad, and sixty long '*; and even in Gaul, 
 which he represents as so much more populous, his 
 operations perpetually imply the fact, which is, in- 
 deed, often expressed, that much of the country was 
 still almost in forest ; the cultivated lands being only 
 exceptions to its general state. The custom he men- 
 tions, of having their houses surrounded by a wood, 
 and near a river ^, is conclusive as to the thinness of 
 the population ; the reason he assigns for the choice 
 which he gives us to suppose was general, is foreign to 
 this inquiry. But it is with the situation of Germany, 
 which was the same as that of Gaul before the Ro- 
 mans had partially introduced civilization, that we 
 have mainly to do, the former country being that 
 ojficina gentium alluded to. 
 
 (12) It is impossible to reconcile the accounts we 
 have of the Germans with any state but that of a very 
 scanty and scattered population. They had no cities'', 
 nor connected villages^, but dwelt in separate huts, 
 dispersed up and down, as a wood, a meadow, or a 
 fountain happened to invite them^; their dwellings 
 were not allowed to be contiguous^, but a vacant space 
 
 » Tacitus, De Mor. Germ., § 5. « Mallet, North. Antiq , vol. i., p. 237. 
 
 ^ Heylin, Cosmog., p. 34, Germ. Tacitus, De Mor. Germ., c. xvi. 
 ^ Caesar, lib. iv., ^ 2. '' Ibid., xvi. 
 
 * Ibid., lib. iv., c. 16. 1. vi., c. 23, " Ibid., xvi. 
 
 » Ibid., 1. vi., § 28. 9 Ibid., xvi.
 
 222 WARS AND IRRUPTIONS [Book I. 
 
 was left around eacli of them^. Nor did tliey settle 
 even in these ; it was their object to keep up a restless 
 and migratory spirit, and an aversion from cultiva- 
 tion, in their whole community ; and the vast space 
 they occupied, in proportion to their numbers, enabled 
 them to accomplish it. Tacitus and Caesar concur in 
 stating the fact j the latter assigns the reason^. Their 
 practice of annually shifting, and allotting fresh lands 
 to each, is frequently alluded to^; the ease with 
 which it was accomplished, is noticed, and attributed 
 to the vast extent of country which they possessed ; 
 where, though they thus cultivated a fresh soil every 
 year, there was no want of land, but much still re- 
 mained to spare, and unoccupied*. 
 
 (13) These communities were, therefore, perpetu- 
 ally in motion; and we read of some entire tribes 
 that had been wandering, for years, through these 
 northern forests before they emerged to notice^. Nor 
 does it seem impossible, that they might have done 
 so without encountering much hostility, as we learn 
 (and the fact is worthy of remark, as a strong proof 
 that room was superfluous in these regions, what- 
 ever food might have been) that their various states 
 were seated among, and surrounded by, forests^, not 
 only on a principle of defence, but of ostentation. 
 Indeed, Ceesar tells us, that they accounted it their 
 greatest national glory that the country should be laid 
 waste as far around them as possible ; and he gives us 
 an instance of a nation, having on one side a desolate 
 tract of six hundred miles in extent '. 
 
 (14) These, together with man}' other circum- 
 stances, which might be adduced, were it necessary, 
 
 ' Mallet, North. Antiq., vol. i., p. 237. * Tacit., Ann., lib. xiii. 
 
 Tacitus, De Mor. Germ., c. xvi. " Cses., Comra., 1. iv., c. ir. 
 
 ~ Caesar, Comm., lib. vi., § 20. « Tacitus, De Mor., c. xl. Ibid., xliii. 
 
 3 Ibid.; 1. iv., c. 2. 7 Cses., Comm., 1. iv.
 
 Chap. XII.] ON THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 223 
 
 and, above all, those habits, passions, and pursuits, 
 by which they were distinguished, and which exist 
 only in an early stage of society, wholly disprove the 
 idea of a redundant population, at that period, in the 
 vast and fertile regions of Germany. The numbers that 
 did then inhabit those immense districts, it is now im- 
 possible to determine; those of Gaul, however, which 
 was far more densely peopled, we are enabled to guess 
 at, from some evidence that has reached our times. 
 Not to refer the reader again to the recorded number 
 of the inhabitants of the country of the Helvetii, form- 
 ing a part of it, nor to the number it was then calculated 
 one third of its finest districts could sustain, we shall 
 appeal to a much later account, when the inhabitants 
 of that province, far more extensive than present France, 
 had been doubtless increased greatly by the long inter- 
 vening period of comparative prosperity which it had 
 enjoyed ; and then the number of heads paying tax 
 to the Roman empire were, according to a probable 
 calculation, about five hundred thousand ^ Without 
 affecting to be able to determine, with any degree of 
 exactness, the proportion that these bore to the whole 
 number of the inhabitants, we may safely assert them 
 to have been very inconsiderable, in comparison with 
 the present population of that fine and fertile region, 
 which it would appear no exaggeration to any who 
 have seen it throughout, to state, is not even now half 
 cultivated, nor, consequently, subsisting any thing- 
 approaching to its proper population. 
 
 (15) If, then, the population of Gaul, at the 
 period of these irruptions, was, comparatively speak- 
 ing, thin, which the descriptions of the country, still 
 more than the direct facts advanced, oblige us to 
 believe; what was that of Germany? — all but a 
 
 * See Gibbon, History of the Decline, &c., vol. iii., p. 88.
 
 234 WARS ANU IKKUFXIONS [B<H)k I. 
 
 soUtude ! The very numbers sent forth on these occa- 
 sions, which, I must ag-^iin repeat, were, on every pos- 
 sible supposition, highly exag:gvruteil : altliough often 
 consisting-, — as Mr. Malthns's anthoritv, Machiavelli, 
 remarks, — "of an entire nation, with their wives and 
 " chiklren, leaving: its own country to tix themselves 
 " elsewhere/' w^hich motive, and mode of warfare, were 
 that, as he well observes, which rendered them so 
 formidable, — I sav, the verv numbers aiven are, 
 under such circumstances, sutficient evidence of them- 
 selves of the scanty^ population of the districts they 
 deserted ; and, as Gibbon says on one of these occa- 
 sions, ''' would, if fairly stated, appear contemptible." 
 
 (16) It is concluded, however, not only that these 
 migTations were composed almost universally of the 
 redundant numbers alone, sent forth by lot, as we 
 have previously seen, but that they left no chasm in 
 the population from which they were rejected. This 
 view of the subject is perfectly consistent with the 
 theory in question, and, indeed, necessary to it ; but 
 as clearly inconsistent with facts. 
 
 (17) One of the first of these northern irruptions 
 was that of the Cimbri and Teutones; it occurred six 
 or seven centuries after the foundincr of Rome — a lono- 
 interval of accumulatincr redundancy, accord inof to 
 the theory of superfecundity. Now, we know that 
 this was no struggle for room ; for, between their 
 Chersonesus and the plains of Italy, there was unoc- 
 cupied space enough, and none could have disputed 
 with them a settlement. That it w^as not a mere dis- 
 burdening of superfluous numbers, is equally certain : 
 it was a total evacuation. Had the theory of this 
 struggling for room been true, the vacant territory 
 would have been speedily repossessed, especially as 
 the pressure of the Roman empire, in the plenitude
 
 Chap. XII.] ON THE RO.MAX KMPIR?:. 225 
 
 of its power, was very ji^reat in that direction. But 
 two hundred years after that emigration, we still find 
 the country, described by Tacitus, as almost a soli- 
 tude. "Monuments of their former stren^-th and 
 " importance are," says he, " still to be seen. Their 
 " camps and circumvallations are not yet erased. From 
 " the extent of ground they occupied, you may even 
 " now form an estimate of the force and resources 
 " of the state; and the account of their grand army, 
 " consisting of such prodigious numbers, seems to be 
 " verified ^" Half a century afterwards, we hear 
 of a similar irruption, that of the Helvetii ; but 
 Caesar, who records it, does not allow us to suppose 
 this was the struggle in question, for he has given 
 the real motives for it^. This also, so far from leav- 
 ing no chasm behind, was a total desertion. They 
 burnt down their towns and houses, destroyed all 
 the property they could not mxjve, or that was su- 
 perfluous to their expedition, and emigrated with 
 their entire population. But the conqueror, who 
 did not totally destroy them, drove back the 
 remainder to re-inhabit their deserted country^. 
 Very similar reasons, it appears on the like authority, 
 induced the Germans to attempt a settlement in the 
 same country, Gaul ; into which, moreover, they were 
 invited by some of the inhabitants ; and Caesar states 
 his reasons for warring upon Ariovistus, with whom, 
 it is to be remarked, that the contests of Rome with 
 the Germans commenced. He did not like their cus- 
 tom of crossing the Rhine, allured by a finer country 
 
 'Tacitus, DeMor. Genu., c. xxxvii. friictuosissimum judicassent, reliquas- 
 
 ^ Propturea quod eo consilio florentis- que civitates stipendiarias haberent.— ■ 
 
 simis rebus, domus suas Helvetii reli- Cws., De Bel. Gall., 1. i., c. xxx, 
 
 quisseiit, iit toti GalliiB belluui inferreiit, ■' Id e;1 maxime ratione fecit, quod 
 
 imperio(|ue potirentur, locumque domi- noluit eum locum, unde Helvetii disces- 
 
 cilio ex magna copia deligereiit, quern serunt,Vacare.— Cses.,Comm., l.i., c. xxi. 
 ex omiii Gallia oppurtuuisbimum ac 
 
 Vol. I. Q
 
 22G WARS AND IRRUPTIONS [BookL 
 
 and better fare \ He knew well enough tliat a mere 
 want of room was no cause of their movements, nor 
 could the greatest extent of it induce them to be 
 stationary. Once in possession of Gaul, he said, 
 they would march for Italy, as the Cimbri and Teu- 
 tones had done before ; for he could not imagine that 
 such a fierce and barbarous people would restrain 
 themselves in bounds '^ ; in truth, he might well judge 
 so, for the people against whom he was about to pro- 
 ceed boasted that they had not been under a roof for 
 fourteen years ^ Their numbers, however, including 
 every description of persons, men, women, and chil- 
 dren, were, indeed, contemptible- — one hundred and 
 twenty thousand*^; affording, therefore, fewer than 
 thirty thousand fighting men. Against these, never- 
 theless, the might of Rome was directed, with Caesar 
 at its head. Many other instances might be given of 
 similar desertions of country. The Marcomanni totally 
 left their territory, now called Swabia. The Frisians, 
 also, as appears from Tacitus, left their country, con- 
 veying with them the weak through sex or age, and 
 settled on a large tract near the banks of the Rhine, 
 which they found vacant; but which, like many ano- 
 ther tract, even in this country, though wholly imoc- 
 cupied and unimproved, they found, nevertheless, to 
 their cost, was appropriated ;— the Roman soldiers 
 claimed it^. 
 
 (18) But I shall not needlessly multiply these in- 
 stances, but bring a last one, which will be peculiarly 
 interesting to Englishmen, as it will have reference to 
 the peopling of our own country by our distant ances- 
 tors. It is one of the events, moreover, to which 
 Mr. Malthus refers. Bede informs us, that the Saxon 
 
 ^ Caes., De Bel. Gall., 1. i., c. xxxi. '' Ibid., c. xxxi. 
 
 ' Ibid. . ^ Tacitus, Ami., 1. xiii., c. liv. 
 
 " Ibid., c. ssxvi.
 
 Chap. XII.] ON THE ROMAN EIVIPIRE. 227 
 
 emigrations to this island proceeded principally from 
 the country called Angelland, between the provinces 
 of the Jutes and the Saxons, which country, it is 
 said, consecpiently " remains desert to this day ^;" and 
 lie wrote nearly three centuries after the event. The 
 Saxon Chronicle reiterates the same fact, after a still 
 longer lapse of time ^. 
 
 (19) Enough has been advanced on this subject; 
 on a full view of which, nothing appears more con- 
 trary to fact, and even to possibility, than the often 
 repeated supposition of the overflowing population 
 in the northern regions. But their migrations and 
 irruptions may be fully accounted for upon principles 
 so much more rational, as well as consistent with 
 history, that it excites mingled surprise and regret, 
 that an argument which deeply concerns the human 
 race in its ultimate bearings, should have been 
 constructed on such a baseless hypothesis. I would 
 ask the author I am rebutting, who traces the irrup- 
 tions of these barbarians to a want of room or food, 
 whether, if some miracle had multiplied their lands 
 on the very eve of any of their expeditions, seeing 
 that they had already abundantly more than they 
 could possibly occupy, even in their own imperfect 
 manner, would it have prevented these invasions 
 of their neighbouring or distant enemies? would it 
 even have postponed them a single day ? These vast 
 maraudings are plainly to be traced to the very feelings 
 and habits of their existence : without any notion of 
 the respect due to property, the idea of plunder was 
 not only alluring to them, — it was irresistible ; and 
 its forcible accpiisition was deemed even honourable. 
 But if plunder excited them, the habit, the love, or, 
 
 ^ Hist. Ecc. Brit. 1, i., c. xv. j-tob feji^. betjix Jufum "j Seaxum, 
 
 ^ Of An3le comon, je a jitJtJan — Chron. Sax. apud Gibson. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 WARS AND IRRUPTIONS [Book I. 
 
 I may add, the passion for war, wliicli constituted their 
 pleasure, their business, and their glory, and which 
 their very religion, heightened into fanaticism, — im- 
 pelled them still more strongly ; and their youth even 
 migrated to other nations, in order to engage in it, if 
 their own happened to be at peace ; when the struggle 
 for subsistence was just as much their motive, as 
 it was of those British gallants of high blood, who 
 were constantly wandering through Europe, a few 
 centuries ago, in search of precisely the same occu- 
 pation. As the ties of country were so slight in a 
 population thus constituted, instances might, and no 
 doubt did, occur, of these irruptions for the purpose 
 of changing their seats, either led by fancy, or allured 
 by a fairer and more fertile climate; but these, though 
 accounted for, now and Lhen, upon a different prin- 
 ciple, proved directly the reverse of a redundant 
 population — they evidenced, on the contrary, that, 
 generally speaking, the population was exceedingly 
 thin. Had the world been adequately peopled, 
 none of these migrations could have taken place ; they 
 would have been resisted at every step. The an- 
 swer of one of their warriors to an inquiry as to the 
 distance of a territory meant to be invaded, well illus- 
 trates the consequences which must then have ensued. 
 " Fifteen days," said he, " but fifteen days of fight- 
 mg." Where the rights of possession and proprietor- 
 ship were scarcely recognized, and seldom respected, 
 these movements, from whatever cause, would not 
 unfrequently, perhaps, be the means of dispossessing 
 weaker tribes of their territories, without implying 
 that the entire region was inhabited at all, much less 
 overstocked with numbers ; but these outrages inva- 
 riably took their rise from motives of a far different 
 character from the law of necessity. There is not
 
 Chap. XII.] ON THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 229 
 
 one of tliem that is not plainly resolvable into eitlier the 
 weakness or wickedness of those human institutions, 
 which the system I oppose entirely absolves, laying- 
 the accumulated load of humem misery, which they 
 have created, at the door of Nature ^ 
 
 (20) I shall close my direct reference to the situa- 
 tion of these tribes, by an instance of a real strug-gle 
 for room and food, which aftbrds an affecting exempli- 
 jfication of the point at issue. Tacitus records one of 
 these irruptions, that of the Ansibarians, whose case, 
 he says, excited the sympathy of all the surrounding 
 states ; he might have added, and that of all suc- 
 ceeding times. They had been driven out of their native 
 country by the Chausians, probably because of their 
 taking part with the Romans ; for, though professing 
 adherence to the Roman empire, the Chausians were 
 by no means deemed sincere in their attachment^. 
 They roamed about in quest of a retreat, where they 
 might subsist in peace, although in exile. Boiocalus, 
 a warlike chief, was at the head of this wandering 
 nation. He had gained renown, and distinguished 
 himself by his attachment to the Romans, and had suf- 
 fered for it. He had served under Tiberius and Ger- 
 manicus ; and now, at the end of fifty years, he was 
 willing to submit himself and his people to the 
 protection of the Empire. They were settling upon a 
 waste of great extent, which, however, it appeared the 
 Romans claimed ; a circumstance that gave rise to 
 the affecting interview which Tacitus records. " The 
 " country in dispute,"' said Boiocalus, " is of wide 
 " extent ; and under colour of reserving it for the 
 " use of the legions, whole tracts of lands remain un- 
 " occupied, waste, and desolate. Let the Roman sol- 
 " diers depasture their cattle ; let them retain lands 
 
 ^ Tacitus, Ann., 1. xi., c. 18. 2 i|,;j.^ i. n^ (.. 17.
 
 230 WARS AND IRRUPTIONS [Book I. 
 
 " for that purpose ; but let them not, while they feed 
 " their horses, reduce mankind to the necessity of 
 *' perishing- by famine. Let them not prefer a dreary 
 " solitude to the rights of humanity. The affections 
 " and friendship of a people wishful to live in friend- 
 " ship with them are preferable to a wide waste of 
 " barren lands." He mentions that the country 
 had frequently been successively vacated and repos- 
 sessed ; and adds, " The firmament over our heads is 
 ■' the mansion of the gods : the earth was given to 
 " man ; and what remains unoccupied is common to 
 " all." At these words, adds the historian, he looked 
 up to the sun, and appealing to the whole planetary 
 system, asked, with a spirit of enthusiasm, as if the 
 heavenly bodies were actually present, whether an 
 uncultivated desert, the desolation of nature, gave a 
 prospect fit for them to survey ? Would they not 
 rather let loose the ocean, to overwhelm in a sudden 
 deluge a race of men, who made it their trade to carry 
 devastation through the nations, and make the world 
 a wilderness ? Avitus answered, in a strain of inso- 
 lent injustice : The law of the strongest must prevail ; 
 the gods had so ordered it. The Romans were sovereign, 
 and would admit no other judges. To Boiocalus, 
 however, in recollection of what he had formerly done 
 and suffered in their behalf, they privately offered 
 lands. Tlie noble-hearted German rejected the offer 
 as the price of treachery with disdain. " The earth," 
 he said, " may not afford a spot where we may dwell 
 " in peace ; a place where we may die, we can never 
 " want." They parted under the influence of this feel- 
 ing, and neglecting nothing which prudence could 
 dictate, their heroic chieftain attempted to rouse se- 
 veral of the surrounding nations to an alliance with 
 them ; in which he partly succeeded : but the fortune
 
 Chap. XII.] .ON TIIE ROMAN EMPIRE. 231 
 
 of tlie Romans prevailed, and tlieir allies renounced 
 tliem. In the cause of others, none, it is said, were 
 willino" to encounter certain danger. Driven, there- 
 fore, from these unoccupied wastes, the Ansibarians, 
 in their distress, were abandoned by all. They re- 
 treated to the Usipians and Tubantes ; being there 
 rejected, they sought refuge with the Cattians, and 
 afterwards with the Cheruscans. At length, worn 
 out by long and painful marches, in most places 
 repulsed as enemies, and wanting every thing in a 
 foreign land, the whole nation perished. The Romans 
 destroyed them ; the young, and such as were able 
 to carry arms, were put to the sword ; the rest were 
 sold to slavery ^ 
 
 (21) This affecting history affords us then, on a 
 minute scale, which Mr. Malthus prefers, a real 
 struggle for room and food. It was a struggle against 
 " human institutions," which this noble-hearted people 
 did not find to be so " light and superficial" in their 
 inflictions as our anti-populationists argue ; for they 
 interdicted to them the cultivation of the desert earth, 
 and unhesitatingly doomed them to universal destruc- 
 tion. To attribute sufferings like these to the evil 
 effects of the principle of population, to the natural 
 " tendencies " so much talked of, is an equal insult 
 upon humanity, nature, and truth. Nevertheless, 
 there has never been a martial massacre upon earth 
 that this wretched principle could not justify as clearly 
 as that of Boiocalus. 
 
 (22) Perhaps even the warmest assertors of this 
 direct check will deem it superfluous for me to dis- 
 prove that the wars of Rome in Africa or the east, or 
 in our unoffending and distant island in the west, 
 were clearly resolvable into the struggle in question. 
 
 ^ Tacitus, Ami,, lib, xiii.; c. 56.
 
 232 WARS AND IRRUPTIONS, &c. [Book I. 
 
 I slmll, therefore, pass on to a subsequent, period 
 in the history of that mighty empire, postponing the 
 few desultory and concluding observations, which 
 I shall make in relation to this subject, to the ensuing 
 chapter.
 
 233 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 OF THE WARS AND IRRUPTIONS ON THE ROMAN EMPIRE ; 
 
 THEIR CAUSES IRRECONCILEABLE WITH THE THEORY 
 
 OF HUMAN SUPERFECUNDITY. 
 
 (I) To resume, as shortly as possible, the important 
 subject of the preceding' chapter : it will require no 
 extensive research to shew that the wars of Rome, 
 whether those of aggression on distant countries, or 
 those by which she fell a just victim to the vengeance 
 of a world over which she had long tyrannized, can- 
 not by any possibility be construed into contests for 
 that space and sustenance which are necessary to hu- 
 man beino's. 
 
 (2) Need the conduct of that empire towards its 
 enemies or even dependents be particularized ? Instru- 
 ment, as it was, in the hand of Providence for working 
 the future good of mankind, it was still more its scourge. 
 The reasons which the Romans alleged for their con- 
 tinued contests include every possible variety of mo- 
 tive save that of justice ; while the savage ferocity 
 with which they waged them, fully justified their 
 origin, and comported with what might be expected 
 from a people whose favourite amusement, even in 
 peace, was the witnessing of the murderous fights 
 in their theatres, in which the vanquished, if not 
 killed upon the spot, were often doomed to a violent 
 death ; so that, " perhaps, thousands of victims were 
 thus annually slaughtered \" War with them, there- 
 fore, even upon the most distant and unoffending, was 
 
 ' Gibbon, Decline, &c.; vol. v., p. 206.
 
 234 WARS A:XD irruptions [Book I. 
 
 frequently the immolation of all that fell into their 
 hands; though sometimes the women and children 
 were reserved for a still more severe fate. In the 
 government of the vanquished countries, haughty and 
 tyrannical to the last degree, nothing, indeed, could 
 exceed the corruption that prevailed at home, except 
 the extortion and cruelty which reigned in their 
 provinces \ where means were resorted to by their 
 governors for the purpose of amassing enormous 
 wealth, involving all but impossibilities, and, indeed, 
 sometimes those, when their wretched tributaries had 
 to sell even themselves to make up the exactions de- 
 manded, or abide the consequence — death. Hence 
 many of those who were privileged, by being enrolled 
 amongst the Roman provinces, hailed their conquest, 
 by those called barbarians, as an auspicious change^. 
 Their slaves (and these constituted a great mass of the 
 people) had no political rights whatsoever ; but were 
 subjected unredressed to unheard of wrongs and out- 
 rages^ ; and they even confounded tradesmen with 
 slaves"*; freedmen, as they were called, awakened their 
 jealousy and hate, and enjoyed very limited and inse- 
 cure privileges. Even their allies, the very instru- 
 ments of their power and greatness, were attacked 
 wdienever they stood in the way of their ambition, or, 
 as was more commonly the case, excited their covet- 
 ousness. Often, indeed, a whole population was de- 
 stroyed to gratify their caprice, or to replenish their 
 coffers; and their liberal Catos were the willino- instru- 
 ments of deeds, from the bare recital of which, huma- 
 nity recoils. Let those who may think this picture of 
 
 1 JMontesquieu, Rise and Fall, &c., ^ Diodonis Siculus. Montesquieu, 
 ch. viii. Rise and Fall, &c., ch. viii. 
 
 2 Montesquieu, Ruin and Decay of * Montesquieu, Rise and Fall, &c., 
 the Roman Empire, ch. ii., p. 13. Gib- c. vi. 
 
 bon, Decline, &c., vol. v.. p. 350.
 
 Chap. XIII.J ON THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 235 
 
 tlieir cruelty and injustice overcharged, turn to tlie 
 Avork of Montesquieu on that people, and it will then 
 appear as much extenuated. Such was their conduct 
 in their power and prosperity ; from the time they 
 durst do thus, they did it. Regarding their morality 
 and justice, public or private, Cicero, as well as others, 
 inform us, corruption reigned from the very heart of 
 the empire to its remotest extremities, and they either 
 pillaged mankind as their tributaries, or destroyed 
 them as their foes. 
 
 (3) But it was not the feeling of vengeance alone 
 which Rome had universally excited. She liad be- 
 come, in her turn, an object of plunder. She had 
 " gathered into her nest the spoil of nations ;" she was 
 not merely enriched and embellished, she was, at 
 length, fed by the sweat of distant labour. Her weak- 
 ness, therefore, increased with her wealth. She had, 
 in fine, decked herself out as a rich and ready victim, 
 alluring the attacks of the surrounding nations. Very 
 early in that period, during which Rome exhibited 
 herself as a general conqueror, the barbarians, as she 
 called those whom she attacked, were, even according 
 to her own historians, far from being ignorant in 
 what the strength, as well as the weakness, of the 
 Empire consisted ; and of the cause to which they 
 owed their degradation. And the prayer of Tacitus to 
 the gods of his country, that they would avert the 
 fate of Rome by the mutual dissensions of these ex- 
 tensive nations, clearl}^ indicates the posture of the 
 Roman Empire, even in its proudest periods. 
 
 (4) If, therefore, we take a map into our hand, and 
 cast a glance upon the vast extent of country pos- 
 sessed by these barbarians, compared with the narrow 
 neck of land, called Italy ; and recollect the habits 
 and dispositions of the inhabiteuits of that immense
 
 236 AVARS AND IRRUPTIONS [Book I. 
 
 territory, who were as superior in real courage to 
 their oppressors, (had the latter been divested of 
 that military art which constituted, what may be 
 called, their fated armour,) as the cowardice of 
 the Romans conceived them to be in strength and 
 stature; and then call to mind the long series of 
 insults and wrongs inflicted by their unfeeling and 
 haughty tyrants, we shall bethink ourselves of mo- 
 tives more worthy the dignity of human nature, and 
 of an avenging Providence, than an unnecessary 
 struggle for room and food. The ultimate union of 
 the oppressed, and the common appellation they 
 assumed, contradict so ridiculous a supposition. 
 They beheld their neighbours, once their brethren, 
 enslaved and oppressed, and they feared a like fate, 
 to which, it seems, they preferred death itself. They, 
 therefore, from the remotest parts of their territories, 
 leagned for the double purpose of avenging past, 
 and averting future injuries. They united together 
 again, as they had previously done under the noble 
 Arminius^, and sunk their peculiar appellations under 
 the common name of AUemanni — All-men. They 
 resolved to liberate themselves and be freemen ; they 
 confederated, therefore, under that designation, and 
 were Franci. They fought ; how long, with what 
 various success, and with what ultimate effects, it is 
 needless to relate. But whatever motives might 
 mingle with their one general intent, or however the 
 impulse which urged them to the field of battle, might 
 have been varied by successive events; it was a nobler 
 cause than a struggle for the means of subsistence, 
 which prompted those efforts so fatal to Rome, but 
 which, ultimately, won the liberty, and promoted the 
 happiness, of the world. 
 
 ' Turner; Hist, of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. i., p. 42.
 
 Chap. XIII.] OX THE RO:\IAN EMPIRE. 237 
 
 (5) It is not meant to aro'ue, that in this pe- 
 riod of universal war and bloodshed, the causes now 
 mentioned were the only, or, in all instances, the pre- 
 dominating, motives : such, however, had been the con- 
 duct of the Romans in every part of the then known 
 world, that it is difficult to imagine their absence in 
 any considerable attack upon that empire. The 
 Goths, for instance, whose irruption was so fatal to 
 Rome, and so important in its consequences to Eu- 
 rope, sprung perhaps originally from Scandinavia^ 
 but they gathered in their march, probably, still 
 greater numbers, who had suffered from Roman op- 
 pression^, and who hailed their triumphs as a common 
 benefit^. In their progress southward, this mighty 
 swarm gave abundant proofs, that it was neither for 
 that food which is the result of industry, nor for the 
 room which such industry requires, that they sought. 
 They passed through the most beautiful and fertile re- 
 gions, without a thought, as it would seem, of possess- 
 ing them permanently. Notwithstanding these induce 
 ments to settle, the Goths, as Gibbon observes, still 
 adliered to a life of idleness, of poverty, and of rapine^ 
 They were allured by the neighbourhood of the Roman 
 Empire, rich, indeed, in every thing but human beino-s; 
 which, notwithstanding the geometric theory, assisted 
 by a stream of emigration from all countries, and espe- 
 cially of slaves, who were successively acc^uiring free- 
 dom, was rapidly dwindling in its population, and con- 
 sequently in its strength. They defeated the Romans, 
 but they fought not for room, and were therefore ap- 
 peased by a great booty, a vast number of prisoners, 
 whom they doubtless enslaved, and by an annual pay- 
 
 1 Gibbon, vol. i., p. 396. « Turner, Hist, of the Anglo-Saxon, vol. i., p. 131. 
 
 ^ vol. i., p. 39G.
 
 238 WARS AND IRRUPTIONS [Book I. 
 
 ment of a large sum of gokP . They settled awhile in 
 the Ukraine ; but, impatient of inglorious ease, they 
 seized upon one of the Roman tributary kingdoms, the 
 Bosphorus. The conquerors did not still, we are told, 
 content themselves with " a superfluous waste of fer- 
 tile soil"^, they depended on rapine, and by the acqui- 
 sition of this principally subsisted. In different expedi- 
 tions they took, and seized the wealthy spoils of, Col- 
 chis and Chalcedon, and ravaging Athens and Greece, 
 approached Italy, which country the divisions of their 
 chieftains probably saved. They were at length 
 vanquished, but escaped destruction. But it deserves 
 notice, that the numbers that formed the last of 
 their expeditions, and that achieved the greatest of 
 their exploits, were originally, at most, only fifteen 
 thousand ! 
 
 (6) The various nations of Germany and Sarmatia, 
 who fought under the Gothic standard, formed another 
 expedition, which the fears of the empire exaggerated 
 into 320,000 barbarians. As it is known, however, that 
 they brought their families, or, in other words, their 
 women^, and consequently children, with them; sup- 
 posing we take the number as correct, which Gibbon 
 represents as grossly exaggerated, what is it but the 
 average population of a single English county, war- 
 ring against the Roman Empire ? These, the superior 
 science of the Romans subdued, but the pestilence 
 "which ensued, in which the victorious Emperor him- 
 self fell, was more fatal to them than defeat. After- 
 wards, as the hopes and chances from war and plunder 
 had decreased, the Goths accepted of the province of 
 Dacia, which was very inadequately peopled by the 
 Romans; and resigning themselves at last to the 
 
 iGibbon,vol. i., p.406. « Ibid., p. 423. ^ itid.^ ^oj, ii.^ p, 13^
 
 Chap. XIII.] ON THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 239 
 
 peaceful pursuits of agriculture, never found them- 
 selves, probably, confined in so little room, nor ever 
 possessing such abundance of food. Fifty years 
 later, this people, reinforced by Sarmatians, fought 
 with Constantino ; but as the war had none of the 
 characters of a hostile migration, it hardly need be 
 adduced. They continued, however, to advance in 
 power and influence, by the arts of civilization, as the 
 Romans themselves had done before, till their influ- 
 ence extended over a considerable part of Germany 
 and Scythia. But they too weakened their power 
 by becoming tyrants, as well as conquerors ^ Ambi- 
 tious projects now dazzled them, and 30,000 men 
 marched into the Ronum territories. They were ulti- 
 mately defeated ; but neither can this, in any possible 
 view of the subject, be deemed the struggle in ques- 
 tion. We learn from the terms of the peace then 
 agreed upon, that their condition was much improved 
 with their settlement : they had contracted a taste, not 
 only for the comforts, but for the luxuries of life ; and 
 had begun to obtain them through commerce. These, 
 therefore, in their turn became rich, and were conse- 
 quently an object of plunder. 
 
 (7) At this period was it, that a people called the 
 Huns made their appearance on the stage of the 
 world; they came, probably, from a very distant 
 region. Eastern Tartary, and had not wandered, there- 
 fore, so far for want of room. But it is less our purpose 
 to inquire into their origin, than their situation and cir- 
 cumstances at the time when they appeared. They 
 were migratory warriors, and their habits were noma- 
 dic ; they moved their entire community at once ; and, 
 in a word, they were precisely what the Goths had been 
 a few generations before, and inspired the same terror 
 
 1 Gibbon, vol. iv., p. 372.
 
 240 WARS AND IRRUPTIONS [Book I. 
 
 with wliicli the latter had struck the Romans, accom- 
 panied by the same creative fears, which invested them 
 with superhuman strength, and exaggerated their 
 numbers. They too gathered force, like every other 
 irruption, as they passed along. They did, therefore, 
 what it will be generally found such have done in those 
 ages of the world, however inferior in numbers — they 
 conquered. But the term of their triumph was short, 
 and none succeeded them to continue their career, or 
 to perpetuate the struggle, not for room and food, but 
 for domination and plunder. Their sudden power 
 passed away with their great leader, Attila ; and his 
 authority was dissipated and soon reverted to the 
 neighbouring states. But it had sufficed, however, to 
 dispossess the Goths of the country in which they were 
 settled ; and they passed over the Danube to the num- 
 ber of 200,000 warriors, perhaps quadruple that 
 number of individuals. Moesia received them, where 
 they were subjected to the most intolerable oppression 
 and treachery, and, consequently, took up arms and 
 conquered their tyrants, and retaliated. They were 
 reinforced by the other great tribe of the Gothic 
 nation, and even by those from whose irruption they 
 had retreated. Still, they professed a wish only to be 
 relieved from their intolerable oppressions, and to in- 
 habit the vacant lands of Thrace ^ ; and vacant lands 
 indeed there were, in every direction, even in the 
 heart of the western empire ". These requests were 
 rejected with disdain ; a contest ensued, and Valens 
 and his army perished. After an unsuccessful recon- 
 noitre of Constantinople, they retired, spread them- 
 selves, and settled awhile in the fruitful plains south 
 of the Danube, as far as the frontiers of Italy and the 
 Adriatic sea. 
 
 ' Gibbon, vol. iv., p. 403, ^ Ammianus, xxxi., 9.
 
 Chap. XIII.] ON THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 24 1 
 
 (8) All tliis while there was plenty of room. St. 
 Jerome describes mankind as almost exterminated, and 
 the earth as ao-ain returnino- to uncultivated wastes and 
 inextricable wilds and forests \ But still, it was mani- 
 fest that it was neither room nor food the barbarians 
 sought. The leaders of the Ostrogoths, who were, for 
 several years, moving amongst the northern nations, 
 returned with accumulated force, after having broken 
 the peace they had concluded with the western Emperor, 
 and fell upon the eastern ; when Theodosius, by strata- 
 gem, gained a complete triumph. The remainder were 
 planted in Phrygia and Lydia. The ravages of war 
 and tyranny had provided, says Gibbon, many large 
 tracts of fertile but uncultivated land, for the use of 
 those barbarians who might not disdain the practice of 
 agriculture ^. But, so far were they from fighting for 
 these, that it was never, till they were defeated, that 
 they could be settled in them. Meantime, the mur- 
 der of their youth, which had been committed as 
 hostages to the Emperor, had been perpetrated ; and 
 the fall of the empire was again only postponed, for 
 awhile, by the intestine divisions of its justly exaspe- 
 rated enemies. 
 
 (9) From this period, the history of the Goths need 
 hardly to be adverted to. The career of their royal 
 leader, Alaric, is universally known; but, in no one 
 circumstance, either in reference to the orioin of his 
 irruption, its conduct, or its consequences, is there 
 the least indication that his efforts were a struo-o-le 
 for subsistence ; the exploits of Alexander the Great 
 might just as well be attributed to the like cause. On 
 the contrary, he never seemed to have an idea of re- 
 taining the conquests which he had made ; and the 
 
 1 Vol, iv., p. 413. 2 Ibid., p. 433. 
 
 Vol. I. R
 
 242 WARS AND IRRUPTIONS [Book I. 
 
 fruitful plains of Italy were so imperfectly possessed, 
 that a law was made by which the lands, left without 
 inhabitants or cultivation, were granted, with dimi- 
 nished taxes, to the neighbours who should occupy, 
 or the strangers who should remove to them^ Of 
 Alaric, it may perhaps be said, that few conquerors, 
 provoked and excited as he was, were less vindictive. 
 His ranks, probably never exceedingly numerous, were 
 reinforced by the liberation of those whom the Romans 
 had kept in merciless thraldom ; and, to a vast pro- 
 portion of the inhabitants, his conquests were perhaps 
 an essential blessing. Thrice had he Rome in his 
 power ; and when, at length, he took it, the world 
 beheld the difference between a conquering Roman in 
 the best days of the republic, and a victorious "bar- 
 barian." Probably, much of the blood spilt on that 
 memorable occasion, was shed by the enfranchised 
 slaves, (of which miserable class there were 40,000 in 
 the city,) in vengeance of the cruel wrongs to which 
 they had been long subjected ^. The memorable pro- 
 clamation of Alaric, on entering the city, forbade all 
 murderous excesses ; and it is confidently asserted, 
 that one senator alone suffered. Nor did the conqueror 
 even seize upon the lands of conquered Italy. 
 
 (10) The character of these Gothic wars hence- 
 forth changed. The sword was no longer the chief 
 check in keeping down the supposed superfluous num- 
 bers. It is useless, therefore, to pursue the history 
 of that people, further than merely to observe, that 
 their later contests are less reconcileable to the idea 
 that they struggled for room, than even their former 
 ones. In a word, the wars of the Romans on their 
 parental tribes in the north of Europe, had as close a 
 
 ^ Vol. v., p. 335; 2ibid.^p. 312.
 
 Chap. XIII.] ON THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 243 
 
 connexion with the principle of population, as liad 
 the retaliation of these tribes on the southern pro- 
 vinces of the empire, and on Italy itself. 
 
 (11) But the illustration is brought still nearer to 
 our times, and home to our own country. The land- 
 ing of the Saxons, in their three long vessels, on the 
 British coast, and the subsequent attacks of the Danes, 
 or Northmen, who, with the naval Saxons, so long 
 ravaged Europe, are charged upon the same principle. 
 I shall not repeat, in reply, the substance of what has 
 been previously advanced. These irruptions did not 
 proceed from over-populated countries, nor did they 
 consist of numerous bodies, though we have reason to 
 believe that they comprehended almost the entire mar- 
 tial population of their respective countries; which 
 were, therefore, left almost desolate, excepting that 
 a stripe of inhabitants remained on the sea coasts. 
 These depredations continued till the hopes of plunder 
 had abated, from its having become exhausted, or the 
 difficulties of obtaining it had become insuperable. I 
 shall, therefore, conclude my observations upon these 
 naval maraudings, in the language of one peculiarly 
 well qualified to judge on this subject. " The Nor- 
 " mans," says Montesquieu, " who, in some measure, 
 *^ resembled the conquerors of the Empire, ravaged 
 ■" France for several centuries ; and when, at last, they 
 " could find no more booty, they thought fit to accept 
 " of a desolated province, and parcelled it out into 
 " several properties." 
 
 (12) As to the effects which were produced in dif- 
 ferent invaded countries by their expeditions, which 
 some regard as a proof of the great numbers engaged 
 in them, the history of the world sufficiently disproves 
 the idea. The author just quoted well observes it to 
 be " remarkable that the weakest nations have been 
 
 R 2
 
 244 WARS AND IRRUPTIONS [Book I. 
 
 " those that have made the greatest establishments ; 
 " we should be much deceived if we judged of their 
 " force by their conquests ^" 
 
 (13) The fact is, there is nothing scarcely in com- 
 mon between a nation of migratory barbarians, and 
 one settled and civilized ; the former will, of course, 
 bring all its strength at once into the contest, and at 
 one point, the other perhaps not a twentieth part, and 
 that divided ; and the only hope of the latter is in the 
 superiority of their military arts and discipline. When, 
 therefore, we speak of large numbers as concerned in 
 these irruptions, we connect meanings to such state- 
 ments which facts cannot justify. " Speaking of kings 
 *' and kingdoms," (to use Mr. Turner's words, to whose 
 admirable history of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors I appeal 
 on this question,) " we use words of swelling sound, and 
 " magnificent import. Splendour, extensive dominion, 
 " pomp, power, and venerated dignity, are the majestic 
 " images which arise in our minds when we hear of 
 " thrones. But we must dismiss from our thoua'hts 
 " the fascinating appendages of modern royalty, when 
 " we contemplate the petty sovereigns of the north. 
 " Some of their kingdoms may have equalled an Eng*- 
 " lish county in extent, but many would not have 
 " rivalled our hundreds. If we call to our recollection 
 "the regions about the Niger, and survey, in Mr. 
 " Parke's narrations, tlie little potentates he visited, 
 " we shall have more reasonable notions of the majesty 
 " of the Baltic I" 
 
 (14) But let me repeat, in concluding this argu- 
 ment, that I am not denying that the human race, 
 when thinly scattered, and exposed to considerable 
 privations, is not highly prolific ; I assert the contrary ; 
 
 * Montesquieu, Rise and Decaj', ^ Turner, History of the Anglo- 
 
 ch- J^- Saxons, vol. ii., p. 36,
 
 Chap. XIII.] ON THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 245 
 
 but I do deny that the inhabitants of the North had 
 ever become so populous in the regions which they pos- 
 sessed as to call for the sword to thin their superfluous 
 numbers, or conquer for them the space and means 
 necessary for their subsistence. 
 
 (15) As, however, there is so wide and irrecon- 
 cileable a difference between the opinion of the author 
 I have principally had in view (Mr. Malthus) and my 
 own on this subject ; and feeling a proper deference 
 for those whose learning and researches qualify them 
 so fully for determining this disputed point ; I shall 
 appeal to authorities, whose capacity and industry 
 none can doubt, and whose impartiality on this 
 point it is impossible to impeach, because their opi- 
 nion was delivered before the dispute grounded 
 upon the facts had been started. I conceive that, 
 in quoting Mallet as the profound writer on those 
 northern nations whence these irruptions sprang, on 
 the one hand ; and on the other, Montesquieu and 
 Gibbon, as the learned historians of the event to 
 which these invasions so greatly contributed, namely, 
 the fall of the Roman empire, few will be disposed 
 to question the propriety of the appeal. The former, 
 then, says, " For my part, I have not been able 
 " to discover any proofs that their emigrations ever 
 "proceeded from want of room at home; on the 
 " contrary, I find enough to convince me that their 
 " country could easily have received an additional num- 
 " ber of inhabitants. When Alboin formed the pro- 
 " ject of leading the Lombards into Italy, he demanded 
 " auxiliaries from the Saxons, his allies. Twenty 
 " thousand Saxons, with their wives and children, ac- 
 . " companied the Lombards into Italy ; and the kings 
 " of France sent colonies of Swabians, to occupy the 
 " country which the Saxons had left desert. Thus we
 
 46 WARS AND IRRUPTIONS [Book I. 
 
 " see that the Saxons, who are thought to have been 
 " the most numerous people of Germany, could not 
 " send forth this feeble swarm, without depopulating- 
 " their own country. But this is not all. The twenty 
 " thousand Saxons, disagreeing with the Lombards, 
 " quitted Italy, and returned back (undiminished in 
 " number) into their own country, which they found 
 " possessed by the Swabians above-mentioned. This 
 " presently gave rise to a war, which, as an ancient his- 
 " torian assures us, demonstrated to the Saxons, that 
 " both nations might easily share the country among 
 '' them, and live all of them in it very commodiously. I 
 " have no doubt that there were throughout all Saxony, 
 " as well as Scandivania, vast tracts of land which lay 
 " in their original imcultivated state. Let any one 
 " read the description which Adam of Bremen gives 
 " of Denmark in the eleventh century, and he will be 
 " convinced that the coasts alone were peopled, but 
 " that the interior parts formed one vast forest. Let 
 " any one judge after this, whether it was always from 
 " the superfluity of its inhabitants, as has been fre- 
 " quently asserted, that the North poured forth its 
 " torrents upon the countries they overwhelmed ^" 
 I beg to refer the reader to the whole of the chapter 
 of his work, whence the above extract is taken, as 
 perfectly conclusive of the point at issue. 
 
 (16) Montesquieu, in his Rise and Decay of the 
 Roman Empire, likewise denies the supposition, that 
 it was from a superfluity in human fecundity that the 
 north sent forth the expeditions which were one means 
 of destroying that empire. For the irruptions of the 
 northern nations, as they are termed, and for their 
 having ceased, he advances a reason, which, like every 
 thing that he wrote, as originating in serious consi- 
 
 ' Mallet, Northern AnticpitieS; vol, i., c. 10, p. 296.
 
 Chap. Xiri.] ON THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 247 
 
 deration, is deserving- of it. He says, " the violences 
 '' of the Romans had made the people of the south 
 '' retire into the north ; while the force that confined 
 " them subsisted, they remained there ; when it was 
 *' weakened, they dispersed themselves again into all 
 " parts." And he gives similar instances in later 
 times. This was, doubtless, one of the causes of these 
 irruptions, though not the only one, and I reserved it 
 for this place, in order to present it in his own terms. 
 The fact he states is undeniable ; had we no proofs of 
 it but the very nature and conduct of Roman warfare, 
 these would be abundantly sufficient. Those countries 
 which submitted to them they enslaved, seizing most of 
 their lands ^, and subjected them to such intolerable 
 exactions, that many of the inhabitants fled out of the 
 reach of their oppressors. Those nations which, in be- 
 half of their liberty, resisted their invasions, they dealt 
 with more severely. They slaughtered the warriors who 
 fell into their hands ; enslaved their women and chil- 
 dren ; or drove them wholly out of their own country, 
 and boasted of the deserts they had created. Multi- 
 tudes, therefore, in their unceasing attacks, doubtless 
 took refuge within the Rhine and Danube, which 
 were for some time considered as the boundaries of 
 their empire ; concealed themselves within the gloomy 
 forests of that immense tract, still retaining a keen 
 and hereditary hatred of their enemy, and reserving 
 themselves for the opportunity of manifesting it. The 
 countries west and south of those limits were, there- 
 fore, left desolate, or but very scantily inhabited. 
 When these boundaries were left inadequately de- 
 fended, the evacuated countries were repossessed ; and 
 the nearer neighbourhood to their proud oppressor 
 shewed at once her weakness and her wealth, and 
 
 ' ^ Montesquieu, Causes, &e., c. xvi.
 
 248 WARS AND IRRUPTIONS [Book I. 
 
 excited often the incensed warriors to further desio-ns 
 than tliat of repossessing- a devastated country. On a 
 bold expression of Montesquieu, simply implying, that, 
 driven into the northern wilds, where they made a final 
 stand, they maintained themselves till the power was 
 weakened which confined them in that region, Mr. 
 Malthus is witty, and his wit is, as usual, unfortunate. 
 Montesquieu's explanation never supposes that the 
 inhabitants driven over the Rhine or the Danube, and 
 having still a space of prolific country, which, after all, 
 it was impossible for them to occupy, " apt for corn 
 and full of cattle," would have to subsist, with the most 
 patient fortitude, on air and ice for some hundreds of 
 years, till they could return to their own homes, and 
 resume their usual more substantial modes of subsist- 
 ence ^ This imagination is not Montesquieu's; the 
 latter never represents the north as over-peopled, but 
 merely, that to nations cruelly deprived of their native 
 territories, and confined to less congenial ones, the 
 opportunity of repossessing their own, especially when 
 almost vacant of intruders, Avould not be neglected. 
 
 (17) I shall conclude with a quotation from Gib- 
 bon, in which he seems to have summed up, with the 
 utmost care, the whole dispute, after having delivered 
 a similar judgment in various other parts of his work. 
 " The same extent of ground," says that writer, "which 
 " at present maintains, in ease and plenty, a million 
 " of husbandmen and artificers, was unable to supply 
 " a hundred thousand lazy warriors with the simple 
 " necessaries of life. The Germans abandoned their 
 " immense forests to the exercise of hunting, employed 
 " in pasturage the most considerable part of their 
 " lands, bestowing on the remainder a rude and care- 
 " less cultivation, and then accused the scantiness and 
 
 ' MaltluiSj Essay on Population, p. 76.
 
 Chap. XIII.] ON THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 249 
 
 " sterility of a country wliicli refused to maintain the 
 " multitude of its inhabitants. When the return of 
 " famine severely admonished them of the importance 
 " of the arts, the national distress was sometimes alle- 
 " viated by the emigration of a third, perhaps, or a 
 " fourth part of their youth. The possession and the 
 " enjoyment of property are the pledges which bind a 
 " civilized people to an improved country. But the 
 " Germans, who carried with them what they most 
 " valued, their arms, their cattle, and their women, 
 " cheerfully abandoned the vast solitude of their woods, 
 " for the unbounded hopes of plunder and conquest. 
 " The innumerable swarms that issued, or seemed to 
 " issue, from the great storehouse of nations, were 
 " multiplied by the fears of the vanquished, and by 
 " the credulity of succeeding ages. And from facts 
 " thus exaggerated, an opinion was gradually esta- 
 " blished, and has been supported by authors of a dis- 
 " tinguished reputation, that in the age of Caesar and 
 " Tacitus, the inhabitants of the north were far more 
 " numerous than they are in our days. A more 
 " serious inquiry into the causes of population, seems 
 " to have convinced modern philosophers of the false- 
 " hood, and indeed, the impossibility, of the suppo- 
 " sition^" — Thus much for " the nonsense written 
 about the northern hive^." 
 
 ' Gibbon, vol. i., pp.359, 360, 361. * Dr. Clarke, Travels in Scandinavia. 
 
 1^^ It was my first intention to have completuil, in this part of the work, the 
 refutation of the theory of sviperfunindity as founded upon human experience, by 
 pursuing tlie arginnent of the principal advocate of that notion in its appeals to the 
 modern history and state of the world ; but, on further consideration, I shall post- 
 pone that jiart of my subject, till I have enunciated and proved what I conceive to 
 he the true law of population ; as, though I hold that a view of the effect of in- 
 creasing or diminishing numbers in every existing coimtry, will clearly refute the 
 principle against which I am contending, it will still more strongly illustrate and 
 prove that which it is the far more important purpose of this treatise to establish. 
 The consideration of the question, thereftu'e, in reference to the present condition 
 of the different states of the world, especially those which Mr. Malthus has parti- 
 cularized, will be resumed in the Fifth Book of this treatise.
 
 250 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OF THE OPINIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS AND LEGISLATORS 
 
 OF ANTIQUITY, CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLE 
 
 OF POPULATION.— PLATO. 
 
 (1) In this appeal to ancient history on the subject 
 of the principle of population, a just exposition of the 
 views of legislators and philosophers of earlj^ times 
 cannot be misplaced, especially as the inquiry will 
 terminate, it is hoped, in delivering some of the bright- 
 est names of antiquity from the foulest aspersion that 
 can be cast upon human beings, the supposition of 
 their having deliberately and systematically enjoined 
 infanticide. 
 
 (2) One of the most judicious of our writers, Dr. 
 Paley, says, that "the influence of names is in exact 
 proportion to the want of knowledge V' — an aphorism 
 which, though it may more frequently be an apology 
 for the indolence than a spur to the industry of the 
 human mind, and give far oftener presumption to con- 
 ceited ignorance, than confidence to real knowledge, is, 
 nevertheless, under certain limitations, undoubtedly 
 true, especially in matters open to general observation 
 and experience. As to the subject of population, at 
 all events, it must be presumed that the longer the 
 world has endured, the more perfectly must it have 
 become known ; and it seems, therefore, somewhat to 
 reverse the order of things, to seek for proofs of its 
 nature and effects, or the opinions of mankind regard- 
 ing them, as far back as nearly two thousand years, 
 
 ^ Paley, Moral Philosophy, Pref., xvi.
 
 Chap. XIV.] OPINIONS OF xVNCIENT PHILOSOPHERS. 251 
 
 I am, however, perfectly willing to remit the appeal 
 which the present argument involves, to the knowledge 
 and experience of any preceding period of history, 
 however near, or however remote ; being firmly con- 
 vinced that the divine apophthegm, " it is not good for 
 man to be alone," will be as true to the last, as it was 
 in the first, and has been in every stage of human 
 existence. 
 
 (3) The principal antagonist of human increase, 
 referring to the philosophers and legislators of ancient 
 times, omits all mention of those who, he knows, do 
 not concur with him, and quotes those only, who, he 
 supposes, do. The institutions of Confucius ^ and 
 Zoroaster ^ which, we are instructed to believe, had an 
 especial view to the encouragement of population, and 
 which have continued to influence an almost incalcu- 
 lably greater number of human beings, than those 
 to which he has referred, are, therefore, left unnoticed; 
 even the authority of the greatest political philoso- 
 pher, (to say nothing of his more sacred pretensions,) 
 which the world ever beheld, Moses, is not once 
 glanced at, while the opinions, or rather reveries, of 
 one or two of those, who are denominated the " think- 
 ing men of Greece," are brought forward, and, as I 
 shall prove, grossly misinterpreted, in order to repre- 
 sent antiquity as fully imbued with the belief, that the 
 principle of population had an evil tendency to in- 
 crease. To redeem, then, these authorities, who are 
 certainly amongst the most celebrated of antiquity, 
 from the imputation of holding the most erroneous 
 views, and most heinous doctrines, regarding this 
 subject ; and, at the same time, to deliver the true prin- 
 ciple of population from the disadvantage of their 
 
 1 See Du Halde, &c. 
 
 2 Zoroaster abhorred celibacy. Gibbon, vol. i., p. 324.
 
 252 OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS [Book I. 
 
 supposed hostility, is the purport of the present chap- 
 ter. But in order to this, 1 must first take a sum- 
 mary view of the political condition of the states of 
 ancient Greece. 
 
 (4) The republics of Greece, constituting- what are 
 now generally denominated the free states of anti- 
 quity, were, at the period when their legislators and 
 philosophers flourished, in the possession, principally, 
 of the descendants of colonists and conquerors, who, 
 having subdued the original inhabitants, reduced 
 them to the condition of abject slavery ^ The latter, 
 vastly the most numerous body, the original and 
 rightful possessors of the soil ^ ; of the same com- 
 plexion and speaking often the same language, and 
 consequently identified in their origin ^, were never- 
 theless deprived of all political existence whatever ; 
 and, instead of possessing any property, were them- 
 selves, individually and universally, the property of 
 others. The recollection of their past condition, (and 
 some of them had been of the most exalted rank,) or 
 any recognition that they had feelings and rights as 
 human beings, little encumbered the politicians of 
 Greece. It is utterly impossible, therefore, to describe 
 the treatment these unhappy beings often received : 
 not only was all the drudgery of existence imposed 
 upon them, whether that of agriculture or the me- 
 chanical arts, but they were, in some of the states, sub- 
 ject to the caprice or cruelty of masters, whose atro- 
 cities regarding them have left no parallel in human 
 history. And still it is from viewing the institutions 
 of Greece, that declaimers can rave about human 
 rights, and infidels cant about moral systems, which 
 are to disparage Christianity. If such a people had 
 
 ' Thiicyd., 1. i., c. 101. « Mitford, Hist. Greece, vol. ii., p. 81. 
 
 2 Gillie-s, Hist. Greece, vol. i., p. 157. Thucyd., 1. i., c. 101.
 
 Chap. XIV.] AND LEGISLATORS.— PLATO, 253 
 
 really held the notion of the natural redundancy of 
 human beings, it would have suited their political code 
 and conduct, and formed, I think, but a very suspi- 
 cious argument in its favour. But I deny the assump- 
 tion altogether. 
 
 (5) The successors, then, of these colonists and 
 conquerors, owned the property of the entire country, 
 which was, in each state, parcelled out amongst them, 
 either originally, or, at subsequent periods, according 
 to the number of the citizens ; reserving, however, a 
 considerable quantity, perhaps, unappropriated, as a 
 common stock K Now, as a share of this property 
 constituted the only means of subsistence, (for the 
 " thinking persons of Greece" rejected all personal 
 industry with a view to obtaining a livelihood, whether 
 mechanical or agricultural", as positively infamous; 
 an opinion fully sanctioned by both Plato ^ and Aris- 
 totle^, in their imaginary Republics,) the necessity 
 they were under of keeping the population, as much 
 as possible, at one level, is instantly obvious. Had 
 the citizens multiplied beyond the number of their 
 allotments, the excess would have been unprovided 
 for ; had they fallen far short of the latter, the state 
 would have become weakened and endangered. 
 Hence arose the care of their lawgivers, and the ex- 
 pedients of their philosophers, on the subject of po- 
 pulation. But, although both alternatives were anti- 
 cipated by them, and corrections prescribed for each, 
 agreeably to the pernicious principle of their entire 
 system, still I will venture to assert, that their great 
 anxiety was about a ruinous diminution, rather than 
 a pernicious increase, of their citizens; and tenfold 
 
 ^ Aristot., De Repub., 1. iv., c. 1 1 . ^ Plato, Do Legibus, 1. il., and 1. vii. 
 
 2 Bacon's Essays, Works, vol. i., ■'Aristotle, Ue Repub., 1. iii., c. 5., 
 p. 327. p. 344, A. Ibid., 1. vii., c. 1 0. (437, D.)
 
 254 OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS [Book I. 
 
 more precautions were dictated with reference to the 
 former, than to the latter case. 
 
 (6) Such was the basis of their political philo- 
 sophy, though it may well be doubted whether this 
 equality was ever fully realized ; if it were, it is quite 
 clear it was of no permanent continuance. Notwith- 
 standing all their precautions, property accumulated 
 in the hands of some citizens, others fell into decay ; 
 the latter had, therefore, to be sustained out of the 
 public stock ^ ; and partly, perhaps, by the munificence 
 of the wealthy ^. In this state of things, it is easy 
 to conclude, that both these ranks, comprehending the 
 whole body of the people, would be generally averse 
 from any increase in the numbers of the freemen. But 
 the learned historian of Greece, who entirely confirms 
 the preceding view of the subject, has so well de-^ 
 scribed the feelings and interests of the citizens under 
 these circumstances, that I shall conclude this hasty 
 introduction to the question at issue in his words. 
 Alluding to Xenophon, he says: "the increase of 
 *' citizens, the only secure and effective strength of a 
 " state, appears to be totally out of his consideration. 
 " But from all the remaining writers of the age we 
 " may gather, that the spirit of every Grecian govern- 
 " ment, whether oligarchy or democracy, was generally 
 " adverse to an increase of citizens : for every citi- 
 " zen having an interest in a certain public capital, 
 " increase of citizens was increase of partners. Un- 
 " less the danger was pressing, the general disposition, 
 " therefore, was always adverse to an increase. The 
 " rich disliked it, as our parishes commonly dislike 
 " any increase in their respective inhabitants ; because 
 
 ' Mitford, History of Greece, vol. iii., 291. Demosthenes. Lelaud, vol, i., pp 
 p. 21. 222, 223, 224, 225. 
 
 2 Isocrates, Oratio Areop., pp. 29.
 
 Chap. XIV.] AND LEGISLATORS.— PLATO. 255 
 
 " there was a poor-law in Atliens. The poor objected 
 '' to it because it would diminish their chance of sub- 
 " sistence from sacrifices ; from treats of their ward 
 " from pay for attending- at tribunals; from that 
 " public allowance which was often given, not to 
 '' those who best deserved or most needed it, but to 
 " those who could best make interest for it. Alto- 
 ' gether, the idea of a common interest in a common 
 " stock, a fundamental principle in every Grecian 
 " republic, not only made the aversion to every in- 
 " crease of citizens popular, but gave the ablest poli- 
 ticians (all considering slaves indispensable) to 
 ' imagine the necessity of limiting the number of 
 ' slaves to a very scanty proportion ^"' Not the least 
 evidence have we here that they had any idea that 
 human increase, if not restrained, would press too 
 much against the means of subsistence, but merely 
 against their inveterate habits of sloth and cupidity; 
 whereas, justifying the observation with which Mit- 
 ford commences the passage just quoted, such increase 
 would have saved them from present evils and final 
 ruin. 
 
 (7) Mr. Malthus, however, takes a totally different 
 view of the whole matter. He says, " the necessity 
 " of these frequent colonizations," (which necessity, we 
 have already shewn, never existed,) "joined to the 
 smallness of the states, which brought the subject 
 " immediately home to every thinking person, could 
 " not fail to point out to the legislators and philoso- 
 " phers of these times, the strong tendency of popu- 
 " lation to increase beyond the means of subsistence, 
 " and they did not, like the statesmen and projectors of 
 '• modern days, overlook the consideration of a ques- 
 " tion which so deeply affects the tranquillity and 
 " happiness of society. However we may justly exe- 
 
 ' Mitford, History of Greece, vol. iii., p. 15. 
 
 iC
 
 25G OPIXIOXS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS [Book I. 
 
 " crate the barbarous expedients wliicli they adopted 
 " to remove the difficulty, we cannot but give them 
 " some credit for their penetration in seeing it, and 
 " in being fully aware, that, if not considered and 
 " obviated, it would be sufficient of itself to destroy 
 " their best planned schemes of republican equality 
 " and happiness ^" He goes on to shew that coloni- 
 zation was a very inadequate remedy for the evil ^, 
 but says of the practice of infanticide, that " it would 
 " appear t& be very particularly calculated, — to pre- 
 " serve, as completely and as constantly as the nature 
 " of the thing would permit, the requisite proportion 
 " between the food and the numbers which were to 
 ^' consume it^" He assures us, likewise, that the 
 Greek writers strongly insist on the very great neces- 
 sity of preserving this proportion ^ We shall see, 
 anon, what little foundation there is for this state- 
 ment. 
 
 (8) In meeting the preceding assertions relative to 
 the opinions of the " thinking men of Greece," on the 
 subject of population, I shall first advert a moment to 
 the crime of infanticide, which, under certain circum- 
 stances, was tolerated, till, as Gibbon acknowledges, 
 it was finally repressed by Christianity^. Never, 
 however, was it resorted to as a remedy for an exces- 
 sive population ; on the contrary, it has always pre- 
 vailed most when mankind have been the fewest in 
 number, and the most thinly scattered abroad ; and 
 has diminished as population has increased and accu- 
 mulated. Another singular and melancholy proof, 
 that this crime has rarely had the apology of being- 
 instigated by extreme want and wretchedness, will be 
 adverted to hereafter. 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 1 63. * Ibid, 
 
 ° il'id. » Gibbon, Decline, vol. viii., p. 56, 57. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 164.
 
 Cliap. XIV.] AND LEGISLATORS. PLATO. 257 
 
 (9) I am not, tlierefore, disposed to doubt Mr. 
 Malthus's supposition, that the practice of indiscrimi- 
 nate infanticide might have prevailed in the remote and 
 barbarous periods of Grecian history ; but the circum- 
 stance of succeeding legislators having imposed limi- 
 tations upon that practice, and, especially, the nature 
 of those limitations, fully prove that he has totally 
 misrepresented their views as to the principle of popu- 
 lation. If, for instance, the custom was generally 
 tolerated in Lacedeemon, previously to the legislation of 
 Lycurgus, his confining it to the case of impotent and 
 deformed births, of which, in the state of society he 
 instituted, it may be doubted whether there would be 
 many in a century, must have had the direct (and, why 
 should we not believe, intentional ?) effect of all but 
 annihilating the crime. Precisely the same may be 
 asserted reo-ardino- the leg^islation of ancient Rome in 
 this respect. That, again, confined infanticide to the 
 imperfect and deformed ; and it was to be perpetrated 
 at such an age (that of three years), and under such 
 circumstances (in the presence of six neighbours), that 
 it is morally impossible, so far as the law was opera- 
 tive, but that it must have totally repressed the hor- 
 rible custom under consideration. The legislators of 
 some countries went yet further; those of the Thebans, 
 for instance : — they expressly forbade the exposure of 
 any, on pain of death ; upon the wise principle, that 
 even the feeblest and the most imperfect, though not 
 so valuable as the more robust, were still worth pre- 
 serving to the state ; and, consequently, due provision 
 was made for them ^ 
 
 (10) I believe the preceding views are correct; at 
 all events, they are in unison with those of all who had 
 
 ^ ^lian, Var. Hist., 1. ii., c. 7. 
 Vol. L S
 
 258 OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS [Book I. 
 
 heretofore alluded to the subject; none of whom dis- 
 covered, in the legislators of antiquity, even sup- 
 posing that they did tolerate infanticide to the extent 
 that I have admitted, any idea of repressing population 
 in so doing. On the contrary, Plutarch expressly 
 attributes to this law of Lycurgus, the design to 
 perpetuate a strong and vigorous race ^ Touching 
 those few that might, under such a regulation, be 
 permitted to be exposed, it possibly might be thought, 
 as Archbishop Potter supposes, that ^' it was nei- 
 " ther for the public interest, nor for the happiness 
 " of the children themselves, that they should be 
 "brought up," when so afflicted^. And, as a last 
 proof that those who entertained these views had not 
 the least reference to the repression of population, I 
 will quote the philosopher and moralist, Seneca. He 
 lived when the population of Rome was evidently de- 
 clining, and himself observed the fact ^ ; and yet he 
 deliberately approves of the practice of exposing sickly 
 and infirm children"*. 
 
 (11) If, then, the permission in question, circum- 
 scribed as it evidently was, constituted no proof what- 
 ever that the legislators of antiquity " saw the necessity 
 of checking the principle of increase^," who shall deny 
 but that their positive institutions manifestly proved 
 that they saw it necessary to promote it? The latter 
 may be asserted with equal and entire truth of them 
 all. Cecrops instituted that great source of human 
 increase, marriage*'. Lycurgus and Solon rendered 
 it penal not to enter into that state. " The former," as 
 Addison remarks, " did all he could to encourage mar- 
 
 1 Plutarch, Vlt. Lycurg. ^ Ibid., De Ira, 1. i., c. 15. 
 
 ^ Potter, Archseologia Graeca, vol. il., ^ Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 
 
 p. 233. - 167. 
 
 3 Seneca, Consol., c. vi. ^ potter, Archaeol. Greec, vol. i., p. 8.
 
 Chap. XIV.] AND LEGISLATORS. PLATO. 259 
 
 " riage, knowing that the wealth and strength of a re- 
 " public consisted in the multitude of citizensV — views 
 in which we may be certain the latter fully concurred. 
 Hence both inflicted p-allino- disabilities on those 
 who refused or postponed obedience to the laws in this 
 respect, and visited a state of celibacy with derision 
 and infamy, or, in other words, with direct punish- 
 ment^. Roman legislation proceeded, from first to last, 
 upon the same principle. And yet, in neither case, 
 were these institutions sufficient ultimately to pre- 
 serve the proper number of the citizens. And the 
 " thinking persons " of both Greece and Rome, must 
 have been ignorant of all existing facts, as well as 
 dead to human feelings, if, under such circumstances, 
 they could have seen so clearly the necessity of re- 
 pressing population. 
 
 (12) The principles of ancient philosophy, also, 
 precisely coincided with those of legislation, on this 
 point. Pythagoras, whom we should probably re- 
 gard as one of the most exalted of the philosophers 
 of antiquity, had we sufficient means of estimating 
 his doctrines and character, connected, we are told, 
 the duty of marriage, as he did all others, immediately 
 with the Supreme Being : " that men," said he, " may 
 perpetuate worshippers of the Deity^!" I shall not, 
 however, attempt an enumeration of authorities, but 
 proceed at once to consider the opinions of two of the 
 most celebrated, and, upon this subject, the most mis- 
 represented, philosophers of antiquity on the import- 
 ant question before us — I refer, of course, to Plato and 
 Aristotle. 
 
 (13) First, then, as it respects Plato. This philo- 
 sopher has left us in his two works, his Republic, and 
 
 1 Addison, Guardian, No. 100. ^ lamblichus, Pythag. Vit., c.xviii. Life 
 
 ^Potter, Archaeol. Grsec, vol. ii., p. of Pythag., M. JDacier, p. 91. 
 264. 
 
 S2
 
 2G0 OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS [Book I. 
 
 his Laws, sketches of two republican constitutions 
 (for the philosophers of antiquity were all constitution- 
 mong-ers) exceedingly diiferent from each other ; the 
 latter containing some recognition of the principles 
 of morality and common sense ; but the former being, 
 probably, as great an outrage upon both, as ever ema- 
 nated from any human being, and fully justifying the 
 epithet Hume applied to it ; namely, " the ravings of 
 Plato." I have sometimes thought, that the whole, 
 which he himself perpetually denominates a " dream," 
 might possibly have been a kind of satire upon the 
 political projectors of those times, something in the 
 manner of Burke's " Vindication of Natural Society." 
 Be that, however, as it may, Mr. Malthus has deduced 
 from this scheme, the idea, that Plato was fully alive 
 to the necessity of checking population ; — erroneously, 
 as I hope to shew, and, beyond a question, most un- 
 candidly ; for he has omitted to make his deductions 
 from the more rational theory, contained in his Book 
 of Laws, in which he has expressed himself with far 
 greater clearness on the subject, and has taken them 
 from his Republic alone ; though, in so doing, he has 
 not only disregarded the order in which these works 
 are usually published, but likewise the order of time 
 in which, on the direct authority of Aristotle, they 
 were written K He, therefore, sums up Plato's opi- 
 nions, so as to contradict his experience. But, even 
 in respect of the work to which he particularly refers, 
 I shall attempt to redeem the character of the philoso- 
 pher from the infamy of having contemplated child- 
 murder. 
 
 (14) Mr. Malthus thus represents the work in 
 question. " In his philosophical republic, he enters 
 
 ' " His Books of Laws, which were written afterwards." — Aristotle, 
 Du Repub., I. ii., c. iv.
 
 Chap. XIV.] AND LEGISLATORS. PLATO. 2G1 
 
 " more particularly into the subject, and proposes, 
 " that the most excellent among the men should he 
 " joined in marriage, to the most excellent among the 
 " women; and the inferior citizens matched with the 
 " inferior females ; and that the offspring of the first 
 " shall be brought up, and of the others not. On 
 '' certain festivals appointed by the laws, the young 
 " men and women who are betrothed, are to be assem- 
 " bled, and joined together with solemn ceremonies. 
 " But the number of marriages is to be determined by 
 '^ the magistrates, that, taking into consideration the 
 " drains from wars, diseases, and other causes, they 
 '' may preserve, as nearly as possible, such a propor- 
 " tion of citizens, as will be neither too numerous, nor 
 " too few, according to the resources and demands 
 " of the state. The children who are thus born from 
 " the most excellent of the citizens are to be carried 
 " to certain nurses destined for the office, inhabiting a 
 " separate part of the city ; but those which are born 
 " from the inferior citizens, and any from the others 
 " which are imperfect in their limbs, are to be buried 
 " in some obscure and unknown place. He next pro- 
 " ceeds to consider the proper age for marriage, and 
 " determines it to be twenty for the woman, and thirty 
 " for the man. Beginning at twenty, the woman is 
 " to bear children for the state, till she is forty, and 
 " the man is to fulfil his duty, in this respect, from 
 " thirty to fifty-five. If a man produce a child into 
 " public, either before or after this period, the action 
 " is to be considered in the same criminal and profane 
 " light, as if he had produced one without the nup- 
 " tial ceremonies, and instigated solely by inconti- 
 " nence. The same rule should hold, if the man who 
 " is of proper age for procreation, be connected with 
 " a woman, who is also of the proper age, but without
 
 262 OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS [Book I. 
 
 the ceremony of marriage by the magistrate. He 
 is to be considered as having given to the state a 
 spurious, profane, and incestuous offspring. When 
 both sexes have passed the age assigned for pre- 
 senting children to the state, Plato allows a great 
 latitude of intercourse, but no child is to be brought 
 to light. Should any infant, by accident, be born 
 alive, it is to be exposed in the same manner, as if 
 the parent could not support it." " From these pas- 
 sages, it is evident," continues Mr. Malthus, " that 
 Plato fully saw the tendency of population to in- 
 crease beyond the means of subsistence. His ex- 
 pedients for checking it are, indeed, execrable ; but 
 the expedients themselves, and the extent to which 
 they were to be used, shew his conceptions of the 
 magnitude of the difficulty. Contemplating, as he 
 certainly must do in a small republic, a great pro- 
 portional drain of people by war, if he could still 
 propose to destroy the children of all the inferior 
 and less perfect citizens ; to destroy, also, all that 
 were born not within the prescribed ages, and witli 
 the prescribed forms ; to fix the marriage late, and, 
 after all, to regulate the number of these marriages, 
 his experience and his reasonings must have strongly 
 pointed out to him the great power of the principle 
 of increase, and the necessity of checking it^" 
 (15) A few other regulations of this imaginary re- 
 public, which are omitted in the preceding account 
 of it, are added, as perfectly suitable to the entire sys- 
 tem. These select husbands and wives, who are to be 
 united with such solemn ceremonial, are nevertheless 
 to be in common ; their children also are to be in 
 common. With respect to the father, it is therefore 
 clear that he cannot distinguish his own ofispring; 
 
 'Malthus, Essay on Population, pp. 165 — 167.
 
 €hap. XIV.] AND LEGISLATORS. PLATO. 2G3 
 
 and as to the mother, tlie hifants are to be taken from 
 her to the public nurses immediately, that she may 
 be placed in a similar uncertainty. They are to eat 
 in common ; to have a community of property, of 
 goods, and even of money. They are to be virtuous, 
 after their fashion, in this republic ; there is to be 
 no adultery, no incest, no neglect of parents \ A 
 few things naturally strike one in such a proposition 
 as this ; and, first. How can " these most excellent " 
 husbands and wives (the latter, by the bye, are to go 
 naked) keep up the population of this city ? Second, 
 As all these women are to be in common, how is Plato 
 to know which of their children are begotten, at least 
 as it respects the father, within the prescribed period ? 
 Third, How is this neglect of parents to be avoided in 
 a community where all knowledge of that relative 
 connexion is to be purposely prevented ; or how is 
 this forbidden incest to be discovered where none shall 
 be able to recognise their nearest relatives 1 This 
 difficulty, indeed, strikes one of the interlocutors in 
 the dialogue in which this strange scheme is pro- 
 pounded, and it is proposed to obviate it by calcu- 
 lations of the most whimsical nature ; a method which 
 seems to satisfy the querist, but which is far from 
 pleasing Aristotle, who observes, that such uncer- 
 tainty would greatly multiply and embitter the worst 
 of crimes ; love would often become incest, and murder 
 parricide. Then, as there is to be an universal commun- 
 ity of both goods and money, to what purpose can the 
 latter be possibly applied in this imaginary republic ? 
 The fact is, that this dialogue of Plato is, from first to 
 last, one of the greatest farces ever presented to the 
 human mind, laughable in every respect, except for 
 the indecent and atrocious wickedness it embodies. 
 
 ' Plato, De Repub., Works, lib. iv., p. 285.
 
 264 OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS [Book I. 
 
 The object its author had in view, if object he had 
 any, was perfectly remote from the idea of regulating 
 the numbers of the people. It seems rather to be this : 
 to found a sort of nursery for a superior race of hu- 
 man beings, or, to take up the figure which he adopts 
 throughout, to improve the breed of men, just as an 
 experimental farmer in these days selects his finest 
 specimens of both sexes, puts them together, and, re- 
 serving the most perfect of the produce, sends the rest 
 to the butcher. As his notions on population are sup- 
 posed to be expressed in it, I shall give it a little fur- 
 ther attention ; otherwise the scheme falls infinitely 
 short in decency, and hardly exceeds in wisdom, that 
 of a more modern, though a more unfortunate legis- 
 lator, as expounded by Shakspeare, — I mean Jack Cade. 
 " All this realm shall be in common ; and in Cheap- 
 '' side shall my palfrey go to grass. There shall be 
 " no money : all shall eat and drink at my score ; and 
 '' I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may 
 " agree like brethren, and worship me their Lord." 
 
 (16) But before I proceed to give Plato's express 
 opinions on the subject of population, when it will be 
 seen how totally ditierent they are in reality from what 
 they are represented to have been, I shall shew, that the 
 institutions of his imaginary republic, notwithstanding 
 the deductions which Mr. Malthus has drawn from them, 
 had no general reference whatsoever to that subject. 
 
 (17) And first, the regulations regarding " the 
 most excellent men" and "most excellent women," — 
 terms which plainly shew that they were an exempt 
 class, whose number was, it is granted, limited, and 
 who were designed, as before observed, to produce 
 a superior breed of human beings, and at the public 
 cost, had no more reference to the principle of popu- 
 lation, one way or other, than the institution of a
 
 Chap. XIV.] AND LEGISLATORS. PLATO. 26*5 
 
 select vestry, for example, and the limitation of 
 number composing- it, has to do ^vith the same 
 question. On the rest of the people, who, as we 
 gather from Aristotle's remarks, must have been 
 vastly more numerous \ it is plain, as the latter 
 observes in his commentary on our author^, that he 
 imposed no such regulations ; an omission, which 
 would have been very speedily fatal to his common- 
 wealth, had that principle been true, of which, it is 
 said, Plato was so fully aware. 
 
 (18) While, therefore, the regulations respecting 
 these public stock breeders, whatever they had been, 
 could not have at all affected the progress of popula- 
 tion in the mass of the community, they were of such 
 a nature as would not have diminished even their 
 own quota to the general increase. The limitation of 
 periods at which the " whole herd of the guardians," 
 as he somewhere denominates his " most excellent 
 men," and "most excellent women," should produce 
 offspring for the state, being 30 to 55, as it respects 
 the males, and 20 to 40, as it respects the females, 
 would not, as will be most fully demonstrated here- 
 after, have diminished their fecundity, but the re- 
 verse ; a fact, of which the ancient philosophers 
 seemed fully aware. The sole object of the regula- 
 tion was to secure a more vigorous breed, by selecting 
 the periods at which it should be produced ; an idea 
 common to their philosophy, and more especially 
 amongst those who most favoured human increase. 
 Plato expressly declares this to be his sole view^; and 
 hence he did, indeed, somewhat postpone the nubile 
 period, as it regarded the females, but he did not 
 
 ' Aristotle, De Repiib., l.ii., c.4. or the oldest, or from those who are 
 
 ^ Ibid., l.ii. most in their primer"' And answers, 
 
 ^ He asks, How the most perfect are "From those in their prime." — De He- 
 
 to be perpetuated, "From the yoiyigest pub., l.v.
 
 206 OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS [Book I. 
 
 anticipate its termination. Rare are the instances in 
 that climate in which the female remains prolific to 
 anything approaching to that period^; and had he 
 really recommended the births from mothers beyond 
 that age to be destroyed, he incurred but a slight risk 
 of encouraging actual infanticide. But these remarks 
 are rendered unnecessary by what follows. 
 
 (19) Plato ordains, that not only the offspring of 
 the most excellent which should be born contrary to 
 the limitations mentioned, in point of age, or without 
 the prescribed ceremonials on the part of the parents, 
 but also " the children born from the inferior citi- 
 zens," to use Mr. Malthus's translation, " are to be 
 buried in some obscure and unknown place." Mr. Mal- 
 thus interprets this expression to mean infanticide, 
 and denominates the expedient to be " execrable," 
 but contends that it shews how fully Plato understood 
 the principle of population. I deny that the expedient 
 meant that crime, or that the regulation had the 
 slightest view to population. 
 
 (20) Archbishop Potter observes, that " the terms 
 '^ sxTiOstyQai and ocTTOTiOsaQai wcrc used for exposino- 
 " children, leaving them in some desert place, or else- 
 " where, to the mercy of fortune ; but that the former 
 "expression Ixr/OsaSat commonly bears the milder 
 "sense, for many thus exposed their children that 
 " were not willing they should perish V under the 
 hope, no doubt, if not the certainty, that they would 
 be preserved. This is, practically, the case to the 
 present hour, and many of the most splendid charitable 
 establishments in Europe are founded for the express 
 purpose of aifording this assistance to poverty ; and 
 I am far from rejecting the idea that something of the 
 
 1 Dr. Holland, Travels ia the Ionian 2 Potter, Arch^olosia Grseca, vol. ii.. 
 Isles, p. 154. p. 333. ° ' '
 
 Chap. XIV.] AND LEGISLATORS, PLATO. 2G7 
 
 kind was implied in tlie term UrlQeaOxi. Now tliis is 
 the very word employed in the passage alluded to; 
 and I cannot help remarking, that in most languages, 
 the literal terms Plato there uses, have given rise 
 to very significant figurative ones ; and particularly 
 in a country like Greece, where the citizens existed 
 almost in public, and on the public, if they merely 
 implied the deprivation of citizenship that involved 
 consequences which would indeed justify their use, 
 and give them an emphasis unknown in other circum- 
 stances ; and which, when applied to infancy, might 
 well be confounded with their literal import. Thus I 
 conceive the word buried might have been used figu- 
 ratively, and that the expression, " not to be brought 
 up," by no means implies that such children shall be 
 murdered, but that they shall not be " educated," as 
 it is sometimes translated, at the public cost, as one of 
 the "most excellent ^" I hope that the expression 
 " exposed " has this signification, and merely implies 
 the being deserted by the public, or put out, or put 
 forth as a creature for whom no provision has been 
 made \ to follow, I think, the precise meaning of Plato. 
 But it may be, perhaps, doubted, whether so " very 
 uncertain and unresolved ^ " a writer has delivered any 
 settled opinion on the point. The " exposition" given 
 may, therefore, be, like its subject, doubtful. It seems 
 the most probable, as it is certainly the most cha- 
 ritable, construction. 
 
 (21) I had thus satisfied myself, not merely from 
 the terms made use of, but from considering the very 
 structure of this imaginary Republic, when a passage 
 occurred to me from another part of the philosopher's 
 works, which places the subject, I think, beyond all 
 doubt, and redeems his character from the stain of ever 
 
 1 Plato, De Repub., 1. v. ' Hales, Grig. Mankind. 
 
 *
 
 268 OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS [Book I. 
 
 having' contemplated the crime alluded to ; but will, at 
 the same time, deprive him of the honour attributed 
 to him of having seen so clearly " the principle of popu- 
 lation," a loss w^hich, I think it will finally appear, his 
 memory may sustain without permanent disadvantage. 
 (22) In his Timaeus, the subject of his imaginary 
 Republic is evidently resumed ; the dialogue is ma- 
 naged by the same interlocutors, and indeed it is dis- 
 tinctly represented, at the very commencement, as a 
 continuation of the former discourse. And here, hap- 
 pily, the exact meaning of the expressions previously 
 used is explained at large. I shall give the original 
 below, in this, as well as in some of the more impor- 
 tant passages, from Aristotle also, because Mr. Mal- 
 tlius has questioned the correctness of some of our best 
 translators. In the person of Socrates, he thus ex- 
 presses himself, as to the point in dispute. " And 
 :" moreover, we said that the offspring of the good 
 " must be nourished, but that of the depraved " (which 
 Mr. Malthus has translated "the inferior citizens") 
 " should be" — what? — murdered? no! — but " distri- 
 " buted in another city : but when they are grown up, 
 " we ought, after consideration, to recall the deserving, 
 "but to send away, into the room of those who 
 " have returned, the undeserving amongst them- 
 " selves ^" Thus, then, is it that Plato himself 
 •expounds his own meaning. This hiding, or bury- 
 ing, in an obscure place, only implies their secret re- 
 moval to another city, which, as he explains in his 
 Republic, " must be performed in such a manner, as 
 " to escape the notice of all but the governors tliem- 
 " selves ; if," says he, " you would have the whole 
 
 K«( fitiiv ca'oiyi ra i/.\v t2\i aya^Zv 9-^i'r- ^i7v ; toI; Ss -rccpa (r^piiriv ava^ious, =/; '^''iv 
 
 Tsav 'iipafiiv uvui, to. os rwy (fuuXaiv si's ttjv liravt'ovTaDi ^rLfnv fzirxXXitTTHv. — Plato, 
 
 aXXnv Xa^^a ^iccSoTiov ?roAiV ; ii'iitJ^ofiivav Tima'lis. 
 ?«, '(rxorrotivrcei au rev; a^'iov; vdXn avdyin
 
 Chap. XIV.] AND LEGISLATORS. PLATO. 2G9 
 
 " herd of the guardians to be as free from sedition as 
 possible ^" Thus we find, that their restoration 
 under improved behaviour, or, if it must be a burial, 
 their political resurrection, is fully provided for. How 
 is this reconcileable with infanticide ? 
 
 (23) Nor, had Plato never written his Timasus, or 
 any work subsequently to his Republic, ouo-ht the 
 idea, of his having prescribed the practice of infanti- 
 cide, to all but the select class of his citizens, to have 
 been entertained. The very book from which this 
 notion is professedly derived, negatives it. In this 
 work, he says, " if any descendant of the guardians 
 " be depraved, he ought to be dismissed to the other 
 " classes ; and if anv descendant of the others be 
 '' worthy, he ought to be raised to the rank of guar- 
 " dians." How was this to be effected, if the pos- 
 terity of the select alone were to be allowed to live ? 
 The wildest ravings of Bedlam are consistency itself, 
 compared with the notions of Plato upon this subject, 
 as expounded by our anti-populationists. But 1 think 
 it will now appear abundantly plain, that it was the 
 principle of selection, and not that of population, to 
 which Plato attended, in every part of the institutions 
 of his first imaginary Republic. 
 
 (24) But Plato had certain opinions regarding 
 population, which I now proceed to give, and these 
 are expressed in his Book of Laws, a work which, as 
 before observed, was written after his Republic, and 
 greatly preferred to it by Aristotle. In this, his 
 second institution, as the latter observes, " he leaves 
 " population unlimited, saying that deaths and bar- 
 " renness are found, by experience, to keep the popu- 
 " lousness of most countries, at different periods, 
 " nearly upon the same level ^." If this is other than 
 
 ' Plato, De Repub. ^ Aristotle, Dc Repub., 1. ii.; c 4.
 
 270 OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS [Book I. 
 
 a literal representation of Plato's language, it lias tlie 
 additional force of presenting ns with the convictions 
 of Aristotle, in his paraphrase of the passage. But 
 this was Plato's deliberate and repeated opinion: 
 hence he says, in his Timceus, " It may be truly 
 " asserted, that in those places, where neither intense 
 " cold, nor immoderate heat prevails," (in other words, 
 in those climates most congenial to human beings,) 
 *' the race of mankind is always preserved, though 
 " sometimes the number of individuals is increased, 
 '' and sometimes suifers considerable diminution \" 
 That his philosophy or experience led him to anti- 
 cipate the latter rather than the former circumstance, 
 in his second Republic, is most evident from the far 
 greater care he manifests to force, rather than to 
 repress, population. It is true, that he would have 
 the magistrates to take heed, that the shares of his 
 citizens, namely, 5040, should not be exceeded by the 
 number of claimants, but his principal anxiety is, lest 
 the latter become fewer than the former. Under this 
 apprehension, he proposes to make the duty of mar- 
 riages, as established by law, more imperative, im- 
 posing great and increasing pecuniary penalties upon 
 those who disobey it, as well as loading them with 
 infamy ^. Other regulations are also prescribed ; for 
 instance, " If such as are without children, or have 
 *' but few, disagree, let them be compelled to marry 
 
 ' Plato, Timaeus. him that does not pay his fine every 
 
 2 But he who cannot wihingly be per- year, be made a debtor of ten times that 
 
 suaded to act in tliis manner, but Uves sum. Let this money, too, be exacted 
 
 in the city ahenated, without connec- by the dispensator of the goddess, which, 
 
 tion, and immarried, for five and thirty unless he exacts, he himself shall be the 
 
 years, such a man shall be fined every debtor. He, therefore, who is imwilling 
 
 year. And if he possesses the largest to marry, shall be thus punished with 
 
 estate, he shall be fined 100 di-achms; if respect to fine; but with respect to ho- 
 
 that which is second in order, 70 ; if noiu', as follows : — In the first place, let 
 
 that which is third, 60 ; and if that him be deprived, &c.— Plato, De Legi- 
 
 which is fourth, 30 drachms. Let all bus. 
 these fines be sacred to Juuo. And let
 
 Chap. XIV.] AND LEGISLATORS. PLATO. 271 
 
 " again, for the sake of procreating cliilclren. If a 
 " woman die and have no chikh-en, let the husband 
 " be compelled to marry again, till he has procreated 
 " children sufhcient both for his family and the city. 
 " If a man dies, and leaves behind a sufficient num- 
 " ber of children, let the mother educate them, re- 
 " maining a widow ; if she appears, however, to be 
 " too young to live in a state of health, without a 
 " husband, let her kindred, in conjunction with the 
 " women who take care of marriages, consult what is 
 " fit to be done, both for her and her children. And, 
 " if both are in want of children, let them marry for 
 " the sake of children. But, let an accurate number 
 " of children be male and female ^" This last direc- 
 tion is repeated in his Atlanticus, where he speaks of 
 the " especial care that there might be the same 
 "number of men and women ^;" an unnecessary 
 anxiety, which shews indeed, his wish, that no impe- 
 diment, like that which Mr. Malthus attributes to the 
 intentional policy of ancient philosophy, in this re- 
 spect, should exist ^; but, at the same time, manifests 
 his ignorance of one of the first and most universal 
 laws of nature, with regard to the very elements of 
 human increase. 
 
 (25) Other of the provisions of this philosopher, 
 of the same nature, might be adduced to shew that 
 his authority might be far more justly appealed to in 
 favour of the opinion, that human beings have a 
 natural tendency to diminution, rather than to undue 
 increase ; but it is unnecessary. Enough, it is hoped, 
 has been advanced, to rescue my argument from the 
 hostility of Plato, and his character from the foulest 
 aspersion that could be thrown upon it. His opinions, 
 
 ' Plato, De Legibus, 1. v. ^ Malthus, Essay on Population, 
 
 2 Idem., Atlanticus, p. 167.
 
 272 OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS, &c. [Book I, 
 
 indeed, upon this important branch of political philo- 
 sophy, do not appear to have been very distinct ; but 
 that I have not misrepresented them, I may appeal to 
 an author w^ho was well versed in his writings and in 
 the present subject, — Sir Matthew Hale. " Plato," 
 says that great man, " who seems very uncertain and 
 " unsettled in his philosophy, seems yet to agree 
 " with the partial exhausting of the numbers of man- 
 "kind^" 
 
 1 Hale, Origination of Mankind, pp. 217, 218.
 
 273 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OF THE OPINIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS AND LEGISLATORS 
 
 OF ANTIQUITY CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLE 
 
 OF POPULATION.— ARISTOTLE. 
 
 (1) Aristotle, according to the author of the 
 essay so often quoted, saw the necessity of checking- 
 population still more clearly than Plato, I deny, 
 however, that he, any more than the latter, enter- 
 tained any such views. It is true, that in his imagi- 
 nary republic (for Aristotle also amused himself with 
 projecting constitutions), he fell into the fundamental 
 and general error of Grecian policy, the injurious ten- 
 dency of which he had nevertheless previously ex- 
 posed ; I mean that of ordaining that the territory 
 should, with the exception of a reservation for public 
 purposes, be divided into a definite number of shares, 
 and these shares be distributed amongst the citizens, 
 whose number was consequently to be limited \ This 
 regulation, joined with the more unhappy one which 
 prescribed that all the useful and necessary arts, even 
 that of agriculture, should be accounted infamous, and 
 followed by slaves only^, closed up against freemen 
 all those sources of subsistence which, in every well- 
 ordered community, engage infinitely the greatest and 
 best portion of the people, and certainly rendered it ne- 
 cessary to the scheme, that the privileged few should 
 be preserved stationary in their numbers. Hence, on 
 
 ' Aristotle, De Repub., I. iv., c. 10. » Ibid., c. 9. 
 
 Vol. I, T
 
 274 OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS [Book I. 
 
 the one hand, an excess of this population was to be 
 guarded against, if it should occur, which Aristotle 
 thought might be done by ecbolic arts, peremptorily 
 interdicting, however, the expedient said to be best 
 " calculated to attain " the end in view, — infanti- 
 cide, and prescribing that "■ nothing that has life shall 
 " be destroj^ed, excepting it be defective in its mem- 
 " bers or grossly deformed in shape ; " cases, in such 
 a state of society, it may be presumed almost ideal. 
 But, on the other hand, all he says relating to the 
 duties of marriage, and the virtue of chastity, which 
 is the most effectual promoter of the prevalence and 
 prolificness of that state ; and to the careful attention 
 necessary for the preservation and proper education of 
 children, is conclusive as to his views of the duty and 
 necessity, generally speaking, of promoting human 
 fruitfulness, even to continue the numbers of his pri- 
 vileged class ^ 
 
 (2) Mr. Malthus, indeed, gives, as his first and 
 main proof that Aristotle saw the necessity of check- 
 ing population, and provided for it, that he fixed 
 the proper age of marriage at thirty-seven for the 
 men, and eighteen for the women ; which must, he 
 adds, '' condemn a great number of women to celibacy, 
 " as there never can be so many men of thirty-seven, 
 " as there are women of eighteen ." In thus con- 
 cluding, however, he is ignorant of one of the most 
 curious of the effects of the principle of which he 
 treats so largely, but of which, as it appears to me, 
 Aristotle was aware. Nature is not thus to be baffled 
 in her designs; the balance of the sexes would, under 
 the circumstance of this habitual postponement on the 
 part of the males, be still preserved at this unequal 
 nubile period. But of this important fact more 
 
 > Aristotle, De Repub., 1. iv., c. 16, 17, ^ Malthus, Essay on PopiUatioii; p. 167.
 
 Chap. XV.] AND LEGISLATORS. ARISTOTLE. 275 
 
 hereafter. In the mean time, I will just remark, that 
 it is hardly a credible imputation upon the Stagirite, 
 that he should, on so important a point, not only con- 
 ceal his real meaning, but substitute a false one. 
 Alluding' to the periods he has prescribed, which, 
 however, he has intimated that he does not mean 
 should be rigidly adhered to \ he says expressly, 
 " such seasonable marriages will, for the most part, 
 " be soon productive of progeny ^ ; " whereas, on the 
 contrary, he asserts, that " the conjunctions of the 
 young are bad for the procreation of children ^." That 
 these were the sincere opinions of Aristotle, few will 
 dispute, and that they are philosophically true, will, 
 I think, be fully shewn in its proper place. 
 
 (3) In his opinions respecting Plato's republic, I 
 fear he is still less fairly represented than he is regard- 
 ing his own. When he shews the inconveniences of 
 Plato's scheme of equalizing property without limiting 
 numbers, he points out the mischief of such a regu- 
 lation, in case of any increase among the latter, which, 
 as before observed, would, it is quite clear, be then 
 left without subsistence. But he never asserts that an 
 increase in population, without the former regulation, 
 would be productive of that consequence. He goes on 
 to state, that one of the earliest writers on legislation, 
 Pheidon of Corinth, introduced a regulation directly 
 the contrary of Plato's, that is, he limited population 
 without limiting possessions. This is evidently Mr. 
 Malthus's favourite idea, and, as he here drops the 
 sentence, it is made to appear to be that of Aristotle 
 also. But unhappily for this interpretation, the latter 
 immediately remarks on the proposition of this anti- 
 populationist of Corinth ;— " But we must mention, 
 
 ' Aristotle, DeRepiib., 1. iv., c. 16. ■r^cs rtxvotroiiav. Aristotle, De Repub. 
 ^ Ibid., 1. iv., c. 16. 1. vii., c. xvi., p. 446. A. 
 
 T2
 
 276 OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS [Book I. 
 
 "afterwards, Iiow we think it would be better ^" 
 And lie has mentioned, most clearly, what he thinks 
 would be better, when, speaking neither of limiting 
 population nor equalizing property, he says, " For 
 " now no one is in want, from property being divided 
 " amongst the multitude, how many soever there be^" 
 
 (4) After this explicit declaration, it is unnecessary 
 to prove any further how much the views of this 
 great author, on the subject before us, have been per- 
 verted. His observations upon the propositions of 
 Phaleus of Chalcedon, who likewise proposed to equa- 
 lize fortunes, shews, that he attributed, as before, 
 distress and beggary to such an absurd law, and not to 
 the increase of families ; which latter meaning is, 
 nevertheless, fixed upon him, otherwise the reference 
 would have been wholly irrelevant^. 
 
 (5) Mr. Malthus asserts, from these and similar 
 passages, that Aristotle saw that the strong tendency 
 of the human race to increase, unless checked by strict 
 and positive laws, was absolutely fatal to every system 
 founded on equality. But this is not the point ; all 
 the laws of nature are irreconcilable to so absurd a 
 system ; the question is, whether, under more favour- 
 able circumstances, he discovered the alleged ten- 
 dency of mankind to increase beyond the limits of 
 food, and it is one which has been already answered 
 in the negative, and in his own words. 
 
 (6) Mr. Malthus says, " it appears still more 
 " clearly," from Aristotle's concluding observations 
 respecting Sparta, how " fully he understood the prin- 
 " ciple of population." I concur with this observation, 
 but differ as to its application. It is true that he 
 
 ' a.XXa •ri^i fiiv roircov <^as o'tefiiia /3sX- ff9cit rag oh<ria; i)$ (jro) oTfoffotovv <7r>Jri6o;-— 
 rm a,\i 'ix-'"' ^-s^tIuv yVrsjov — Arist. de Aristot. Op., De Repub., 1. ii., c. G. 
 Repub., 1. ii., c. ^ Aristotle, De Repub., 1, ii., c. 5.
 
 Chap. XV.] AND LEGISLATORS. ARISTOTLE. 277 
 
 says, " under a faulty distribution of property, an 
 " increase of populousness is only an accumulation of 
 " misery :" but is this any proof that, under a more 
 rational dispensation of it, such must be the case? 
 Directly the reverse, if there be any meaning in lan- 
 guage. But let him speak for himself: " The natural 
 " effect of such faulty regulations, is, to diminish the 
 " populousness of the country, (Sparta,) which scarcely 
 " contains the twentieth part of the thirty thousand 
 " heavy armed, and fifteen hundred cavalry, which it 
 " was thought able to send into the field. One great 
 " evil resulting from this diminution of people, was 
 " fatally experienced, when the single defeat at 
 " Leuctra reduced this ancient kingdom to the brink 
 '' of ruin. It is reported that the kings preceding 
 " Lycurgus supplied the waste of the nation in war, 
 " by alluring foreigners into the country, and that the 
 " Spartans alone amounted to ten thousand men bear- 
 " ing arms. Without examining this report we may 
 " affirm, that the strength derived from numbers will 
 " be better, and more safely promoted, by levelling 
 " the excessive inequalities of property." The whole 
 passage, I think, runs counter to Mr. Malthus's entire 
 views upon the subject, and indicates that Aristotle 
 apprehended the tendency of mankind, vmder unequal 
 distributions of property, to diminish rather than in- 
 crease in numbers; an opinion,- which we need not 
 hesitate to say, he held still more decidedly, in regard 
 to the superior ranks, which certainly were not checked 
 in their increase by " want of food." All this is clear 
 from what has just been quoted, as well as from what 
 he says in regard to the law of adoption, namely, that 
 " it was contrived for perpetuating the ancient fami- 
 " lies, and for preserving a due proportion between 
 '' the number of landholders and the number of
 
 278 OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS [Book I. 
 
 " shares or lots into which the territory was divided ^ : " 
 a most singular exposition, had the notion of the ex- 
 cessive fecundity of human beings, now attributed to 
 him, been his real opinion. 
 
 (7) I shall only add one more quotation from Aris- 
 totle, in order to shew the use made of his authority 
 upon this subject. He says, " the Cretan legislator 
 " has some fine speculations on the subject of spare 
 " diet and frugality ; and employs, for maintaining the 
 " due proportion of citizens and subsistence, some ex- 
 *' traordinary regulations ; but," says he, (to translate 
 him literally,) " whether ill or not ill, we shall have 
 " another opportunity of considering." I am not 
 aware that we have the result of these subsequent 
 considerations, or consequently know the nature of 
 those "fine speculations:" but, whatever they were, 
 as we are pretty well assured that the laws of 
 Lycurgus were principally derived from those of 
 Minos, we may be confident that the encouragement, 
 not to say obligation, of marriage, was amongst them. 
 Nevertheless, it is said, on the authority of this pas- 
 sage, that the legislator of Crete, as well as Solon, 
 Pheidon, Plato, and Aristotle, saw the necessity of 
 checking population to prevent general poverty^. 
 
 (8) That I have not, in the preceding observations, 
 misinterpreted the opinions of Aristotle, any more than 
 those of Plato, I feel fully confident. Dr. Gillies, who, 
 whether his object as a translator was, as Mr. Malthus 
 asserts, a free, rather than a literal version, or not, was 
 certainly incapable of misrepresenting his author, thus 
 sums up that author's political philosophy on this 
 important point. " The purpose of comfortable sub- 
 " sistence, for which commonwealths are instituted, 
 " requiring a minute subdivision of labour, Aristotle 
 
 ^ Aristotle, De Repub., 1. ii., c. 10. 2 Malthus, Essay ou Popiilation, p. 169.
 
 Cliaji. XV.] AND LEGISLATORS. ARISTOTLE. 279 
 
 " says, that in this particular view, the more popii- 
 " loiis is the community; the more completely will its 
 " end be attained^" 
 
 (9) It is not surprising that the erroneous views 
 we have been confuting should lead to false deduc- 
 tions. Hence, speaking of the philosophers and legis- 
 lators of Greece, Mr. Malthus says, " as we must 
 " suppose that the opinions of such men, and the 
 " laws founded upon them, would have considerable 
 " influence, it is probable that the preventive check 
 " to increase, from late marriages and other causes, 
 " operated, to a considerable degree, among the free 
 " citizens of Greece." These high authorities had, 
 doubtless, great influence, but of a very opposite 
 nature. The laws of every state with which we are 
 sufficiently acquainted, prescribed marriage under 
 pain of the most severe and galling disabilities ; and 
 even went so far, in some instances, as to inflict them 
 if they were not fruitful. Nor can we doubt but that 
 these laws were eflectual to the end proposed. Of 
 this fact we can have indeed no direct information, 
 but the incidental evidence of it is conclusive. We 
 have a singular proof that the Spartans besieging 
 Messene were married ; and, it is recorded, that 
 the heroes of the Thermopylae were also husbands 
 and fathers ; circumstances which could hardly have 
 existed had not that state been, at the martial age, 
 universal. And with regard to the " late marriages" 
 mentioned by the author alluded to, it is evident that 
 the age of twenty, recommended by Plato, or of 
 eighteen, by Aristotle, as that at which the female 
 sex ought to contract that union, was meant to operate 
 as a postponement of the usual nubile period, for 
 the purpose, as already shewn, of favouring popula- 
 
 ' Aristotle's Ethics, by Dr. Gillies, p. 86, note.
 
 280 OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS [Book I, 
 
 tion. We cannot err, therefore, in fixing it consider- 
 ably earlier. Thus Hesiod mentions fifteen as the 
 proper age ^ ; and, in one of the most useful and judi- 
 cious works in Grecian literature, Xenophon s Econo- 
 mics, we find Ischomachus, the hero of the dialogue, 
 saying, that he married his wife at that age ; — fifteen ^ 
 On the whole, tlierefore, there is not the least evidence 
 that what is called the preventive check prevailed in 
 the ancient states of Greece under any form whatever. 
 (10) The philosophy and legislation of Rome, 
 I will shortly remark, were precisely coincident with 
 those of Greece on this important subject. I have 
 already observed, that the ancient vice of infanticide 
 was virtually interdicted ; and I need not add, on the 
 other hand, that marriage was promoted by all the 
 means which legislation could devise for that purpose. 
 I shall neither enumerate these laws, nor appeal to 
 the authorities, who Avere the means of enacting them. 
 The lyric poet of that empire, no doubt, presents the 
 prevailing opinion on this subject, and the duty of 
 the Roman rulers in regard to it, in the stanzas ad- 
 dressed to Diana, as goddess of child-bearing : 
 
 Rite matures aperire partus 
 Lenis Ilithyia, tuere matres ; 
 Sive tu Lucina probas vocari, 
 
 Seu Genitalis: 
 Diva, producas subolcm, PatrunKjue 
 Prosperes decreta super jugandis 
 Fceminis, prolisque novae feraci 
 
 Lege marita ^. 
 
 (II) These prayers, however, availed nothing: the 
 conscript fathers made laws, but they were as inefiica- 
 cious. So far from the natural tendency of these Romans 
 being to increase beyond the means of subsistence, the 
 profusion in which they shared these means of subsist- 
 
 > Hesiod, Efi^. Kai iJfi.p. g'. 315, 31G. » Horat. Carm. Sec. 
 
 * Xenophon.
 
 Chap. XV.] AND LEGISLATORS. ARISTOTLE. 281 
 
 ence far outran all their necessities, and became tlieir 
 ruin. Tlieir numbers were barely kept up by that 
 vast influx of men poured into the Capital of the 
 World from all the surrounding nations. Even in 
 Cicero's time, the decay of the old and genuine Ro- 
 man stock was in full progress, and almost complete. 
 " Had not Tiberius Gracchus," said the patriot, 
 " caused the freedmen to be admitted into the city 
 " tribes, the republic, which we are now scarce able 
 " to support, would have ceased to exist." A little 
 after, we read in Tacitus, that " "were the men de- 
 " ducted whose fathers were enfranchised, the number 
 " of free-born citizens would dwindle into notliins:^" 
 In succeeding times, the population still further de- 
 clined, till Julian exclaimed, " the cities are in ruins, 
 " and the provinces dreadful with desolation^." At 
 length, as Montesquieu says, "the number of people 
 " was so extremely diminished, that the emperors 
 " were obliged to retire to Ravenna, a city once for- 
 " tified by sea, as Venice is now^" It is useless to 
 pursue the subject any further. The majesty of Rome 
 gradually declined, her population kept perpetually 
 diminishing, till that mighty empire at length ex- 
 pired, almost as feebly and obscurely as it com- 
 menced. 
 
 (12) Intellectual superiority consists of little more 
 than an anticipation of the progress of human know- 
 ledge and experience; and the sages of Greece would, 
 indeed, have had little claim to that distinction, had 
 they busied themselves in providing against evils 
 which had no existence, and totally overlooked those 
 which assailed their country from an opposite direction; 
 and with which it was constantly struggling, till it was 
 
 ^ Tacitus, Ann. xiii., c. 26. ^ Montesquieu. Obs. sur la grand. 
 
 * Amm. Marcell.j 1. xxiv. et decad. &c. cxix.
 
 282 OPINIONS OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS. [Book I. 
 
 at length finally overcome. But tliey saw the real 
 evil ; not that of a tendency to an excess, but to a dimi- 
 nution in their population. Hence the anxiety with 
 which they encouraged the only real and permanent 
 source of human increase, — marriage ; the privileges 
 with which they invested that state, and the honours 
 they conferred on a numerous progeny. Hence the 
 disgrace with which they stigmatized the contrary 
 condition, — celibacy. So that Paley is fully justified 
 in asserting, that some heathen "nations appear to 
 " have been more sensible of the importance of mar- 
 " riage institutions than we are. The Spartans," says 
 he, " obliged their citizens to marry by penalties ; the 
 " Romans encouraged theirs by the jus trium libera- 
 "n/m^"; inflicting, indeed, disabilities upon even 
 those who were married, if they had no children. 
 And happy had it been for their respective countries 
 had they been as successful in banishing the positive, 
 as they were in annihilating the preventive, check ; 
 they would then have continued to have a name and 
 a place among the nations of the earth. 
 
 ' Paley, Moral Philosophy, b. iii., c. i., p. 183.
 
 283 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 OF THE REMAINING DIRECT CHECKS TO POPULATION. 
 
 (1) Having considered the first great clieck to po- 
 pulation, war, or, in other words, that once almost 
 constant slaughter of the species, which it has been 
 so confidently asserted was long the principal agent 
 in keeping down the numbers of mankind to the 
 level of their subsistence, it remains that a few 
 words be added regarding the other direct means 
 which have been pointed out as assisting in the same 
 work. To one of these, infanticide, much allusion has 
 been necessarily made in the preceding remarks on 
 the philosophy of Greece ; a few observations, how- 
 ever, of a more general nature, are due to the subject. 
 (2) Regarding the permission of this crime in an- 
 cient times and heathen countries, Mr. Malthus thus 
 expresses himself; " It had without doubt two ends 
 ' in view ; first, that which is most obvious, the pre- 
 ' vention of such an excessive population as would 
 ' cause universal poverty and discontent ; and, se- 
 ' condly, that of keeping up the population to the 
 '■ level of what the territory could support, by remov- 
 ' ing the terrors of too numerous a family, and conse- 
 ' quently the principal obstacle to marriage. From 
 ' the effect of this practice in China, we have reason 
 ' to think that it is better calculated to attain the 
 ' latter than the former purpose. But if the legis- 
 ' lator either did not see this, or if the barbarous habits 
 ' of the times prompted parents invariably to prefer
 
 284 CHECKS TO POPULATION. [Book I, 
 
 " the murder of their children to poverty, the practice 
 " would appear to be very particularly calculated to 
 " answer both the ends in view, and to preserve, as 
 " completely and as constantly as the nature of the 
 " thing would permit, the requisite proportion between 
 " the food and the numbers which were to consume 
 "it^" 
 
 (3) I have seldom, never indeed, read a sentence 
 which excited in me feelings of such strong and unmin- 
 gled disgust as the foregoing one. Fully acquitting its 
 author of any intention to palliate, much less to recom- 
 mend, this dreadful crime, still the very supposition 
 of its being, under any state of society whatever, one 
 of the foreseen and best calculated means of balancino- 
 the numbers of the human species and their food, an 
 operation rendered necessary, as some suppose, by the 
 miscalculations of nature, appears to me most astound- 
 ing. Other means, it will be seen in the sequel, na- 
 ture resorts to, with a certainty which never fails. Nor 
 is child-murder " very particularly calculated" for any 
 purpose but that of keeping a population in savage 
 barbarism and wretchedness as well as guilt, and in- 
 terrupting its advance to plenty and prosperity. 
 
 (4) Postponing to the terminating chapters of the 
 next book, all consideration of the imputation upon the 
 Chinese of the general practice of infanticide, and 
 having in the two preceding ones wiped off the asper- 
 sion cast upon the legislators and philosophers of 
 antiquity, as encouraging it, I shall add but few words 
 at present on so repulsive a subject. That it never 
 could have been one of the direct and necessary checks 
 to population, is sufficiently apparent from two con- 
 siderations ; first, because it generally was, and still 
 is, confined to a very barbarous state of existence, in 
 
 ^ Malthus, Essay ou Population, p. 1G4.
 
 Chap. XVI.] INFANTICIDE. FAMINE. PESTILENCE. 
 
 285 
 
 the population was, or is, far too scanty to need, on 
 any possible view of the subject, diminution ; or 
 second, because wherever it has openly prevailed, in 
 the most luxurious state of society, singular as it may 
 appear, it has been perpetrated by the higher rather 
 than the lower ranks. 
 
 (5) I do not deny the assertion of Hume, that 
 infanticide was the prevailing and stubborn vice of 
 antiquity. Probably the custom of the Canaanites, so 
 strongly reprobated in the law of Moses, of passing 
 their children through the fire, or offering them 
 to Moloch, was a species of infanticide ; we find, 
 too, the Carthaginians, who are supposed to have 
 been of the same origin, persevering in the like hor- 
 rible rites. In the earliest periods of the history of 
 Greece and Rome, it might have also partially pre- 
 vailed, till, as we have seen, it was repressed in their 
 better days. But then, in these instances, if it existed 
 at all, it was perpetrated in countries very inade- 
 quately peopled, to which an increase of numbers 
 would have been the greatest possible blessing. And 
 still it is, in the wilds of America, one of the most 
 scantily peopled districts in the globe, in reference to 
 its fertility, that the Indian is said to expose and de- 
 sert his child, that he may spare himself a momentary 
 inconvenience ; a habit which we are also told pre- 
 vailed till of late in the more luxuriant islands of 
 the South Seas, where all the productions of nature, 
 excepting human beings to enjoy them, are found in 
 such astonishing abundance. 
 
 (6) Whenever this method of regulating the popu- 
 lation has generally prevailed, it has been found to be 
 the habit of luxurious wealth, rather than of suffering' 
 poverty ; and, therefore, cannot have been resorted to 
 as a general means of proportioning numbers to food.
 
 28G CHECKS TO POPULATION. [Book T. 
 
 This fact may sound rather strange in " ears polite ;" 
 and, happily for our state of civilization, we can only 
 know it from ancient history, or distant report ; these, 
 however, concur in substantiating it. Thus in the 
 Polynesian islands, to which Mr. Malthus so pointedly 
 alludes, who are they that constitute the well-known 
 Eareeoie societies? The very same class who perpe- 
 trated similar crimes in Rome, whom the satirist 
 contrasts with the poor, so little to the advantage of 
 the former. 
 
 Hse tamen et partus subeuut discrimen, et omnes 
 Nutricis tolerant, fortuna urgente, labores. 
 Sed jacet aurato vix uUa puerpera leclo; 
 Tantiim artes hujiis, tantum medicamina possunt, 
 Quae steriles facit, atque homines in ventre necandos 
 Conducit. ' 
 
 Those, however, whom the Romans deemed barbarians, 
 " accounted it," says Tacitus, " a flagitious crime to 
 " set limits to population, by rearing only a certain 
 " number of children, and destroying the rest." On 
 the contrary, we learn incidentally from Caesar, that 
 they avoided whatever they supposed would diminish 
 their natural fruitfulness. 
 
 (7) With the practice of destroying helpless in- 
 fancy, may be classed the immolation of the weak, the 
 diseased, and the aged, which also must tend to dimi- 
 nish population. But this custom again prevails 
 only in countries which are almost desolate of inha- 
 bitants. 
 
 . (8) The remaining " positive checks," which have, 
 in conjunction with the former ones, to rectify the 
 redundance of mankind, are famine and pestilence. 
 But here again the argument for their necessity totally 
 fails. Where, according to the theory under exami- 
 nation, they cannot be wanted, there they prevail with 
 
 1 Juv, Sat., 6, V. 592,
 
 Chap. XVI.] INFANTICIDE. FAMINE. PESTILENCE. 287 
 
 frequency and severity, and wliere tliey ought to ope- 
 rate, there they disappear. Dearth and famine, for 
 instance, are almost peculiar to a scanty state of popu- 
 lation, dispersed over a fertile country, as Humboldt 
 has observed ; except in those colonies which have 
 sprung from, and which are still dependant, in great 
 measure, for their prosperity, on their access to 
 crowded countries. As to that abject poverty which 
 almost amounts, in individual cases, to what dearth 
 and famine become, more generally considered, it is 
 the most severe and universal where the inhabitants 
 are few. It is interesting to observe, that no per- 
 ceptible diminution takes place in any well-peopled 
 country from this afflicting cause ; in a nation where 
 there are institutions in favour of the poor, it is barely 
 possible that they can occur, except in some very extra- 
 ordinary instances indeed. Major Graunt, in his Obser- 
 vations on the Bills of Mortality, says, "my first obser- 
 " vation is, that few are starved. This appears, that 
 " of 229,250, which have died, we find not above 51 to 
 " have been starved !" And he speaks thus of the most 
 crowded metropolis in the world, wliere, in the cease- 
 less crowd and bustle, such circumstances, one would 
 imagine, are the most likely to occur. As to the sup- 
 position, that poverty operates as a check in another 
 form, namely, by either diminishing the proportion or 
 the prolificness of marriages, the contrary will be fully 
 demonstrated hereafter. 
 
 (9) Nor is the supposition, that epidemics are the 
 efficient means of thinning a crowded popolation, any 
 truer than the former ones. Diseases which are com- 
 municated by direct contact may, perhaps, be spread 
 more rapidly, and commit greater ravages amongst a 
 full, than a thin state of inhabitants ; but even this fact 
 is doubtful, for the greatest of all the contagious pests
 
 288 CHECKS TO POPULATION. [Book I. 
 
 that ever afflicted the human race, the small-pox, was 
 quite as fatal in country places, as in towns and cities, at 
 all times ; and it is remarkable, that the plague itself, 
 during its last tremendous visitation in this country, 
 was much more fatal in a small sequestered village in 
 the north of Derbyshire, than in the metropolis. But 
 as to epidemics of a different kind, it has long been 
 observed, that they are less fatal in towns than in 
 country places. This, Dr. Short repeatedly points 
 out ; and during the late dreadful contagious fever in 
 Ireland, Drs. Baker and Cheyne record the same im- 
 portant fact, as established by the communications of 
 the faculty from every part of the island. 
 
 (10) But these facts are rather curious than essen- 
 tial to my argument, which I shall further proceed to 
 enforce, in a different and far more conclusive manner, 
 in the ensuing chapter.
 
 289 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 OF THE DIMINUTION IN THE OPERATION OF THE CHECKS 
 AS POPULATION INCREASES. 
 
 
 
 (I) One of tlie most striking, and indeed irre- 
 fragable proofs, that the checks we have been consi- 
 dering, namely, War, Pestilence, and Famine, were not 
 intended to be, nor yet are, the regulators of popu- 
 lation, remains to be noticed, and it is this, — that they 
 are utterly misplaced in the system they are meant to 
 support. When, in every view of the question, they 
 are not only unnecessar}^ but highly pernicious, that 
 is, in the rudiments of human associations, when room 
 is abundant, and it is only human beings who are 
 scarce, then are they constantly present, and operate 
 with the greatest vigour. But, on the other hand, 
 when mankind become, comparatively speaking, nu- 
 merous, and consequently when they ought, according 
 to the theory, to be the most active, they operate very 
 languidly, and remit their effects to very distant and 
 lengthening intervals, so as to encourage a rational 
 and pious hope that the time is not far distant when 
 the anticipations of philosophy and the prophecies 
 of religion will be realized, and they will cease alto- 
 gether. Meantime they are, in every sense of the 
 word, mal-a-propos ; they appear when they are not 
 wanted; when they ought to be present, and unusually 
 active, they are absent : confronting, therefore, at 
 every stage of society, the theory they are brought 
 forward to support. 
 
 Vol. I; U
 
 290 DIMINUTION OF THE CHECKS [Book I. 
 
 (2) But, I must drag the reader again to the revolt- 
 ing subject, and, to prevent any misrepresentation, I 
 will repeat the modern scheme of population, or rather 
 the means by which it is regulated in the first states of 
 society. " When population has increased nearly to 
 " the utmost limits of food,'' (when, however, has it 
 done so ?) " all the preventive and positive checks 
 " will naturally operate with increased force. Vicious 
 " habits with respect to the sex will be more general, 
 " the exposing of children more frequent, and both 
 " the probability and fatality of wars and epidemics 
 " will be considerably greater ; and these causes will 
 " probably continue their operation till the population 
 ^' is sunk below the level of the food, and then the 
 " return to comparative plenty will again produce an 
 " increase ; and, after a certain period, its further pro- 
 " gress will again be checked by the same causes ^" 
 That is, the best feelings of the human heart will 
 produce the worst consequences, and the punishment 
 of nature's error will fall upon the least guilty part of 
 the human race. 
 
 (3) In seeing whether such lamentable conse- 
 quences result from the law of nature, and whether 
 they increase as the population advances, I reject the 
 subterfuges which an appeal to mere " tendencies," 
 "oscillations," &c., may afford to the system I oppose, 
 or my own. I shall briefly allude to the use made of 
 these terms hereafter ; in the mean time, I shall refer 
 to the plain experience of the world, for thousands of 
 years past, on the points at issue. 
 
 (4) First, then, in reference to war, long the 
 greatest and most fatal check to the growth and pros- 
 perity of the human race. Have the " probability 
 and fatality of wars increased " with an increasing 
 
 ^ Malthus, Essay on Popiilatiwi, p. 15,
 
 Chap. XVII.] AS POPULATION INCREASES. 291 
 
 population ? The slightest knowledge of the history 
 of the world will enable us to give an instant nega- 
 tive to such a supposition. Directly the contrary is 
 the fact : as mankind have increased, wars have been, 
 first, not so frequent, and, secondly, not so fatal. 
 
 (5) In proof of this, we need not take a wide view 
 of ancient history, that of the first three universal 
 monarchies abundantly proves these facts ; Greece 
 also might be appealed to, with equal confidence ; in 
 the earlier stages of whose history, as Mitford ob- 
 serves, a neighbour and an enemy were synonymous 
 terms^ But, let us take the fourth and last great 
 empire, Rome; not only as incomparably the most 
 powerful, the most permanent, and the most bloody 
 tyranny that ever scourged the world, but as existing 
 in a period on which the lights of history shine more 
 distinctly ; and, above all, as possessing those parts of 
 the earth which we now inhabit, and with which we 
 are, therefore, most familiar. In the very language of 
 this polite people, also, who governed the whole of the 
 known world, a stranger and an enemy were synony- 
 mous terms, and their conduct fully justified their 
 etymology. From the foundation of their city to the 
 climax of the empire, through its decline, and to its 
 fall, their story is written in blood. Excepting in the 
 reign of Numa, the temple of Janus had not been 
 closed from the time of Romulus to the termination of 
 the first Punic war, full half a millennium of slaugh- 
 ter ! and, as Florus says, the peace was then but of 
 short duration, as it were only to take breath. It was 
 without delay re-opened ^. Nor was it again shut till 
 the 700tli year from the building of the city ; having, 
 as that author observes, been closed but twice, and 
 for very short periods only, during that long space of 
 
 ^ Mitford, Hist, of Greece. ^ Florus, 1. ii., c. 3. 
 
 U2
 
 292 DIMINUTION OF THE CHECKS [Book I. 
 
 time^ TIlis was, however, in all respects, far the 
 most important period of Roman history, especially in 
 reference to our inquiry. It comprehended the time 
 when Italy itself, though colonized, was yet but 
 thinly peopled, and when the surrounding provinces, 
 to the north and west at least, were still less inhabited. 
 We need not trace the history of this pest from 
 the Augustan age till the empire, destroyed and 
 broken in pieces by the righteous vengeance of the 
 surrounding provinces it had so long and so grievously 
 oppressed, was dissolved in its own growing cor- 
 ruptions. But it may be just remarked, that this 
 scourge was ever the most active when the number was 
 the most scanty or on the decline. Not only does the 
 appalling fact meet us, of almost uninterrupted war 
 for the greatest part of a thousand years together; but 
 secondly, in direct contradiction to the supposition 
 quoted, its fatality, in proportion to the population, 
 was as strikingly excessive as its duration, when com- 
 pared with the contests of later times, was long. This 
 must be evident, in the first place, from the numbers 
 engaged in these wars. In the best days of Rome, 
 as they are called, their armies consisted of a great 
 part of the population ; indeed all its citizens were 
 obliged to spend seven years of their life in active 
 service. As it respected their enemies, their hosts 
 comprehended almost the whole number of their males 
 capable of bearing arms. But, in later times, it has 
 been calculated that not more than one in a hundred 
 of the population, in most civilized countries, follows 
 the military profession. This single consideration is 
 conclusive as to the fact of the immense slauo^hter 
 occasioned by the wars of antiquity, compared with 
 those of later times. 
 
 ' Florus, 1. iv., c. 12.
 
 Chap. XVII.] AS POPULATION IXCREASES. 293 
 
 (G) But we must add to tliis view of the subject 
 another appalling- consideration, namely, that the 
 character of the warfare of the two periods is still 
 more essentially different. Victory, in the former of 
 these, was not achieved but with a far greater waste 
 of human life, and defeat was infinitely more fatal. 
 The vanquished, which, as before observed, were 
 generally the entire male population capable of bearing 
 arms, were often put to the sword ; not unfrequently 
 the entire race was exterminated. Sometimes, how- 
 ever, a part were reserved as slaves, especially the 
 women and children, and therefore often doomed to a 
 fate not less certain, though somewhat deferred. In 
 fine, nothing could equal the flagrant injustice with 
 which war was then commenced, except the hor- 
 rible cruelties with which it was wao'ed. In the best 
 period of Roman history, (if we may be allowed to call 
 that best which was the happiest for the mass of the 
 human race, though there was no Cato to pillage and 
 murder in the name of the Republic,) Augustus Coesar 
 proclaimed peace throughout the world ; and a period 
 of prosperity ensued which "the check" again inter- 
 rupted, till, in a few centuries afterwards, it is supposed 
 half, at least, of the inhabitants of the then known 
 world were exterminated, and Italy itself exhibited 
 a scene of comparative desolation. A period of in- 
 creased plenty, and profound peace, according to the 
 theory in dispute, ought then to have "naturally 
 ensued." Was this the case? When the Roman 
 empire was broken up, and served no longer as a vast 
 amphitheatre wherein to match human beings against 
 each other as so many gladiators, although there were 
 inadequate numbers to till the ground, and mankind 
 were rapidly relapsing into barbarism ; was this check 
 laid aside? No! on the contrary, there were then.
 
 291 DIMINUTION OF THE CHECKS [Book I. 
 
 thousands of arenas in which this check of the species 
 was actively and efficiently at work. Fixing upon 
 a middle period, between the time of Augustus and 
 the present, (for it is obviously impossible to pursue, 
 in a work like this, the subject more minutely,) let us 
 take a view of the situation of society in the tenth 
 century, as given by a popular writer, often previously 
 quoted. At that time, there were probably not a 
 fourth of the inhabitants in Europe that there now 
 are. Still this check was busy. " In the disorders 
 *' of the tenth and eleventh centuries," says Gibbon, 
 " every peasant was a soldier, and every village a for- 
 " tification ; each wood or valley was a scene of rapine 
 " and murder; and the lords of each castle were com- 
 " pelled to assume the characters of princes and war- 
 '' riors. To their own courage and policy they boldly 
 " trusted for the safety of their family, the protection 
 " of their lands, the revenge of their injuries ; and, 
 " like the conquerors of a larger size, they were too apt 
 " to transgress the privileges of defensive war. The 
 " powers of the body and mind were hardened by the 
 *' presence of danger, and the necessity of resolutions 
 " — they disdained the authority of the laws ; and 
 " the instruments of agriculture and art were con- 
 " verted into the weapons of bloodshed \" 
 
 (7) Contrast the havoc of war, carried on thus, 
 with that which prevails in the present period. Pro- 
 bably, we have seen in our day a contest unexampled 
 in the annals of the world, if we consider the might 
 and courage of the combatants, the nature of the 
 quarrel, and the time of its duration. Yet its effects 
 on the country most deeply interested were slight, 
 compared with the warfare of the darker ages, and 
 more especially that of the Roman empire. From 
 
 * Gibbon, vol. X., p. 148, 149.
 
 Chap. XVII.] AS POPULATION INCREASES. 295 
 
 first to last, wc maintained the combat against a 
 mig-lity enemy, with whom at one time all Europe 
 was in league, and, at length, even the New World 
 arrayed itself against us. During this period, the 
 battle raged on either element, till concluded by the 
 triumphs of Trafalgar and Waterloo ; and the loss of 
 many a brave victim, it is true, was deplored, but still 
 the total number of the killed was insignificant, com- 
 pared with that of the annual mortality of our popu- 
 lation, from natural causes ; it was as nothing, to that 
 which must have been endured, had a similar war 
 been waged by nations equally powerfid, and equally 
 exasperated and determined, in any of the periods pre- 
 viously alluded to. Modern Europe, however, had 
 seen no similar contest, and, it is to be hoped, will 
 never witness such another. 
 
 . (8) Thus has the efficacy of the check, war, in forcing 
 down, as it is expressed, the population to the level 
 of the means of subsistence, been constantly diminish- 
 ing, till, in point of fact, it hardly now deserves to be 
 enumerated amongst the checks it once had the bad 
 pre-eminence of heading. 
 
 (9) Two reasons may be assigned for the great 
 diminution in the carnage of war which has happily 
 taken place in modern times. The one is the inven- 
 tion of gunpowder, and its application to warfare. 
 This, by diminishing, and often annihilating, the ad- 
 vantages of mere brute force, has rendered war a 
 business of tactics, full as much as of close contest ; 
 and has, however paradoxical it may sound, greatly 
 diminished the slaughter when battle has been ine- 
 vitable. Such are the means of defence, as well as 
 of attack, which this powerful agent gives, that it 
 inspires hostile armies with mutual esteem, and often 
 keeps them at a respectful distance from each other,'
 
 296 DIMINUTION OF THE CHECKS [Book I. 
 
 SO tliat a whole campaign may now pass away in 
 manoeuvring, which in former days would have been 
 consumed in perpetual slaughter. 
 
 (10) But the second and great reason is the milder 
 influence of the religion of civilization — Christianity. 
 It has notyet realized all its apologists promised, because 
 as yet it has been but imperfectly believed, and still 
 less perfectly obeyed; but it has already accomplished, 
 even in this respect, what its very enemies can never 
 depreciate, and in so doing has shewn the nature of its 
 ultimate triumphs. It has changed, in great measure, 
 the very motives of warfare. Few potentates now, 
 whatever be their ambition, entertain the idea of 
 stripping a prostrate people of their property, slaugh- 
 tering a portion of them, and consigning the re- 
 mainder to lasting slavery ; not a sentimental slavery, 
 on which politicians love to declaim, but a personal 
 thraldom, one like Egyptian darkness, " that may be 
 felt." Few warriors now, it is to be hoped, dream of 
 putting the vanquished to the sword, or of waging a 
 war of extermination. 
 
 (10) That the character of war has therefore so 
 much changed, and its carnage so abated, in comparison 
 M'ith that of ancient times, as hardly to deserve any 
 longer the name of a direct check to the population 
 of the civilized Morld, appears perfectly clear. The 
 subject will be again shortly adverted to, when the 
 influence of population on the prosperity of the country 
 will be more particularly considered. Meantime, I 
 shall conclude this part of the argument in the words 
 of Gibbon. " In the system of modern Europe, the 
 "power of the sword is possessed, at least, in fact, by 
 " five or six mighty potentates ; their operations are 
 " conducted on a distant frontier, by an order of men 
 "who devote themselves to the study and practice of
 
 Chap. XVII.] AS POPULATION INCREASES. 297 
 
 " the military art ; the rest of the country and com- 
 " munity enjoy in the midst of war the tranquillity of 
 " peace, and is only made sensible of the change by 
 "the aggravation or decrease of the public taxes ^" 
 So much, then, for the assertion, that the principle of 
 population occasions by its eftects the greater proba- 
 bility, and increases the fatality, of war. 
 
 ni) As to infanticide, which it is also said will, 
 from the same cause, human increase, become more 
 frequent, it is sufficient to remark, that what was 
 permitted, if not encouraged, when Europe was a 
 wilderness, is, now that almost all its countries are 
 infinitely fuller of inhabitants, punished with death ; 
 and that the benevolence of every Christian country 
 has removed the sole motive to this deadly act, that 
 can have any reference whatever to the question at 
 issue : and it has almost disappeared even in the islands 
 of the South Sea, to which much allusion on this sub- 
 ject has been made^ 
 
 (12) These two checks, therefore, the one pecu- 
 liarly calculated for its office, and the other doing its 
 work in the gross, being, by the humanizing influences 
 of civilization and religion, so much abated, and still 
 continuing to abate, the business of checking the 
 population must be left, in great measure, to the 
 remainder, which must therefore, according to the 
 theory, operate with increased activity. These 
 "drains," as they are termed, must be enlarged, or 
 " fresh ones opened." But a moment's consideration 
 will lead us to the very same conclusion respecting 
 the remaining checks, famine and pestilence. In- 
 creasing population, instead of extending the field of 
 their operation, and swelling the number of their 
 
 ' Ciibbon, Decline and Fall of the Ro- ^ See Ellis, passim. 
 man Empire, vol, x., p. 148.
 
 29S DIMINUTION OF THE CHECKS [Book I. 
 
 victims, lias greatly diminisliecl, and, indeed, almost 
 annihilated tliem also. 
 
 (13) Respecting famine, nothing can be more ab- 
 surd or contrary to the fact, than fixing upon a full 
 population as the scene of its greatest ravages. Many 
 reasons there are why that dreadful scourge should 
 be less frequent and prevalent in such a state than in 
 a more thinly peopled one ; none why it should be 
 more so. The author quoted at the commencement 
 of this chapter, fixing his eye upon his geometric and 
 arithmetical table, sees, at every step, the constant dimi- 
 nution in food compared with the numbers it is to sus- 
 tain, (if Nature have her way,) has fallen into a grievous 
 and unaccountable error on this point. As the united 
 labour of numbers is generally much better rewarded 
 and far more productive than that of the disconnected 
 few, it follows, that a full state of population, with 
 saifiicient space, will be better supplied than a scanty 
 one. It is equally clear that a replenished, or, in 
 other words, a rich community, possessing capabilities 
 for commerce and speculation, as it is called, would 
 direct some of its means, through some of its members, 
 to remedy the effects of the variations of the seasons, 
 as a matter of profitable pursuit. A full population, 
 then, as I take it, will always be more equably sup- 
 plied, though somewhat dearer perhaps ; which dear- 
 ness, if connected with the improved condition of the 
 mass of the community, resolves itself, after all, into a 
 state of superior plenty. But so long as human 
 labour has a definite object, to supply human neces- 
 sities ; so lono- as the surface of the earth and the 
 treasures of the deep suffice, (and the author in ques- 
 tion now admits that they have not, probably, hitherto 
 yielded a tenth part of their possible produce,) how 
 it should be imagined that the few have a better
 
 Chap. XVII.] AS POPULATION INCREASES. 299 
 
 cliance of evading- the consequences of fluctuating 
 seasons tlian the many, is, to me, I confess, an enigma, 
 and one which, happily for human beings, the history 
 of the workl has never propounded. 
 
 (14) I may here, probably, be referred to America; 
 advantaged as she is in being composed of the frag- 
 ments of the crowded communities of Europe, and 
 having still a constant and profitable access to these 
 communities. He says it is almost impossible to ima- 
 gine a scarcity of food in that country. So it is ; but 
 what does this imply? Why, that the population is 
 almost exclusively agricultural ; and that her exports 
 are principally made up of its products. The same 
 might be said of the actual cultivators of any parti- 
 cular country ; the poor farmers, (and they are sunk 
 low enough in the scale of our social system, though 
 still not quite so degraded as the political economists 
 think consistent with the good of the country,) while 
 they had any part remaining of those stocks of provi- 
 sions, which it is their business to raise and vend, could 
 not suffer in an actual famine ; but if they constantly 
 retained their produce, they could not subsist in times 
 ,of the greatest plenty ; as they could not then procure 
 the other necessaries of life, almost equally essential 
 to existence with food itself But it is most singular, 
 that those who, in arguing on this subject, point at the 
 condition of the American population, do not perceive, 
 that so far from appealing to a social structure, which 
 is to form the model of a state of society exempt from 
 the distress under consideration, they point to one 
 which can only exist as an exception. What is the 
 exception from this particular check occasioned by ? 
 Doubtless by the circumstance of their transporting 
 the produce of their soil to other nations. But could
 
 300 DIMINUTION OF THE CHECKS [Book I. 
 
 all, or even most nations, do so? Certainly not: for 
 when all, or most nations, were the sellers of such pro- 
 duce, where were the buyers ? Any system of popu- 
 lation to be true, it is quite clear, ought to be of general 
 application. But supposing the measure of American 
 population to be universal, and that the advantages 
 they have derived from springing from a more crowded 
 state of society were passed over, still there could then 
 be none of these exports, nor consequently of that 
 superfluity of produce, which is, in that exempt case, 
 a security from a want of the mere necessaries of 
 existence. On the other hand, the population then 
 having no inducements, nor indeed means, to raise 
 more than their average wants, would no more do so 
 than we do at present. There must then be at least 
 as much, but, I believe, far more want, fluctuation, 
 and wretchedness in the world than there is at present. 
 So much for these confident appeals to America, a 
 country which forms a palpable exception to the 
 general law of Nature, and depends for its prosperity 
 upon others who are subject to this law. England, 
 herself, till within no remote period, was an exporting 
 country ; and she lost that trade because other nations 
 wisely determined to cultivate for themselves. In the 
 mean time it may be asserted, with the fullest confi- 
 dence, that if the like proportion of the population were 
 employed in cultivating the ground in this nation, 
 that is so occupied in America, or even in other coun- 
 tries decidedly less agricultural than the latter, there 
 would not be mouths enough to consume half the 
 produce. 
 
 (15) But were America one of those countries 
 which could fairly be appealed to on the present sub- 
 ject, still it would be perfectly easy to shew, from its
 
 Chap. XVII.] AS POPULATION INCREASES. 301 
 
 annals, that tlie check under consideration has dimi- 
 nished, even there, as the population has increased. 
 It requires but little research to know that the colo- 
 nies, in the early periods of their history, were fre- 
 quently visited by very distressing scarcities, which 
 recurred, at times, during- a very considerable num- 
 ber of years ; and that it has only been since the 
 country has been more adequately possessed, and, as 
 has just been observed, has become an exporter of the 
 necessaries of life, that those " hard times " have in a 
 great measure ceased, which are mentioned by Frank- 
 lin as having been so severely felt in the earlier part 
 of his long life. 
 
 (16) To return, then, after this digression, to a short 
 general consideration of the subject. And to take our 
 first view of it from that earliest authentic record to 
 which Mr. Malthus has appealed, I would ask whe- 
 ther the famine which afflicted Jacob and his family, 
 consisting, as we know, of a very small number of 
 persons, was less severe and distressing than it would 
 have been had their numbers more fully possessed the 
 land of Canaan ? On the contrary, we know that it 
 was as " sore in the land " which was possessed by 
 seventy Israelites, as it ever was amongst perhaps the 
 nearer seven millions who afterwards inhabited the 
 country. A volume might be composed in selecting 
 instances and proofs of the important fact, that a full 
 population decreases instead of increases the frequency 
 and fatality of famines ; but I shall still content 
 myself with furnishing examples, rather than col- 
 lecting a series of facts. Let the history of Rome, 
 then, suffice. Did its increased population produce 
 this effect, or the reverse ? Let Gibbon answer : "It 
 " may be observed," says that writer, " that those 
 " famines which so frequently afflicted the infant
 
 302 DIMINUTION OF THE CHECKS [Book I. 
 
 " republic, were seldom or never experienced by tlie 
 " extensive Roman empire ^" 
 
 (17) When that terrible diminution of the human 
 species occurred, to which allusion has been already 
 made, and the Roman empire was broken up into 
 those fragments which now form the European re- 
 public, and the civilized world was eased of at least 
 half its mouths, there ought then to have been a 
 riotous time of plenty, according- to the scale gra- 
 duated by the theory I am opposing. But to name 
 any one European kingdom in reference to the point 
 at issue, were sufficient for the argument. Any per- 
 son of tolerable intelligence will at once know, which- 
 ever be that country, that its early history, when it 
 was, comparatively speaking, unpeopled, was the 
 period for the frequent recurrence and fatality of fa- 
 mines. As, however, we shall again have occasion to 
 allude to some of these nations, and especially to our 
 own, it may suffice for the present to state, in general 
 terms, that through the entire history of the human 
 race, famines have diminished as population has in- 
 creased. 
 
 (18) To illustrate this upon a small scale, which, 
 as the author I am chiefly examining observes, is the 
 clearest way of exhibiting the subject, look at any 
 new colony, then, if you please, planted by England, 
 the first naval power that exists, or ever did exist upon 
 earth, and therefore planted under the greatest possible 
 advantages. Let them have plenty of soil, of the 
 richest kind, seeds of every description, the practical 
 knowledge of agriculture, and, in fine, all the arts of 
 civilization derived from the crowded community they 
 leave ; but even these, in the first stages of their 
 settlement, have been invariably exposed to hard- 
 
 ' Gibbon, Decline and Fall, &c., vol. i., p. 86.
 
 Chap. XVII.] AS POPULATION INCREASES. 303 
 
 sliips of the nature we are considering-, and often of 
 the severest description. The dearths which almost 
 all such have experienced, arose, as I contend, not 
 from the surcharge, but from the want of inhabitants ; 
 and their situation may, in some measure, exhibit 
 that of the communities, in their first stages of exist- 
 ence, whicli have now risen to an unforeseen pitch of 
 strength and greatness, and to the constant enjoyment 
 of general prosperity and affluence. These difficulties 
 .and distresses, whether from without or within, were 
 of a character very similar in their nature, thoug-h per- 
 haps different in degree, to those experienced in new 
 colonies. Population, however, was the remedy, and 
 the sole and sufficient one, in both cases. 
 
 (19) But, after all, the question is the best resolved 
 by instancing those districts of the earth which have 
 already a very large extent of fertile soil, and but a 
 thin population. This situation is an undoubted 
 test of the truth of the assertion, that plenty de- 
 pends upon the repression of population. Excluding, 
 for reasons before mentioned, those colonies which, 
 having passed the ordeal of their first settlement, re- 
 ceive the principal encouragement and reward of their 
 industry from without, a population is in general 
 wretched, not in proportion to the scantiness and ste- 
 rility, but the prolificness and extent of the country 
 it possesses, unless increasing numbers keep pace 
 with those advantages, so as to leave the spur of ne- 
 cessity in full operation. This is a fact which has not 
 escaped the notice of Aristotle ; the pre-eminence of 
 Attica, also, which was the most unpropitious district 
 of Greece, illustrates the same important truth, which 
 receives further confirmation from every quarter of the 
 globe. One of the most celebrated of our modern 
 writers makes a remark fully in point, which I think
 
 304 DIMINUTION OF THE CHECKS [Cook I. 
 
 I have already quoted; I mean Baron Humboldt'. 
 He gives it on the authority of his own observation, 
 that the superior prolificness of nature has a tendency 
 to create idleness, and consequently, wretchedness ; 
 while its sterility, on the contrary, encourages in- 
 dustry, and secures therefore abundance. 
 
 (20) In a word, it may be assumed as an un- 
 doubted fact, evidenced by the history of every civi- 
 lized country, and of our own in particular, that the 
 fewer the inhabitants, the more frequent and the more 
 severe have been dearths and famines ; and that as 
 population has advanced and multiplied, the intervals 
 of their recurrence have lengthened, and at last in 
 a great measure ceased altogether. 
 
 (21) But throughout the whole of this treatise I 
 have thought it necessary to present the conclusion at 
 which I have arrived, on any of the more important 
 points which the subject embraces, and especially on 
 such as involve much historical remark and extensive 
 observation, in other language than my own. The 
 reader must be aware that, in favour of the view I 
 have taken of the one under immediate consideration, 
 authorities might be quoted to almost any extent. I 
 shall confine myself, however, to one only. Hale 
 says, " Famines of late times have been not much 
 " observed, partly because of the great industry of 
 " mankind improving and increasing the fruits of the 
 " earth ^." Or, in other words, they have disappeared 
 as men have multiplied. 
 
 (22) The same may be said of what may be termed 
 individual famine, extreme poverty, and starvation. 
 Every rank of society has been elevated as the numbers 
 of the whole have increased. And as to cases of 
 
 ' Humboldt, Personal Narrative, ^ Hale, Origination, p. 213. 
 
 vol.i., p. 123.
 
 Chap. XVII.] AS POPULATION INCREASES. 305 
 
 urgent distress, as they will doubtless occur in all 
 societies, so tliey are the best provided for where the 
 population is the fullest. The preservation of those 
 lives, which in former days would have been deemed 
 utterly worthless, and which there is an effort among 
 our political economists still to represent as such, is, in 
 all the Christian communities of the earth, attended 
 to, by innumerable foundations of charity ; and in our 
 own and many others by a national establishment of 
 mercy, which renders it as unlawful to let a fellow- 
 creature perish from hunger, or from a want of the other 
 necessaries of life, as it is to murder him ; a view of 
 the subject which was universally taken by the primi- 
 tive church. Death through abject poverty, or, as it 
 may be called, individual famine, can, therefore, no 
 longer be deemed one of the checks to population here, 
 nor, I would fain hope, in any Christian nation, though 
 in barbarous times and ages it was indeed a most 
 powerful one. The reader, however, will be spared 
 the sickening proofs of its prevalence at those periods ; 
 while we pass on to the consideration of the last of the 
 " positive checks," as they are termed. 
 
 (22) Lastly, then, do epidemics or pestilence be- 
 come " more frequent, and more fatal," as the popu- 
 lation multiplies ? Again we answer ; — directly the 
 reverse. 
 
 (23) It may be safely asserted, that most of the 
 pestilences and famines which have afflicted mankind, 
 and have greatly lessened the number of human 
 beings, have been produced by wars. As the latter, 
 therefore, have diminished in their frequency, short- 
 ened in their duration, and, above all, have been 
 greatly mitigated in their ferocity, hardly affecting, as 
 has been already observed, the mass of mankind ; it 
 is certain, that, with this happy change, famines and 
 
 Vol. I. X
 
 30S DIMINUTION OF THE CHECKS [Book I. 
 
 pestilence, so far as tliey are caused by that great 
 pest of the human race, must have been similarly 
 abated, if not entirely removed. But if those famines, 
 which have afflicted the earth, have been generally 
 attributable to that master check, which, according to 
 the theory I am opposing, is calculated to produce 
 plenty, some of the epidemics, which have also had 
 their share in thinning the human race, have had, I 
 admit, a different origin. But I contend, that even 
 epidemics are neither so frequent nor so fatal, where 
 the population has progressively advanced. 
 
 (24) The page of history again verifies this 
 highly interesting fact. Epidemics, both in their 
 frequency and fatality, have diminished greatly, as 
 the earth has become better peopled. The annals 
 of every country in Europe bear testimony to the 
 truth of this statement. When the inhabitants were, 
 compared with their present number, inconsiderable, 
 then was it that these fatal pests, in diflerent forms, 
 and under different denominations, were matter of 
 lamentably common occurrence, as will be exemplified 
 in a sketch of the history of our own country, in refer- 
 ence to the present subject : as the people have mul- 
 tiplied, these pests have, in a great measure, disap- 
 peared. This check, therefore, has lost ground, 
 instead of being more fatally forward in regulating 
 the population, as it multiplied; and it has now hap- 
 pily disappeared in its more fatal forms, almost alto- 
 gether. 
 
 (25) How it should have been imagined, that this 
 check could " increase in frequency and fatality," as 
 the population advance, is strange ; for it is to such 
 advance, that that universal and superior culture of 
 the earth is unquestionably owing, which has not 
 only beautified its surface, but has meliorated its very
 
 Chap. XVII.] AS POPULATION INCREASES. 307 
 
 climates, dispensing" not only plenty, in far greater 
 shares, amongst the inhabitants at large, but increas- 
 ing the measure of its enjoyment, by the universal 
 improvement of health and longevity. 
 
 (26) But it is surely unnecessary to prove, that 
 those plagues and other strange and fatal epidemics, 
 which dreadfully prevailed in Europe, in past pe- 
 riods, have abated or disappeared, as its inhabitants 
 have increased. I shall only particularize one of 
 these, long the most fatal pest, probably, that ever 
 visited the civilized world, as conclusive on this sub- 
 ject, — the small-pox. This, it has been calculated, 
 carried off a considerable portion of the human race, 
 and principally in their early infancy. If there were 
 a real redundancy in the fecundity of mankind, it was 
 unquestionably the best means that nature could have 
 devised of correcting the error. It was a general 
 infanticide without guilt, and it almost always took 
 place at a period of life, in which it inflicted the least 
 suffering and sorrow. In its consequences, (still sup- 
 posing the truth of the theory opposed,) it rendered 
 what are called the positive checks in a great mea- 
 sure unnecessary ; or mitigated, at all events, their 
 terrible inflictions ; and forced upon mankind smaller 
 doses of that " moral restraint," as it is called, still 
 worse than suffering, whose nature and effects remain 
 to be considered. I am sure I shall take the sense, 
 and even the feeling of my readers with me, when I 
 assert, that if the notion of this superfluity of human 
 beings is true, — a principle, which, as it develops 
 itself, is to be checked by all the horrible expedients 
 already noticed, or by the still more disgusting ones 
 yet to be considered, then the discovery of vaccination 
 is, to speak plainly but most truly, one of the greatest 
 curses that ever befell the human race. Rather than 
 
 X2
 
 308 DIMINUTION OF THE CHECKS [Book 1. 
 
 tlmt " vicious habits regarding the sex should become 
 more common ;" " that wars," or (in this view of war- 
 fare) murders " should be more frequent and more 
 fatal ;" " epidemics more constant and mortal ;" it 
 were better that Nature herself should have continued 
 to demand the sacrifice which was to rectify her own 
 errors, in her accustomed mode, and when life had 
 the least unconsciousness, and was invested, as it re- 
 spected others, with the least importance. I repeat, 
 that if these " drains" of population, as they are 
 called, are to be taken from another portion of the 
 community ; namely, adults, generally speaking, in- 
 stead of infants, then, reasoning as a Christian, feeling 
 as a man and as a patriot, I cannot hesitate. In the 
 sacrifice still to be demanded, according to the prin- 
 ciple I am opposing, guilt will often have to be sub- 
 stituted for spotless innocence ; the anguish of reluc- 
 tant death, for an unconscious exit ; the stay of the 
 domestic scene, in whom the deepest interest, as well 
 as the strongest affections are united, for an infant of 
 a span, which has but just awakened the affec- 
 tions, while the consequences of the change would, 
 on the same system, be degradation and guilt, so 
 general, as probably to contaminate the whole com- 
 munity. Vaccination, according to the modern 
 theory of population, is a positive and inevitable 
 curse. 
 
 (27) The author to whom I have so frequently 
 alluded, has expressed himself very intelligibly on the 
 subject of both the small-pox and vaccination. In 
 regard to the first, noticing Dr. Haygarth's opinions 
 and calculations respecting the very pernicious effects 
 which that fatal malady has had upon population, in 
 conformity with his theory, which always breeds up to 
 subsistence, he says, " were its devastations many
 
 Chap. XVII.] AS POPULATION INCREASES. 300 
 
 " tliousand degrees greater than the plague, I should 
 " still doubt whether the average population of the 
 " earth had been diminished by them a single unit. 
 " The small-pox is certainly one of the channels, and 
 " a very broad one, which Nature has opened for the 
 " last thousand years to keep down population to the 
 " level of the means of subsistence; but had that been 
 " closed, others would have become wider, or new ones 
 " would have been formed ^" After shewing that the 
 small-pox took the place of the more fatal wars and 
 plagues of antiquity, — which observation he thinks 
 ought to awaken our attention and animate us to patient 
 and persevering investigation, he adds, "For my own 
 " part, I feel not the slightest doubt, that, if the in- 
 " troduction of the cow-pox should extirpate thesmall- 
 " pox, and yet the number of marriages continue the 
 " same, we shall find a very perceptible difference in 
 " the increased mortality of some other diseases. No- 
 " thing could prevent this effect but a sudden start 
 " in our agriculture," which " will not be owing to 
 " the number of children saved from death by the 
 " cow-pox, but to the alarms amongst the people of 
 " property by the late scarcities, and to the increased 
 " gains of the farmers, which have been so absurdly 
 " reprobated. I am strongly, however, inclined to 
 " believe, that the number of marriages will not, in 
 " this case, remain the same^;" but, as he goes on to 
 make it out, moral restraint is to make the extinction of 
 a mortal disorder " a real blessing to us." Intimating, 
 consequently, that should this not take effect, it will 
 be no " real blessing." 
 
 (28) I have quoted this author so much at length, 
 to give, on the subject more especially under our 
 notice, a specimen of that boldness of assertion and 
 
 1 ]Malth\is, Essay on Population, p. 522. 2 jbid., pp. 522, 523.
 
 310 DIMINUTION OF THE CHECKS [Bookl. 
 
 carelessness of fact wliicli mark too many of tlie theo- 
 ries and prognostications of tlie present period. Vac- 
 cination was introduced at the commencement of the 
 present century \ 
 
 i. The extirpation of the small-pox fully justifies 
 Dr. Hay garth's assertions respecting its previous fatal 
 effects on the population, and has consequently shewn 
 the utter fallacy of the contrary opinions on the subject 
 quoted above. It has had the effect of greatly increas- 
 ing the population. Whether the ratio of increase, 
 generated by a comparison of the number of the popu- 
 lation at the two periods on which the computation 
 is founded, will be maintained, supposing the equal 
 absence of the other checks, is a matter of calculation, 
 and will be adverted to hereafter. 
 
 ii. The number of marriages, which Mr. Malthas 
 supposes would not continue so high, have, on the 
 contrary, greatly increased, not only numerically, but 
 relatively to the population. 
 
 iii. There has been no perceptible increase in the 
 mortality of other disorders. On the contrary, their 
 fatality, as well as that of the small-pox, has evidently 
 lessened. 
 
 iv. As the marriages have not diminished, but 
 greatly increased, in proportion to the population, 
 according to Mr. Malthus's own terms, vaccination is, 
 therefore, not " a real blessing." 
 
 I acquit the advocates of the theory of population of 
 any inconsistency here. Did 1 hold the principle they 
 inculcate, I should come to the same conclusion. 
 
 (29) But there is, in the foregoing argument, as 
 in most of his others, a loop-hole of escape ; he says, 
 if agriculture does not take " a sudden start," these 
 increased diseases of another sort would be the conse- 
 
 ^ Dr. Heysham, cjuoted by Mr. Milne, vol. ii., p. 755.
 
 Chap. XVII.] AS POPULATION INCREASES. 311 
 
 quence of the same number of marriages. It must 
 take a double start, one would think then, when the 
 marriages were increased, and that in no trifling de- 
 gree ; for I wish to remind the reader this argument is 
 not about shades of difference. Marriages took a 
 start from 67,228 in 1801, to 90,386 in 1802 ; and 
 in 1804 to 94,376 ; nor did their number ever sink 
 again to what it was at before vaccination was intro- 
 duced, nor to any thing approaching it. Still how 
 carefully is this " start in agriculture " guarded from 
 the supposition of its being occasioned by population 
 preceding and dictating production ; an opinion per- 
 fectly heterodox in this new view of the question ! If 
 it took place, it was to be attributed to the fears 
 of people of property and the increased gain of the 
 farmers. But what, I would ask the political econo- 
 mists, occasioned those fears, but the wants of an 
 increasing population ? and what occasioned those 
 profits but a better market, which the very same 
 cause created? What, in a word, created a better 
 demand for agricultural products, but more mouths ? 
 To doubt this, however, would be no striking absurdity 
 in the eyes of a confident and determined economist. 
 (30) I, therefore, deny all Mr. Malthus's assertions 
 on this point ; I need not do the same by his prophe- 
 cies, time has disposed of the whole of them. The 
 small-pox is, generally speaking, eradicated by vacci- 
 nation ; marriages have positively and relatively 
 increased in number ; deaths have diminished : po- 
 pulation, therefore, has gone on enlarging, without 
 either the deepening of the old, or the opening of new 
 drains or channels for superfluous existence. And, to 
 crown all, from that day to this, with the exception of 
 some fluctuations, which the astonishing events through 
 which we have passed, and the effects that these, or
 
 312 DIMINUTION OF THE CHECKS [Book I. 
 
 mismanagement, or both, have occasioned, and may 
 still occasion, the price of the necessaries of life has 
 been diminishing, and they have been produced within 
 the circuit of our own shores, in, I had almost said — 
 (Lord Liverpool, when premier, did say it) — a profusion 
 ruinous the while to the cultivators \ And this took 
 place without having recourse to any extraordinary 
 mode of minute cultivation, and while many millioTis 
 of acres, as an untouched stock, still remained in re- 
 serve. We trust, therefore, we may, without the 
 contamination of the " prudential check," go on 
 labouring and hoping for a real improvement in the 
 general health and happiness of the society. 
 
 (31) In a word, all the positive checks, as he 
 denominates them, distributing them under eleven 
 heads ^, have positively declined, and many of them 
 disappeared from the civilized world. His words are, 
 " the positive checks are extremely various, and in- 
 " elude every cause, whether arising from vice or 
 " misery, which in any degree contributes to shorten 
 " human life." Here, then, is the test ; one which I 
 do not see it possible to evade. As the population 
 has increased, have these checks increased in frequency 
 and fatality? or, in other words, has the duration of 
 human life, on the general average, kept diminishing? 
 Just the reverse : in every European country of which 
 we have any records of human existence, the popula- 
 tion has greatly advanced : has the expectation of life, 
 as it is termed, diminished proportionably ? On the 
 contrary, it has greatly lengthened, and in our own most 
 surprisingly. Were it possible to trace this curious 
 question accurately, I have not the least doubt but 
 this would be found to be the case, in reference to the 
 
 ' Lord Livcrpoolj Speech, 1822. Mr. ^ Malthus, Essay on Population^ vol. i,, 
 Brougham, ibid, P- 2 1 , 5th edit.
 
 Chap. XVII.] AS POPULATION INCREASES, 313 
 
 clianges in population, from the early ages of tlic 
 world. I have given some references to Herodotus, 
 regarding the scanty population of many of the 
 countries on which he treats, in comparison with that 
 of civilized Europe. Speaking of the duration of one 
 of the dynasties of Lydians, the Heraclidee, he says, 
 they retained their power for a period equal to twenty- 
 two ages of man, being no less than five hundred and 
 five years ^ The French translator, Larcher, reads 
 this fifteen ages ; Beloe, however, says the former 
 reading is in every edition he had the opportunity of 
 consulting. The one makes the age of man about 
 twenty -three years, the other thirty-three, and a little 
 more; whereas, the average age, in every European 
 country, now greatly exceeds that term ; in England 
 it has been supposed, by nearly one-half, indeed up- 
 wards of a half, if we may trust our statistical 
 accounts. But, not to depend upon criticism. The 
 checks, therefore, accordirxg to Mr. Malthus's own final 
 definition, where he explains them to be every thing 
 " that contributes to shorten human life," have kept 
 diminishing ever since our numbers took so decided a 
 start ; the irrefragable proof is in the elongation of 
 human existence, a fact as fatal to his universal theory, 
 as it is consoling to the feelings and conducive to the 
 interests of the human race. 
 
 (32) In conclusion, it is acknowledged, in the 
 very passage quoted, that the mortality from war and 
 the plague, is nothing in comparison with what it 
 was. The small-pox, which, it is supposed, supplied 
 their place, as a pluralist check, is likewise defunct. 
 I think, therefore, the consideration of the positive 
 checks, as they are called, may be fairly dismissed with 
 the observation with which I commenced my exami- 
 
 ' Clio, c. 7.
 
 314 DIMINUTION OF THE CHECKS, [Book I. 
 
 nation of them, namely, that when, according to the 
 very theory rebutted, they were not wanted, they were 
 in full and fatal operation ; now that they ought to be 
 still more active, if an immense population can ren- 
 der them necessary, they have almost entirely ceased, 
 If it be admitted that they have, one and all, a na- 
 tural tendency to diminish as the population enlarges, 
 the argument is surrendered ; if it be denied, the 
 dispute is renewed, but it is with the history and 
 experience of mankind. But, I forget, there is an- 
 other check, which is to supply the place of all these 
 superannuated scourges of mankind, and which re- 
 mains still to be considered, namely, the preventive 
 check, or, as it is sometimes somewhat whimsically 
 termed, Moral Restraint. 
 
 I
 
 315 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 OF THE " PRE\T:NTI\1E CHECK," OR " MORAL RESTRAINT;" ITS 
 IMPOSITION UNNATUR-IL, UNLAWFUL, AND WICKED. 
 
 (1) The last general check to population which re- 
 mains to be considered is the " preventive" one, or, as 
 it is occasionally denominated. Moral Restraint. 
 
 (2) In estimating the importance of this check, we 
 must advert to the effects it has to produce. The im- 
 mense and constantly increasing disparity, said to exist 
 naturally between the increase of human beings and 
 that of their food, has been already stated, amounting, 
 according to the theory which professes to pronounce 
 very precisely upon the subject, in a single century, 
 to four times the number that could be sustained ; 
 in two centuries, exceeding the level of the means 
 of subsistence in the proportion of 256 to 9 ; and in 
 three, in that of 4096 to 13 ; and so on, in a perpe- 
 tually augmenting disproportion \ It is confessed, on 
 all hands, that the other checks have so diminished 
 as to be now almost totally inefficient, many of them 
 indeed having disappeared altogether ; the preventive 
 check has, therefore, to effectuate, almost unaided, 
 what all the others, when in full operation, could barely 
 accomplish. How important then its office! How 
 powerfully must it act in pressing down the mighty 
 spring of human increase to its due level ! How active, 
 how constant, how palpable must be its operation ! 
 And, moreover, as this check has to reconcile, in some 
 measure, the system of population to the laws of Na- 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay ou Population, p. 8.
 
 316 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 ture, to tlie perfections of an all-wise and merciful 
 Creator, and to his providence, (wliich, seen either in 
 the light of nature or of revelation, appears to be a sys- 
 tem of equal and everlasting benevolence,) how clear 
 ought it to be in its principle ; how equal and impar- 
 tial in its impositions ; how fully should it harmonize 
 with the physical laws of our existence, and the best 
 and purest feelings of the human heart ! and, lastly, 
 how certainly ought it to accomplish those results on 
 which the theory wliich invokes its influence re- 
 presents the well being of mankind essentially to 
 depend ! 
 
 (3) As the work under notice has several chapters 
 devoted to the consideration of this check, and as its 
 influence and effect are dwelt upon throughout as the 
 redeeming feature of the system, I may be allowed to 
 speak somewhat at large on a point which is thu3 
 considered, on all sides, as being of the highest im- 
 portance ; and I shall speak plainly. 
 
 (4) The first circumstance which shall be noticed 
 relative to this check (and it is certainly one of a very 
 extraordinary nature) is this : that, all important and 
 redeeming to the theory in question, as it is now held 
 to be, it was nevertheless nothing more than a mere 
 after-thought. The general principle of population 
 was stated with equal confidence, and the checks by 
 which it is declared to be regulated were enumerated 
 as decisively and authoritatively, before this had a 
 place amongst them, as now that it is made a corner 
 stone of the entire theory. A system which is declared 
 to be so " pre-eminently clear," thus to change not 
 merely the form and order, but the very matter of its 
 proofs, and which is made to accommodate itself to 
 every change, with equal ease and certainty, is scarcely 
 reconcileable with our ideas of obvious and simple 
 truth.
 
 Chap.XVIII.l UNNATURAL, UNLAWFUL, AND WICKED. 317 
 
 (5) But it is still more important to remark, that 
 when this check was announced, it was propounded in 
 such terms as to convey the idea that its author him- 
 self doubted its importance, if not its very existence. 
 It is hardly conceivable, therefore, that it could have 
 been contemplated as destined to supplant the " posi- 
 tive checks," as they are termed, in the great work of 
 repressing- population. At least I gather this from 
 the author's own words. When speaking of his second 
 and larger work compared with his first one upon the 
 same subject, he says, " Throughout the whole of the 
 " present work, I have so far differed in principle 
 " from the former, as to suppose another check to po- 
 " pulation possible, which does not strictly come under 
 " the head either of vice or misery ^" This language, 
 in the very exordium of his work, seems, in my appre- 
 hension, to betray considerable doubts as to the very 
 existence of this new recruit to the phalanx of those 
 former checks previously mustered, the vices and the 
 miseries of mankind. And many incidental expressions 
 throughout his enlarged treatise indicate any thing 
 rather than confidence, as it regards the very check 
 which is now ostensibly put forth as the main support 
 and apology of the entire system. 
 
 (6) I shall not attend to the difference which is 
 occasionally made between the preventive check and 
 moral restraint. Theoretically a distinction may be 
 maintained, practically there is none ; they are, and 
 ever will be, as it respects the great mass of mankind, 
 identified. Physically speaking, we may hold that it 
 is possible for mankind to remain chaste, without mar- 
 riage ; morally considered, it is impossible. And it is 
 worse than idle — it is immoral, indecent, and false, to 
 assert otherwise. It contradicts nature, reason, scrip- 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, Pref., p. vii.
 
 318 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 ture, and common sense, in order to build up a theory 
 contrary to tliem all. But it is useless to enforce so 
 obvious a trutli : even Mr. Maltlius himself admits 
 it. He says, of this " virtue, I believe, few of my 
 " readers can be less sanguine in their expectations 
 " of any great change in the general conduct of men, 
 " on this subject, than I am ^ ;" and adds also, in his 
 concluding chapter, that " knowing how incompletely 
 " this duty has hitherto been fulfilled, it would cer- 
 " tainly be visionary to expect any very material 
 " change for the better, in future^." He has, indeed, 
 as we have seen, " allowed himself to suppose ;" yet 
 he intimates, that he has not given an equal latitude 
 to his hope, for on this very head, he assures us, 
 " few can be less sanguine than he." Indeed, he re- 
 presents the passion between the sexes like a fixed 
 algebraic quantity, as having a constant and definite 
 force ^ ; and asserts, that there are few countries where 
 the common people have so much foresight, as even 
 to defer marriage from prudential motives ^ As to 
 our own, the whole of his treatise, practically consi- 
 dered, is founded upon a contrary opinion ; hence, the 
 tremendous expedient he recommends, in order to 
 enforce the preventive check, moral restraint, or what- 
 ever it may be called, namely, the utter abrogation of 
 the natural right of poverty and destitution to sup- 
 port, so long and happily established in this and 
 almost every other Christian country. 
 
 (7) It appears, however, that this latter addition 
 to the theory of population was made as an endea- 
 vour to " remove any imputation on the goodness of 
 the Deity." But how these imputations, which he 
 seems conscious the theory naturally generates, and 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, ^ Ibid., p. 347, 
 r- 504. 4 ibij ,,_ 241. 
 
 "- Ibid., p. 598.
 
 Chap. XVIII.] UNNATURAL, UNLAWFUL, AND WICKED. 319 
 
 which it most certainly does, whether it be acknow- 
 ledged or not, should be removed, by allowing our- 
 selves to hope what we do not believe, appears inex- 
 plicable. Such a method of defending or honouring 
 God requires little comment. 
 
 (8) But whether the author in question admits 
 the necessary consequences of the universal operation 
 of the preventive check, or not, is immaterial ; they 
 are certain. To reconcile it in its effects, with general 
 morality, is impossible. Under certain circumstances, 
 or in exempt cases, its existence, accompanied by 
 purity of conduct, is supposable. To these, a few 
 words may be devoted. 
 
 (9) Concerning instances of natural defect, which 
 are clearly alluded to by the Author of our religion ^, 
 no dispute can arise. And again, the natural propensity 
 is in some others, perhaps, so slight and manageable, 
 as readily to yield in balancing the conveniences and 
 supposed inconveniences of the marriage state. Fur- 
 thermore, I believe purity of conduct may be preserved 
 in celibacy, even when the constitutional propen- 
 sity remains in its ordinary state, when some strong 
 duty or great obstacle interposes, and the conduct is 
 influenced by high moral principle, guarded by the 
 most vigilant circumspection. But I must say, that I 
 fear the chance is slight indeed, when the motive, put 
 forth by Mr. Malthus, alone operates; namely, the 
 fear of an inconvenience, or of a descent in " the 
 ladder" of life. It is rare, indeed, that pride and 
 purity of conduct, in our sex, at least, are convertible 
 terms. This subject, however, will be shortly re- 
 sumed hereafter. 
 
 (10) But a case of continence far commoner 
 (would that it were universal !) is that which it is to 
 
 * St. Matthew six. 12.
 
 320 THE PREVENTIW. CHECK [Book I. 
 
 be hoped generally exists in early life. The most 
 powerful passion of the species, balanced and con- 
 trolled by that modesty, — which, as a French writer 
 observes, is natural to human being's, and which is 
 the strongest when its guards are the most necessary, — ■ 
 soothed by the prospect of its timely gratification, 
 may, and does, in innumerable instances, exist with 
 the utmost correctness of conduct. But fix upon this 
 state the " preventive check :" let this fatal and pesti- 
 ferous restraint interfere with this passion on its de- 
 velopment, rendering it thereby the more seductive, 
 and the more ungovernable, requiring and dictating 
 a long and indefinite abstinence of the kind proposed, 
 comprising the whole term of youth, properly so 
 called, and then see what would be the consequence ! 
 Your stronQ;est moral manacles would be like the 
 bands on the hands of Samson, it would burst them 
 as tow, and rise in tenfold strength, and become 
 irresistible. The very attempt to interfere with the 
 right of marriage, in any way, would either, on the 
 one hand, precipitate that union, or, on the other, 
 spread the demoralizing consequences of " moral re- 
 straint " to an extent hitherto unknown. 
 
 (11) Lastly, I will not deny, but that celibacy, 
 when voluntarily embraced, from an enthusiastic, 
 though, as I conceive, mistaken view of its religious 
 merit; when its votaries are secluded from every 
 object of temptation, surrounded by the symbols of 
 religion, and incessantly occupied in the solemnities 
 of sacred worship ; when the awful vow, publicly 
 taken, has been strengthened by a thorough persua- 
 sion of its eflScacy, as it regards the rewards of another 
 -world ; and when the principles and pursuits with 
 which it is connected take entire possession of the 
 mind ; I say, I will not deny, that a life of celibacy
 
 Chap. XVIII.] UNNATURAL, UNLAWFUL, AND WICKED. 321 
 
 may, in many such cases, be one of continued conti- 
 nence. But even then it has been often found, that 
 the feelings of nature have been so far from extin- 
 guished by the hopelessness of these lawful gratifi- 
 cations, that they have led to results to which it is 
 painful to allude. Several of the Saints, (and many 
 so denominated, I believe, were worthy of the name,) 
 who placed themselves under ihe operation of this 
 unnatural restraint, have recorded means to which 
 they severally resorted, some of them of the most 
 ludicrous, and some of the most painful nature ; which, 
 together with occasional miracles performed on their 
 behalf, had, as they conceived, the efiect of preserving 
 the purity of their conduct ; though it may be doubted, 
 whether it would not have been better for the interests 
 of decency and morality, to have left unrecorded their 
 several victories, and the means by which they were 
 achieved. But, by characters less determined and 
 exalted ; less saintly and mortified, than these, we 
 cannot suppose that equal efforts were made, nor yet 
 believe that the conquest could be achieved with less. 
 If, then, the sanctions and asistances of religion have 
 been found scarcely suflicient to preserve the purity of 
 its votaries under the baneful influence of " moral 
 restraint," what hope can we entertain of a principle 
 founded upon mere personal expediency, or dictated 
 by a regard for the general state of the population at 
 some future period ; in a word, when prescribed by 
 political economy ? Can we flatter ourselves, that 
 it would not produce an universal profligacy and 
 corruption of manners, destructive, ultimately, of all 
 the elements of the social system ? 
 
 (12) To say that by the preventive check, or moral 
 restraint, is only meant the postponement of mar- 
 
 VoL. I. Y
 
 322 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 riage, (of the females to twenty-eiglit or tliirty^ 
 that of the males is not, I believe, yet specified,) is 
 only to present the subject in a still more formidable 
 point of view. If the youthful period of life can be 
 passed under the dominion of the preventive check 
 consistently with morality of conduct, no apprehen- 
 sions, generally speaking, need be entertained con- 
 cei'ning the remainder. A great master of human 
 nature tells us, in the person of one of his characters, 
 the consequence of this version of the preventive 
 check, and, singularly enough, avails himself of an 
 illustration which Mr. Malthus has also used, — " They 
 " will climb the ladder of matrimony incontinent," 
 says Shakspeare, " or be incontinent before marriage. 
 " Clubs cannot part them." 
 
 (13) Respecting this check to population, there- 
 fore, now put forth with such emphasis, and which is 
 represented of such importance in regulating the 
 number and increase of the species, thus much may be 
 said ; that, whether it is called the prudential, or pre- 
 ventive check, or moral restraint, or under what spe- 
 cious name soever its native deformity may be con- 
 cealed, it is necessarily connected with vice, and its 
 consequence is infamy and suffering : I say neces- 
 sarily, constituted as human beings are, " not by 
 " means of a geometrical necessity, but from an ama- 
 " tory one, which is much more efficacious to influ- 
 " encethe multitude^." In speaking of this "innate 
 necessity" thus, I am quoting one whom Mr. Malthus 
 conceives to have comprehended the principle of popu- 
 lation most clearly — I mean Plato. 
 
 (14) If, therefore, we consider this main check 
 of the system of population under examination, it will 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 4 98. l^i/iin^ai uvai v^os to viihiv rt xai 'iXxeiv 
 
 ^ Ov yiai^iT^iKcds yt, 55 V o's, aXX' rh -^oXut As«i>.— Plat., Dc Repub., 1. V., 
 l^uTixcii; KvayxKis' «'/ xiy^vviiovffiv Ixuvm p. 22.
 
 Chap. XVIII.] UNXATURAL, UNLAWFUL, AND WICKED. 323 
 
 appear, in its princi})le and effects, unnatural, wicked, 
 partial, cruel, impolitic, and, after all, wholly inef- 
 ficient. To each of these points a few words will be 
 devoted. 
 
 (15) In the first place, the preventive check is un- 
 natural; it is irreconcileable with the organization, 
 the feelings, the duties, and the happiness of mankind; 
 not meaning- to confine the observation to the species 
 in a depraved, but in their most perfect state, as pro- 
 ceeding from the hand of their Creator. But this 
 part of the subject is too plain to need much proof; I 
 will therefore dismiss it with a few quotations ; the 
 first of which shall be from one who, being neither 
 a professed moralist, nor a divine, may, perhaps, 
 have more weight with some advocates of the mo- 
 dern theory. Buffon says on this subject, " L'etat 
 " naturel des hommes apres la puberte est celui du 
 " mariage. — Le mariage, tel qu'il est etabli chez nous 
 " et chez les autres peuples raisonnables et religieux, 
 " est done l'etat qui convient a I'homme, et dans lequel 
 " il doit faire usage des nouvelles facultes qu'il a 
 " acquises par la puberte, qui lui deviendroient a 
 " charge, et meme quelquefois funestes, s'il s'obstinoit 
 " a garder le celibat. Le trop long sejour de la liqueur 
 " seminale dans ses reservoirs pent causer des maladies 
 " dans Tun et dans I'autre sexe, ou du moins des irri- 
 " tations si violentes que la raison et la religion se- 
 " roient a peine suffisantes pour resister a ces passions 
 " impetueuses ; elles rendroient I'homme semblable aux 
 " animaux, qui sent furieux et indomptables lorsqu'ils 
 " ressentent ces impressions \" Montesquieu coin- 
 cides with these views ; but I shall prefer presenting 
 this branch of the argument, which is, in fact, deci- 
 sive of the whole question, in the language of the 
 
 * Buffbn, (Euvres, t.iv., p. 257, 258. 
 
 Y2
 
 324 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 highest physiological and medical authorities, (restrict- 
 ing myself, however, to two or three of these,) and I 
 shall, for obvious reasons, present their doctrine with- 
 out translation. 
 
 (16) Haller says : " Natura ergo ipsa, et ad spe- 
 " ciem humanam conservandam, venerem imperat, 
 " et ad propriam sani viri valetudinem^" Hufeland 
 thus expresses himself: " Le mariage est le seul 
 " moyen que nous ayons a notre disposition pour 
 " regulariser Tinstinct qui attire les sexes I'un vers 
 " Tautre, et pour lui donner un but. II garantit de 
 " deux extremes egalement nuisibles, Tabus et I'absti- 
 " nence des plaisirs. Autant je suis persuade que la 
 " continence est necessaire dans la jeunesse, pour 
 " assurer une vie longue et heureuse, autant je le 
 " suis qu'un age arrive ou il serait aussi dangereux 
 " d'etouffer Tinstinct, qu'il Test de le satisfaire trop 
 *' tot^." His pathological remarks I need not quote, 
 but his conclusion is too important to be omitted. 
 " Tons ceux qui ont atteint un age tres-avance avoient 
 " ete maries^." Well, therefore, may the "preventive 
 check," or " moral restraint," have so important a 
 part assigned to it in the geometric theory ; it not only 
 prevents life, but it shortens and destroys it. A few 
 words from Gregory shall close these references, and 
 they relate to the other sex : — " Justus scilicet veneris 
 " cultus. Quantum hoc in mensibus evocandis valeat 
 " remedium, plurimee puellge, donee virgines erant, 
 " pallidge, macrae, male sanoe, felice conjugio, nitidae, 
 " vegetse, roseae brevifactce, non ambigue testantur*." 
 
 (17) If, then, this restraint is unnatural and inju- 
 rious, it needs no further argument to authorise us to 
 
 ' Haller, Primse Linesp Physiologiae, 8vo., Paris, 1824. 
 § 828, p. 439, 8vo., Edinb. 1767, ^ ije,„^ ge^t. ii. ch. 5., ^ 3. p. 332, 
 
 ^ Hufeland, r Art de prolonger la Vie * Gregory, Conspect. Med. Thcoret., 
 
 de I'Homme, Sec § ii., ch. 5, p.331, c. xxxix-. § 1556.
 
 Chap. XVIII.] UNNATURAL, UNLAWFUL, AND WICKED. 325 
 
 pronounce its imposition unlawful ; unless its ad- 
 vocates still further throw off the mask, and propose 
 that one class of society shall often sacrifice life itself, 
 and constantly all that renders life happy and desir- 
 able, that others may enjoy greater affluence and abund- 
 ance, "undisturbed." But this, thank God, is not 
 yet either the law of Nature or of nations. One 
 of our first profane authorities, therefore, addressing 
 himself to this subject, asserts, that the observance of 
 what is now called moral restraint, is, as it respects 
 the mass of mankind, all but an impossibility ; and 
 hence he declares that such an imposition is unlawful. 
 " Quare facultas comparandi uxores adimi viris non 
 debet ^" Such are the words of Grotius. Hence, 
 also, is it, that Buffon has denominated marriage 
 " un droit naturel "." 
 
 (18) But the preventive check is not only unnatu- 
 ral and unlawful, it is wicked, inexpressibly wicked, 
 not only in its consequences, but more especially in 
 its nature and design. Its avowed object is to check 
 the increase of mankind ; and this constitutes, accord- 
 ing to the reasoning of Locke, the real offence of the 
 whole class of unnatural crimes. "• They have," as 
 that great reasoner observes, " their principal aggra- 
 " vation from this, that they cross the main intention 
 " of Nature, which willeth the increase of mankind^." 
 Others, as little liable to be branded with the character 
 of enthusiasm or folly as Locke, have taken precisely 
 similar views on this subject. The very intent appears 
 heinously wicked. 
 
 (19) That the prevalence of the check in cpiestion 
 will lead to vice and immorality, is not denied by its 
 most strenuous advocates ; on the contrary, the conse- 
 
 ^ Grotius, De BeL Jure, ac Pac, 1. ii., ^ Locke, Two Treatises of Govgrn- 
 c. ii., § 21. meiit, parti., c. C, 6 59. 
 
 2 Buffon, CEuvres, torn, iv., p. 278.
 
 32G THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 quences are at once acknowledged and palliated. " I 
 " should be extremely sorry," says one of these, " to 
 " say any thing that would either directly or remotely 
 " be construed unfavourably to the cause of virtue; 
 " but " — (we always know the meaning of these nega- 
 tive exordia) — "but I cannot think that the vices 
 " which relate to the sex are the only vices which are 
 "to be considered in a moral question," (who ever 
 thought they were ?) "or that they are even the 
 " greatest or most degrading to the human character ^" 
 It may be here observed, that true morality, any more 
 than divinity, knows nothing of this balancing of 
 vices, so as to present them as the alternatives of each 
 other; contrariwise, they are generally found the 
 strongest and the most irresistible when they are the 
 most numerous and in the closest confederation. But, 
 not to dwell upon this fact, I shall proceed to shew 
 in how slight a manner the degrading and injurious 
 vice to which the preventive check leads, and which, 
 as much as possibly it palliates, is regarded ; and, on 
 the contrary, how forcibly the supposed consequences 
 of disobeying it, both as it regards the character and 
 condition of the parties who marry, are depicted. " In 
 " the higher and middle classes of society," we are 
 told, " it is a melancholy and distressing sight to 
 " observe, not unfrequently, a man of a noble and 
 " ingenuous disposition, once feelingly alive to a sense 
 " of honour and integrity, gradually sinking under the 
 " pressure of circumstances, making his excuses at 
 " first with a blush of conscious shame, afraid of seeing 
 " the faces of his friends, from whom he may havebor- 
 " rowed money, reduced to the meanest tricks and 
 " subterfuges to delay or avoid the payment of his 
 "just debts; till, ultimately grown familiar with false- 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 512.
 
 Chap. XVIII.] UNNATURAL, UNLAWFUL, AND WICKED. 327 
 
 " hood, and at enmity with the world, he loses all the 
 " grace and dignity of man ^" Such, it seems, is often 
 the effect of not obeying the preventive check; in other 
 instances, it is " a descent in society, particularly 
 " in that round of the ladder where education ends 
 " and ignorance begins" ; — to the level, in short, of 
 " farmers and tradesmen ^." 
 
 (20) Now, as to the effect of marriages in the rank 
 described, it may be confidently asked, whether these 
 tricks and subterfuges may be the most justly attri- 
 buted to the husbands and fathers of families, who 
 have so many inducements to honourable exertion, 
 whatever be their pursuit, and to correct conduct 
 under whatever temptation, or to those who accom- 
 modate their habits to the dictates of the preventive 
 check? In which state is that economy most likely 
 to be observed, without which no resources, however 
 ample, can preserve a man from degradation ? Which 
 situation, generally speaking, is freest from that vice 
 and profligacy, those fickle and ostentatious habits, 
 that gambling and debauchery, which cost far more 
 to those unhappily their slaves, than all the necessary 
 expenses incident to their station in society ? Who are 
 the likeliest to fulfil best all those duties of life which 
 are due to those around or beneath them, in the re- 
 gular performance of which the true " grace and dig- 
 nity of man" consist — those whose feelings emanate 
 from the domestic circle, or those who take their 
 lessons from the brothel ? Is the married man of rank 
 less estimable, less trustworthy, less punctual than 
 the unmarried one of that station ? Let those answer 
 this that are below " that round of the ladder where 
 education ends, and ignorance begins" — their " farmers 
 and tradesmen." Is there no truth in the old English 
 
 'Malthus, Essay on Population, pp. 513. ^ Ibid., p. 300,
 
 328 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 proverb, that " a is more expensive tlian a 
 
 wife?" In a word, where may we most confidently 
 look for the best and most numerous examples " of the 
 grace and dignity of man" — in the subjects of Hymen, 
 or the slaves of Venus? Common sense, decency, 
 and experience, instantly decide this question ; while, 
 whether by the watchful guardianship of a kind and 
 superintending Providence, or, rather, by the opera- 
 tion of those causes which natvn-ally produce these 
 happy effects, the virtuous father of a numerous 
 family is seldom observed to be the poorer, or his 
 offspring the less prosperous, because of their number ; 
 but, as has long been remarked, directly the reverse. 
 Thus is it " that marriage is honourable in all ;" that 
 it neither interferes with " the grace and dignity of 
 man," nor betrays its votaries into that bankruptcy of 
 circumstances, as well as of character, which is often 
 the acknowledged consequence of submission to the 
 preventive check. In a word, it is not by means of a 
 wife, but of " a whorish woman, that a man is brought 
 " to a morsel of bread ! " 
 
 (21) In proceeding to take a view of this offence, 
 and the effects which its general spread would have 
 upon society, very different to that usually presented 
 by the advocates of the preventive check, I would not 
 take merit for any strong and extravagant expressions, 
 either regarding this, or any other vice ; I leave that 
 duty to the divines and moralists ; and, further, I 
 wish to make a distinction between a charitable con- 
 sideration of sin already committed, and presenting 
 extenuations and apologies for its future commission, 
 because I feel confident that the difference in thus 
 viewing and treating the subject, is, in its effects on 
 individuals and on society at large, immeasurably 
 wide. Which course it is the duty of those to take
 
 Chap. XVIII.] UNNATURAL, UNLAWFUL, AND WICKED. 329 
 
 who address the public on the general question, is 
 very obvious ; I shall, therefore, describe the vices 
 which the preventive check necessarily engenders, and 
 their consequences, and, to avoid all objections, in the 
 language of those who are well entitled to be considered 
 as authorities on the subject of moral pllilosoph3^ 
 
 (22) ^ Paley, after having dwelt upon the public 
 uses and advantages of the marriage institution, 
 among which he has not forgotten to include " the 
 encouragement of industry," which is but another term 
 for the promotion of general prosperity, proceeds to 
 describe the mischiefs resulting from the vicious inter- 
 course with the sex, which he regards as its alterna- 
 tive, even in the least guilty form, — fornication. He 
 expresses himself thus: " The first and great mis- 
 " chief, and, by consequence, the guilt, of promis- 
 " cuous concubinage, consists in its tendency to 
 " diminish marriages, and thereby defeat the several 
 " public and beneficial purposes before enumerated. 
 " Promiscuous concubinage discourages marriage, by 
 " abating the chief temptation to it. The male part 
 " of the species will not undertake the incumbrance, 
 " expense, and restraint of married life, if they can 
 " gratify their passions at a cheaper price ; and they 
 
 " WILL UNDERTAKE ANY THING RATHER THAN NOT 
 
 " GRATIFY THEM. The reader will learn to compre- 
 " hend the magnitude of this mischief, by attending 
 " to the importance and variety of uses to which mar- 
 " riage is subservient ; and by recollecting, withal, 
 " that the malignity and moral quality of each crime 
 " is not to be estimated by the particular effect of one 
 " offence, or of one person offending, but by the ge- 
 " neral tendency and consequence of crimes of the 
 " same nature. The libertine may not be conscious 
 
 ' Paley, Moral Pliilosophy, Book 3.
 
 330 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I, 
 
 " that this irregularity hinders his own marriage, from 
 " which he is deterred, he may allege, by different 
 '' considerations ; much less does he perceive how his 
 " indulgences can hinder other men from marrying ; 
 '' but what, will he say, would be the consequence 
 " if the same licentiousness were universal? or what 
 '' should hinder its becoming universal, if it be inno- 
 " cent or allowable in him ? 
 
 " ii. Fornication supposes prostitution, and prosti- 
 '' tution brings and leaves the victim of it to almost 
 " certain misery. It is no small quantity of misery, in 
 " the aggregate, which, between want, disease, and 
 " insult, is suffered by these outcasts of human society, 
 " who infest populous cities ; the whole of which is 
 " a general consequence of fornication, and to the 
 '' increase and continuance of which every act and 
 " instance of fornication contributes. 
 
 " iii. Fornication produces habits of ungovernable 
 " lewdness, which introduce the most aggravated 
 " crimes of seduction, adultery, and violation. Like- 
 " wise, however it be accounted for, ' the criminal 
 " intercourse of the sexes corrupts and depraves the 
 " mind and moral character more than any single 
 " species of vice whatsoever ^ That ready perception 
 " of guilt, that prompt and decisive resolution against 
 '' it, which constitutes a virtuous character, is seldom 
 " found in persons addicted to these indulgences. 
 " They prepare an easy admission for any sin that 
 " seeks it; are in low life, usually, the first stage in 
 *' men's progress to the most desperate villanies ; and 
 " in high life, to that lamented dissoluteness of prin- 
 " ciple which manifests itself in a profligacy of public 
 
 ' Contrast this with Mr. Malthus's " greatest and most degrading to the 
 
 declaration: — "I cannot think that the '•human cliaractcr." — Essay on Popu- 
 
 " vices which relate to the sex are the lation, p. 512. 
 «' only ones, or that they are evea the
 
 Chap.XVIII.] UXNATURAL, UNLA'^^TUL, AND WICKED. 331 
 
 " conduct, and a contempt of the obligations of re- 
 " ligion and moral probity ^' Add to this, that habits 
 " of libertinism incapacitate and indispose the mind 
 " for all intellectual, moral, or religious pleasures, 
 " which is a great loss to any man's happiness. 
 
 " iv. Fornication perpetuates a disease which may 
 " be accounted one of the sorest maladies of human 
 " nature, and the effects of which are said to visit the 
 " constitution of even distant generations. 
 
 " The passion being natural, proves that it was 
 " intended to be gratified ; but under what restriction, 
 " or what law, or whether without any, must be col- 
 " lected from different considerations." 
 
 He proceeds to shew these regulations from the 
 Scripture and " Christ's Religion, which," says he, 
 " with a just knowledge of, and regard to, the con- 
 " dition and interest of the human species, have 
 " provided, in the marriage of one man with one 
 " woman, an adequate gratification for the propensi- 
 " ties of their nature, and have restricted them to that 
 " gratification." Such are the opinions of this great 
 moral philosopher on the subject, which might be 
 quoted at much greater length, were it necessary. 
 
 (23) One consequence, exceedingly prejudicial to 
 morality and public decency, resulting from the "pre- 
 ventive check," does not seem to have been dwelt 
 upon by Dr. Paley, important and inevitable as it 
 nevertheless is — it is, that the contamination which 
 it would produce, were it general, would pollute even 
 married life. But this shall be expressed in the lan- 
 guage of Montesquieu, who discusses the question 
 with no reference whatever to religious feelings or 
 principles, and may, therefore, be held by some a less 
 
 ' Contrast this with Mr. Malthus's as being often lost by marriage. Essay 
 
 reasoning about " the grace and dignity on Population, p. 5 13. 
 of man," in a certain station of society,
 
 332 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 objectionable authority. After having alluded to this 
 preventive check, as it is now called, he exclaims, — 
 " Who can be silent, when the sexes, corrupting each 
 " other, even by the natural sensations themselves, 
 " fly from a union which ought to make them better, 
 " to live in that which always renders them worse ? " 
 and he goes on to remark, — " It is a rule drawn from 
 " Nature, that the more the number of marriages is 
 " diminished, the more corrupt are those who have 
 " entered into that state : the fewer married men, the 
 " less fidelity is there in marriage." 
 
 (24) It must be further remarked, that precisely 
 the same results must as inevitably follow the imdue 
 postponement of marriage, as a perpetual abstinence 
 from it ; nay, sometimes worse, as the afflicting conse- 
 quences in this case are then often visited upon guilt- 
 less sufferers. It has been already observed, that the 
 passion to be regulated is the strongest in youth ; and 
 if it meet with its irregular gratification previously to 
 marriage, mischief will have been, in many instances, 
 inflicted, which that state can no longer remedy. 
 Notwithstanding the common proverb respecting the 
 exemplary conduct, as husbands, of reformed libertines, 
 the contrary is the lamentable fact ; such are much 
 more likely to pollute and degrade that state than 
 to be reformed by it. Again, however, I prefer to 
 deliver these impressive truths in better language 
 than my own. I shall select that of Bacon, who, as 
 having been himself unfortunate in the marriage state, 
 cannot be suspected of being its partial eulogist. His 
 words are tliese^ : " Marriage is ordained a remedy for 
 " inilawful concupiscence, and natural concupiscence 
 " seemeth as a spur to marriage. But when men have 
 " at hand a remedy more agreeable to their corrupt 
 
 ^ Bacon, Works, vol. vi., p. 418.
 
 Chap. XVIII.] UNNATURAL, UNLAWFUL, AND WICKED. 333 
 
 " will, marriage is almost expiilsed. And, therefore, 
 " there are seen infinite men that marry not, bnt 
 " choose rather a libertine and impure single life, 
 " than to be yoked in marriage : and many that do 
 " marry, marry late, when the prime of their years is 
 " past ; and then what is marriage to them but a very 
 " bargain, wherein is sought alliance, or portion, or 
 " reputation ; with some desire, almost indifferent, of 
 " issue ; and not the faithful nuptial union of man and 
 " wife, that was first instituted? Neither is it possible 
 " that those who have cast away so basely so much of 
 " their strength, should greatly esteem children, as 
 " chaste men do. So likewise, during marriage, is the 
 " case mended ? No ! the depraved custom of change, 
 " and the delight in meretricious embracements, (where 
 " sin is turned into act,) maketh marriage a dull thing, 
 " and a kind of imposition or tax." 
 
 (25) Nor from the catalogue of crimes and vices 
 which the preventive check engenders, must those un- 
 nameable offences to which Paley alludes, as some of 
 its consequences, be excluded ; and which, however 
 uncommon, are less so than is the loss of the " grace 
 and dignity of man," through marriage. These shall 
 again be described by other authorities. The intrepid 
 Luther thus expresses himself: " All that contemn 
 " matrimony must needs foil into filthy and abomi- 
 " nable letchery ; yea, also, in such sort that they 
 " change the natural into unnatural uses, as St. Paul 
 " says, seeing that they contemned God's ordinances 
 " and creatures." I shall not prolong this paragraph; 
 the lane-uao'e of the law of Eno-land on this head is 
 that of Nature and of Truth : " great inconveniences 
 " ?iot to b& rehearsed, have followed of compelled 
 '' chastity."
 
 334 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 (26) The reducing of the theory of population to a 
 practical system, would have the effect of producing" 
 these unnameable offences. Nay, some of the con- 
 verts and advocates of that theory have already 
 begun to act upon it, by explaining and recommend- 
 ing, in a scientific form, and in plain and unequivocal 
 language, the means by which the passions may be in 
 some sort gratified, and the consequences (human in- 
 crease) prevented or evaded. Some of these passages 
 I had selected, and had meant to give them in 
 another language, — but I forbear ; in the words of the 
 act of Parliament just quoted, they " are not to be 
 rehearsed." Such are the auxiliaries, " most foul, 
 strange, and unnatural," of the . modern theory of 
 population ; such are the assistants of the " preven- 
 tive check," 
 
 (27) Look at the countries where polygamy is per- 
 mitted, and indeed encouraged ; a practice which, 
 just as it prevails, necessarily consigns a proportionate 
 number of men to celibacy. The consequences are 
 well known, nor do they rest with those whom it more 
 directly injures ; as Montesquieu reasons concerning 
 libertinism, its contaminating influence extends uni- 
 versally. " The vice du pays " of Switzerland ^, that 
 land of chastity and contentment, is, we are told, 
 early marriage : contrast it with the vice du pays of 
 Turkey, and mark the consequences ; this has doomed 
 some of the finest regions of the world to desolation 
 and decay ; and the country itself waits " to vomit out 
 the inhabitants thereof." 
 
 (28) It is superfluous to mention that child-murder 
 is among the number of the secret crimes with which the 
 preventive check is chargeable in a state of civilization, 
 
 ^ Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 282.
 
 Gimp. XVIII.] UNNATURAL, UNLAWFUL, AND WICKED. 335 
 
 where the very institution of marriage, with all the 
 feelings and forms of life with which it is necessarily 
 connected, becomes a positive curse, the moment that 
 connexion is discouraged, upon whatever grounds. 
 
 (29) But I recur, in conclusion, to the idea with 
 which I commenced in treating this revolting subject: 
 I shall again express it in the words of Locke ; the 
 great wickedness of this check consists in this, that it 
 purposely "crosses the main intention of Nature, which 
 willeth the increase of mankind ;" and which increase 
 is equally commanded by the Deity, prompted by Na- 
 ture, and required for the promotion of the happiness 
 and prosperity of the species. Inexpressibly sinful, 
 as well as presumptuous, is, therefore, any systematic 
 and premeditated attempt to repress the natural num- 
 bers of mankind ! Something is there inconceivably 
 cold and dark in the endeavour to desert, upon prin- 
 ciple, destitute poverty; to abandon innocent and help- 
 less infancy, as utterly valueless ; but, beyond all, 
 the proposal to counteract, as far as in us lies, the 
 prolific power of Nature; to lock up the springs of 
 existence, except to the privileged few, — to " cut off 
 the sequence of posterity !" To every passing gene- 
 ration, the Eternal successively commits the issues of 
 life ; such are, if I may so speak, the trustees of Divine 
 Providence, and are answerable for the destiny of 
 future ages. But if, then, our perverseness or corrup- 
 tion, or the puny efforts of presumptuous men, were 
 availing, they might become the last surviving heirs, 
 instead of successively the progenitors of their race. 
 They might prodigally and selfishly expend the heri- 
 tage of existence, instead of transmitting it down, 
 according to its original entail ; and bar posterity of 
 the right of succession. Yes ! in every interference 
 of the nature proposed, existence is at stake ! Exist-
 
 33G THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 ence ! tliat best, and, as we believe of man, that irre- 
 vocable gift of tlie Eternal ; that gift, of which the 
 worm that creeps beneath our foot, as well as the first 
 of created beings which bows before the Creator, is so 
 tenacious : that mysterious principle, which images 
 the Almighty's own being : — his highest work, which 
 his power last called forth, and which he surrounds 
 and sustains by his mercies ; without which the 
 Temple of Nature would be silent of his eternal wor- 
 ship, and Creation itself a boundless and solitary 
 desert, in which the Maker's wisdom would be un- 
 known, his goodness incommunicable, and that vital 
 happiness annihilated with which he has deluged the 
 universe. Let, then, the great, and the powerful 
 appropriate, if they please, the surface of the world ; 
 let them take its wealth, its distinctions, and its gran- 
 deur ; but, in the name of the Eternal God, let them 
 not attempt to monopolize existence ; let them not 
 monopolize immortality ! In the final home of human 
 beings, the principle of population can be no evil ; 
 there, " are there many mansions," too many to fear 
 that crowding which is here deprecated so deeply; 
 let those, therefore, who, in their lifetime, have their 
 good things, grudge not that happiness and repose 
 which await the humble and the virtuous in another 
 and a better world ! But I forbear to pursue the sub- 
 ject, as prompted by my awakened feelings ! 
 
 (30) There is a broad distinction made, it is true, 
 between preventing beings from living which would 
 otherwise emerge into existence, and depriving them 
 of life when they have obtained it ; and I well know, 
 that those who regard the last as a crime, pronounce 
 the former, under certain circumstances, which they 
 declare always exist, a " virtue." But believing in 
 the immortality of the soul, and the perpetual happi-
 
 Chap. XVIII.] UNNATURAL, UNLAWFUL, AND WICKED. 337 
 
 ness of the innocent after deatli — doctrines wliich 
 natural theology itself inculcates ; but much more 
 viewing- it through the medium of that religion which 
 has " brought life and immortality to light," I confess 
 I cannot fully comprehend the distinction. Nay, 
 were I placed in a position to determine, could I 
 unravel the mazes of future contingencies, so as to 
 bring before me, by the aid of an unerring prescience, 
 those who, in the natural course of things, would 
 become heirs of immortality, and if I had the choice 
 of shutting the door of existence against them, thereby 
 depriving them of everlasting happiness, or of letting 
 them emerge into life, and, after they had tasted of 
 mortality, sending them to a state of perpetual bless- 
 edness, could I hesitate ? Would I choose the former 
 alternative ? 
 
 " No ! Heaven forefend, I would not kill their soul !" 
 
 (31) The last argument will have little weight 
 with the mere political economists, who, as it regards 
 this question, reject all consideration of a future state, 
 as analytical writers do their vanishing quantities. 
 The heathens of antiquity judged differently. But to 
 shew that such a view of the subject is no extrava- 
 gant effusion, even were futurity left out of the ques- 
 tion, I will quote the opinion of a writer who has 
 never been charged with taking too superstitious 
 a view of any subject, much less one of a religious 
 nature. In speaking of the means which have been 
 taken by some parents in order to limit the number 
 and charge of their progeny, by preventing the mar- 
 riages of their children, (and surely, if the imposi- 
 tion of the preventive check is justifiable in any case, 
 it must be when under such authority,) Hume thus 
 expresses himself : " The ancients had a method almost 
 
 Vol. I. Z
 
 338 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK. [Book I. 
 
 " as innocent, and more effectual to that purpose, to 
 " wit, exposing tlieir children in early infancy." 
 
 (32) In reviewing- these various expedients of the 
 preventive check, I speak seriously in asserting, that 
 a far better than any of them, both as it respects hu- 
 manity, decency, and efficiency, would be an early and 
 somewhat gentler application of a remedy described 
 by Homer, which I shall not venture to translate \ 
 
 (33) I shall not allude to the guilt of patricide with 
 which the preventive check, if generally introduced in 
 the country, would stand charged ; the pollution would 
 spread till general depravity would contaminate the 
 whole community, with those consequences in its 
 train which are sufficiently adverted to in other parts 
 of the present work, and of which the history of the 
 world furnishes too many melancholy examples. 
 
 (34) Reviewing, then, the wicked and disgusting 
 effects which have been enumerated, we may con- 
 fidently exclaim, in the language of Burke, " Such 
 " would, and in no long time, be the effect of attempt- 
 " ing to forbid, as a crime, and to suppress, as an 
 " evil, the command and blessing of Providence, — 
 " increase and multiply ! " In the meantime, how- 
 ever, hoping better things of this country than that 
 its moral and intelligent people will believe such 
 means necessary to regulate and repress their numbers, 
 I confidently leave the subject to their determination. 
 They will, doubtless, see and feel that, however it is 
 palliated, and by whomsoever recommended, the pre- 
 ventive check is utterly incompatible with the morals, 
 happiness, or well-being of the community; that, whe- 
 ther in its individual or general application, — "The 
 
 FORBIDDING TO MARRY IS THE DOCTRINE OF DeVILS." 
 
 ^ — — (M>iS£« r i^i^uffciv, xvfiv eufiii lifKirioii, Homer, Odys, xxii.^ v. 476.
 
 339 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 OF THE PREVENTIVE CHECK: ITS PARTIALITY AND 
 
 INJUSTICE. 
 
 (1) But the partiality and injustice which the pre- 
 ventive check involves, as well as its innate wicked- 
 ness, fully disprove the notion, that any such means 
 can be in the contemplation of Nature for the regula- 
 tion of the numbers of the species. It has been the 
 triumph of moral philosophy to shew that the Governor 
 of the universe has equally distributed happiness 
 throughout all those different ranks and degrees of 
 human existence of which society ever has been, and 
 probably ever will be, composed. Nay, it has been 
 asserted, that, as it regards the main ingredients of 
 human enjoyment, health, peace, and contentment, 
 the balance has ever been in favour of the lower, rather 
 than the higher, ranks of life. The great moralist, 
 Paley, has presented us with a pleasing illustration of 
 this important and consoling fact. But, allowing this 
 to be true, this happiness of poverty is founded upon 
 the few simple enjoyments which Nature dictates and 
 demands. It is not a state which presents a choice of, 
 or a change in, the nature of its modest gratifications. 
 They are found exclusively in the domestic scene. 
 Rob it of the pleasures that are centered there, and it 
 becomes a condition forlorn and wretched in the ex- 
 treme ; you " leave it poor indeed." 
 
 (2) But the proposition is, that this check shall 
 operate upon this class of society exclusively; the 
 
 Z 2
 
 340 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Bool< I. 
 
 observations regarding- the higher ranks are trifling 
 and idle to the last degree ; while, as it regards the 
 lower ones, it is to be imposed under penalties of the 
 most cruel, unjust, and impolitic nature ; the conse- 
 quence of exacting which wovild shake the whole 
 social system from its foundation to its pinnacle, and 
 involve the nation in present confusion and final ruin. 
 But more of this subject hereafter. 
 
 (3) Now, it must strike any one, that the least 
 attention to justice or humanity would have suggested 
 conclusions of a directly contrary nature. The pre- 
 ventive check, if necessary at all, ought to be imposed 
 upon those classes of society whose resources would, 
 in some measure, make up for the deprivations it de- 
 mands. But no! its victims must be sought for in the 
 cottage ; it is there that it meditates that desolating 
 attack which would destroy all the supports and the 
 solaces of existence, " at one fell swoop." The rich 
 have ten thousand sources of pleasure, an infinite 
 variety of ways, in which to pursue their several grati- 
 fications ; the humble but one, that of domestic affec- 
 tion. The poor man has nothing, " save one little 
 ewe-lamb," of which the cruel system I am discussing 
 coollj^ recommends he should be deprived, while the 
 flocks and herds of the privileged orders of the com- 
 munity are left untouched. 
 
 (4) It is true, that all those who have imbibed the 
 notion of the superfecundity of the human race have 
 not thus reasoned. A work which, like every thing 
 else which has proceeded from the same quarter, dis- 
 plays great scientific attainments on almost all subjects, 
 but which, on that of population, is not equally satis- 
 factory, I mean Dr. Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclo- 
 pedia, seems to favour the modern theory, but to a
 
 Chap. XIX.] PARTIAL AND UNJUST. 311 
 
 far less extent than many cotemporaiy works of a 
 similar nature. But the remedy proposed is a sort of 
 Houyhnhnm regulation of propagation \ namely, that 
 the married couples should be limited to the number 
 of children which they should severally produce. This 
 may sound whimsical, and not appear a very equal 
 mode of distributing the privileges of the marriage 
 state; yet it is what no man with a remaining spark 
 of justice or feeling will deny to be infinitely fairer 
 than the imposition of moral restraint as now proposed. 
 Nothing can exceed the injustice, except the effron- 
 tery of those who lay no restraints upon themselves, 
 and who are arrived, in many cases, at that period of 
 existence when 
 
 " The hey day of the blood is tame and humble, 
 And waits upon the judgment ; " 
 
 continuing to propose, that their preventive check 
 should be imposed upon the youthful classes of the 
 community, with whom its very existence is irrecon- 
 cileable with either morality or happiness. If the pre- 
 ventive check be a duty, and constituted by the 
 necessity which calls it into existence " a virtue," as it 
 is pronounced to be, can it be imagined that it ought 
 to cease even in the marriage state ? It is said, by its 
 main advocate, that Plato was one of those thinking- 
 persons who clearly saw the main principle of popula- 
 tion ; and the remedies it is supposed that he pro- 
 pounded, in consequence, are appealed to, in proof 
 of it. It is to be regretted, that the fairness and 
 impartiality with which, at all events, he treats the 
 subject has met with no counterpart in the prevailing 
 system. He fixed the term of life at which both sexes 
 respectively should enter into the marriage state, and 
 
 ' Swift, Works, vol. xiii., p. 265.
 
 342 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 also, that at which it should terminate ; and pre- 
 scribed, that children so produced should be sustained 
 and educated at the public cost ; and that those which 
 should be born before or after the period fixed upon, 
 should be deserted, not murdered, as is sufficiently 
 shewn before. But this regulation was imposed 
 equally on all belonging to the class of citizens to 
 which he refers, without the slightest distinction as 
 to any difference in their condition of life. Whatever, 
 therefore, were his views regarding population, they 
 were free from that utter selfishness which is the chief 
 feature in the system I am rebutting. The puritan 
 writer. Cock, whom we have already quoted, also saw, 
 or thought he saw, the strong tendency of population 
 to increase beyond the means of subsistence, but his 
 remedies evidenced the utmost possible degree of 
 fairness ; he proposed, that moral restraint should 
 be equally imposed upon the proud and the rich, as 
 well as upon the mean and laborious part of the 
 commiuiity. 
 
 (5) But what are the propositions of the modern 
 theory ; the sole practical deductions which it holds 
 forth, in reference to their bearing on the two great 
 divisions of human society, the rich and the poor? 
 They are as follows. 
 
 (6) Regarding the higher ranks of society, I have 
 not been able to discover that any proposition which 
 could have had the effect of imposing upon them the 
 observance of the preventive check has even been 
 advanced. In the principal work upon the subject, 
 the sole suggestion which I can find as affecting 
 them, is an attempt to rectify the precedency of old 
 maids and young wives, and a recommendation that 
 superior deference should be paid to the former : 
 excepting this, it seems pretty clear, that the author
 
 Chap. XIX.] PARTIAL AND UNJUST. 343 
 
 " would lay upon them none other burden." Against 
 these, generally, I have nothing whatever to urge : 
 let each case be judged upon its individual merits, as, 
 I think, a Roman Emperor once said, in refusing his 
 sanction to a law which affected an entire class. But 
 a few words, especially in a work on Population, may 
 not be misplaced, in defending the character of the 
 matrons of England, who, for the first time in the 
 history of English literature, are thus publicly ar- 
 raigned, not because they are unfeeling or unchaste, 
 but merely because they are matrons. The insulting 
 charge is couched in these degrading terms. — " The 
 " matron who has reared a family of ten or twelve 
 " children, and whose sons, perhaps, may be fighting 
 " the battles of their country, is apt to think that 
 ^' society owes her much ; and this imaginary debt 
 " society is, in general, fully inclined to acknow- 
 " ledge ^" But it appears, both she and society are 
 mistaken ; for, he continues, " if the subject be fairly 
 " considered, and the respected matron weighed, in 
 " the scales of justice, against the neglected old 
 *' maid, it is possible that the matron might kick the 
 " beam. She will appear rather in the character of a 
 " monopolist, than of a great benefactor to the state. 
 " If she had not married, and had so many children, 
 " other members of the society might have enjoyed 
 " this satisfaction ; and there is no particular reason 
 '' for supposing that her sons would fight better for 
 " their country than the sons of other women. She 
 " has, therefore, rather subtracted from, than added 
 " to, the happiness of the other parts of society. The 
 " old maid, on the contrary, has exalted others by de- 
 " pressing herself^": a point which he attempts to 
 prove by assuming, as a fact, what will be demon 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 549. * Ibid.; p. 550.
 
 344 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 strated, in these volumes, to be utterly erroneous. 
 " On a fair comparison, therefore," he afterwards adds, 
 " she seems to have a better-founded claim to the 
 " gratitude of society than the matron^"' "The parti- 
 " cular motive which influenced the matron to marry 
 " was certainly not the good of her country." He 
 goes on to argue, that " the conduct of the old maid 
 " has contributed more to the happiness of society 
 " than that of the matron^." Before I present the con- 
 clusion at which lie aims, I will address a few words 
 to this revolting estimate of the merit of the matrons 
 of England. 
 
 (7) Respecting the " brutes that perish," the pre- 
 servation of their various species is obviously secured 
 by one simple instinct of nature. The continuation of 
 the human race was, at least, an equal design of the 
 Creator ; but as the intention had reference to an infi- 
 nitely higher order of existences, so the means of 
 accomplishing it were incomparably superior. The 
 virtues of which the connubial state was ordained the 
 uncontaminated source, required that mere animal 
 gratification should, as far as possible, be concealed ; 
 and Nature shaped her course accordingly. She gave 
 to the human race, and to that order of beings alone, 
 that individuality of affection which, though resolv- 
 able into her primary design, appeared perfectly dis- 
 tinct from it, and enabled those who had conceived a 
 mutual affection for each other to act under the im- 
 pression, (and a pure and happy delusion it is, if it be 
 one,) that they w^ere prompted by a superior feeling to 
 that of mere selfish and personal gratification : and it 
 is a very powerful proof that this view of the subject 
 is the just and natural one, that the stronger the 
 affection between any two human beings of different 
 
 ^ Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 550. 2 Ibid, p. 551.
 
 Chap. XIX.] PARTIAL AND UNJUST. 345 
 
 sexes, and the purer tlie parties that entertam it, the 
 less conscious are they of being influenced by the 
 impulse of mere animal indulgence. As it respects 
 the female sex, it may be most confidently asserted 
 that the physical motive to marriage is, generally 
 speaking, wholly ineffectual, except the superior 
 and irreproachable inducement of affection be super- 
 added. In the paragraphs, however, which have been 
 quoted, a different view has been taken. Not only 
 have the feelings of the modest bride been cruelly 
 misrepresented, but the claims to respect and admi- 
 ration of the meritorious matron have been insult- 
 ingly controverted. It might have been hoped that 
 the latter had atoned for what we perceive is to 
 be regarded as her original sin, by the pains and 
 perils she has undergone, and that the maternal vir- 
 tues which she has engrafted upon the connubial ones 
 might have expiated her offence. It is false to assert 
 that she does not lose her personal or selfish feelings in 
 her maternal ones ; that she would not sacrifice her life 
 for the preservation of those for whom, in the order 
 of Providence, she has risked it, in bringing them into 
 existence. When, therefore, her swelling heart contem- 
 plates the heroes that she has given to her country, 
 and who are exposing lives in its defence dearer to her 
 than her own, the system is as false as it is disgusting 
 which would rob her of that feeling which will be 
 revered while there is a country worth preserving, or 
 men to defend it. What is the nature of the theory 
 which can thus coolly attempt to pollute, by revolting 
 insinuations, that state which is the source of all the 
 domestic and social charities of existence? Were 
 its representations true, still, placing myself in any 
 of the various relations of life, I abhor the attempt 
 at this moral dissection. In the human species, and
 
 346 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 especially in the female and maternal cliaracter, I 
 repeat, the Author of our being has veiled, if I 
 may so speak, the animal passion, by which it has 
 pleased him to accomplish his final design of perpe- 
 tuating the species, by that higher mental affection 
 which is the strongest and most obvious motive of the 
 union of the sexes ; and though I am as conscious as those 
 who declaim so much against population, of the latent 
 impulse which pervades the human, as well as every 
 other order of existence, I shall not, like the father of 
 Canaan, attempt to uncover the nakedness of our com- 
 mon nature. On the contrary, it comports with the views 
 taken of the general principles of individual and na- 
 tional prosperity throughout these volumes, to support 
 the dignity of, and increase the respect paid to, the 
 state of matrimony : that •' holy state," as it is justly 
 termed in the formularies of the church to which some 
 of its impugners belong ; but which they declare to 
 be, in certain, and, indeed, numerous cases, if accompa- 
 nied by poverty, a " sinful" one ! We may, however, 
 ask such, in the words of as great a judge of human 
 nature as any of them, Shakspeare, " whether mar- 
 riage is not honourable in a beggar?" We are an- 
 swered, in the name of the Author of that nature, and 
 of the institution in question, "marriage is honourable 
 in all, and the bed undefiled ;" and still, in direct oppo- 
 sition to the dogmas I am opposing, it is declared that it 
 is the wilful dupes of the preventive check, — "whore- 
 mongers and adulterers," whom God will judged 
 
 (8) But, to return to the immediate subject, the 
 revolting partiality and injustice of the anti-popula- 
 tion theory. Mr. Malthus deplores the superior respect 
 paid to the married portion of females in elevated 
 life ; and proposes that, " with regard to rank, pre- 
 
 ^ Heb, xiii. 4.
 
 Chap. XIX. PARTIAL AND UNJUST. 347 
 
 (( 
 
 cedence, and the ceremonial attentions of society, 
 " they" (the old maidens) " should be completely on 
 " a level with married women \" As it regards the 
 sexes generally, his ideas, as to the imposition of the 
 preventive check on the higher ranks, are confined 
 to obliging them to support their families. " Every 
 ^' restraint beyond this, though, in many points of 
 " view, highly desirable, must be considered as a 
 " matter of choice and taste ; but, from what we 
 " already know of the habits which prevail among the 
 " higher ranks of life, we have reason to think that 
 *' little more is wanted to attain the object required 
 " than to award a greater degree of respect and of per- 
 " sonal liberty to single women, and to remove the 
 " distinctions in favour of married women, so as to 
 " place them exactly upon a leveP." 
 
 (9) Such, then, is the proposition, as it respects 
 the higher ranks of society ; a matter of mere cere- 
 monial, on which I should think it a waste of words, 
 in a discussion of such paramount importance, to 
 dwell for a sino-le moment. 
 
 (10) But what is the proposition as it regards 
 the lower classes? The destruction of the poor- 
 law ! The confiscation of that share of the property 
 of the country to which the poor " have clearly as 
 much a right as the rich have to the remainder^," 
 and the distribution of the spoil among the wealthy, 
 who, thenceforward, are to be the sole legal posses- 
 sors of all the bounties of Providence. The utter 
 abrogation of a right prescribed by the nature of 
 things, by the origmal principle of appropriation, by 
 the institutions of God, by the dictates of Nature, by 
 the laws of the realm. The annihilation of a prin- 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population^ p. 5 5 1 . ^ Paley, Moral Philosophy. 
 2 Ibid., p. 552.
 
 348 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book L 
 
 ciple fundamental to civilization, and inherent in the 
 British constitution, and which is, therefore, clearly 
 deducible from the very foundation of the monarchy 
 of England, and which, in some form or other, has sur- 
 vived all its changes. It recommends a spoliation of 
 the helpless and the wretched, wholly unexampled 
 since the time of the last Henry, and incomparably 
 more atrocious than that ; and proposes that the 
 richest nation in the world should leave the indis^ent 
 part of its people more wretched and unprovided than 
 the same class in any other Christian country. That, 
 contrary to the example of antiquity, whether amongst 
 Jews or Gentiles, — contrary to the institutions of civili- 
 zation at the present day, the wretched and indigent 
 should be left wholly to the assistance of casual, uncer- 
 tain, and private bounty, which also it discourages. 
 And all this injustice, robbery, and cruelty, is to be 
 perpetrated under colour of statements the most false, 
 and anticipations the most unreasonable ; while the 
 policy which dictates such a course is as weak, or 
 rather dangerous, as is the principle infamous from 
 which it is derived. But on this subject I have 
 already expressed myself somewhat at large in a pre- 
 vious publication, and shall resume its consideration 
 still more minutely on a subsequent occasion : in the 
 mean time, it may suffice to state, that the system 
 against which I am contending, deliberately proposes 
 to repress population by smiting down the natural 
 and unalienable rights of poverty ; and inflicting all 
 that individual suffering and distress which such a 
 measure would produce, were it possible to carry it 
 into execution. 
 
 (11) Let us, then, again advert to the gross par- 
 tiality and injustice which " the preventive check " 
 involves ; and this will be sufficiently explained in the
 
 Chap. XIX.] PARTIAL AND UNJUST. 349 
 
 very words of its main advocate. Reg'arding the 
 rich, it is proposed, that " a giddy girl of sixteen" is 
 no longer, " because she is married, to be consi- 
 " dered, by the forms of society, as the protector 
 " of women of thirty, or come fii-st into the room, 
 " or be assigned the highest place at table, and 
 " be the prominent figure to whom the attentions 
 " of the company are more particularly addressed ^" 
 Regarding the poor, this is the proposal ; and the con- 
 trast is the more distinct, because the idea of a feast 
 is still preserved. The reader will doubtless observe 
 how admirably the prosopopeia of Nature is adapted 
 to the system into which she is introduced. " A man 
 " born into a world already possessed, if he cannot 
 " get subsistence from his parents, on whom he has a 
 "just demand," (but he may have none in existence,) 
 " and if society do not want his labour," (and he may 
 have no strength wherewith to render it, if it does,) 
 " has no claim of light to the smallest portion of 
 " food ;" (the law says otherwise ;) " and in fact, has no 
 " business to be where he is." (Is existence his fault, 
 or that of God ?) " At Nature's mighty feast, there is 
 " no vacant cover for him. She tells him to beo-one, 
 " and will quickly execute her own orders if he do 
 " not work upon the compassion of some of her 
 " guests." (Who are the exclusive guests of Nature ?) 
 " If these guests get up and make room for him, other 
 "intruders" (intruders?) "immediately appear, de- 
 " manding the same favour. The report of a provi- 
 " sion for all that come, fills the hall with numerous 
 " claimants. The order and harmony of the feast is 
 " disturbed ; the plenty that before reigned is changed 
 " into scarcity ; and the happiness of the guests is de- 
 " stroyed by the spectacle of misery and dependence 
 
 ^ Malthus; Essay on Population, p. 552,
 
 350 THE PRE\^NTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 " in every part of the hall ;" (amiable sensibility !) " and 
 " by the clamorous importmiity of those who are justly 
 " enraged at not finding- the provision which they had 
 " been taught to expect. The guests learn too late 
 " their error, in counteracting those strict orders to all 
 " intruders,issued by the great mistress of the feast, who, 
 " wishing that all her guests should have plenty, and 
 " knowing that she could not provide for unlimited 
 " numbers," (the numbers are limited, and so as to be 
 fully provided for as far as she is concerned,) " humane- 
 " ly " (mark that !) " refused to admit fresh comers when 
 " her table was already fulP." When was that the 
 case ? is it so now ? Meantime, however, Mr. Malthus 
 elsewhere apologizes for the privileged few, the " pa- 
 tentees for food^," bringing other than human guests 
 to the table; even in this case there is no indignation, 
 though, as Burke exclaims, " horses and dogs eat the 
 bread that ought to sustain the children of the people." 
 
 (12) In reading this sentence it is difiicult to de- 
 scribe, much more to stippress, one's emotions of in- 
 dignation. It is thus, as Adam Smith says, that " the 
 " fortunate and the proud w^onder at the insolence of 
 " human wretchedness, and that it should dare to 
 " present itself before them, and, with the loathsome 
 " aspect of its misery, presume to disturb the serenity 
 " of their happiness ^" 
 
 (13) The second passage about to be quoted is 
 still more precise, and runs as follows : " After the 
 " public notice which I have proposed had been given, 
 '' and the system of poor-laws had ceased with re- 
 " gard to the rising generation, if any man chose to 
 " marry without a prospect of being able to support 
 " a family," (of which prospect more anon,) " he 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. ^ Adam Smith, Tlieory of Moral Sen- 
 531. See also p. 116 of this volume. timents. 
 2 Ibid., p. 398.
 
 Chap. XIX.] PARTIAL AND UNJUST. 351 
 
 " should have the most perfect liberty so to do. 
 " Though to marry in this case is, in my opinion," (and, 
 doubtless, in that of many poor-rate payers,) " clearly 
 " an immoral act, yet it is not one which society can 
 " justly take upon itself to prevent or punish ; because 
 " the punishment provided for it by the laws of nature 
 " falls directly and most severely upon the individual' 
 " who commits the act, and, through him, only more 
 " remotely and feebly on the society ! When nature 
 " will govern and punish for us," (how admirably is 
 this ideal character of Nature, as inimical to poverty, 
 kept up throughout the system !) " it is a very miser- 
 " able ambition to wish to snatch the rod from her 
 " hands, and draw upon ourselves the odium of exe- 
 " cutioner. To the punishment, therefore, of Nature he 
 " should be left, the punishment of severe want. He 
 ^' has erred in the face of a most clear and precise warn- 
 " ing, and can have no just reason to complain of any 
 " person but himself,'Xwhich of us, starving in the midst 
 of plenty, were the foregoing case our own, would thus 
 speak ?) " when he feels the consequences of his error. 
 " All parish assistance should be most rigidly denied 
 " him ; and if the hand of private charity be stretched 
 " forth in his relief, the interests of humanity impe- 
 " riously require that it should be administered very 
 " sparingly." (The tender mercies of the wicked are 
 cruel !) " He should be taught to know that the laws 
 " of Nature, which are the laws of God," (pray, was 
 it not obedience to a law of Nature that induced him to 
 marry ? whose law, then, is that ?) " had doomed him 
 " and his family to starve ^, for disobeying their re- 
 " peated admonitions," (when and where given or 
 " repeated ?) " and his family to starve !" (What ! the 
 
 ^ I cannot refrain from applying to this prosopopeia the emphatic language of 
 Milton : 
 
 " Impostor ! do not charge most innocent Nature !"
 
 352 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 whole family to starve ? The innocent children to starve 
 with the guilty parent ; wilt thou destroy the righteous 
 with the wicked ? that be far from thee !) " that he had 
 " no claim of right on society to the smallest portion of 
 " food beyond that which his labour would fairly pur- 
 " chase ; and that, if he and his family were saved 
 '' from suffering the utmost extremities of hunger, 
 " he would owe it to the pity of some kind benefactor, 
 " to whom, therefore, he ought to be bound by the 
 " strongest ties of gratitude ^" 
 
 (14) Such are the practical deductions from the 
 system of population now generally embraced, and 
 they are worthy of it ; but to say that they have the 
 sanction of God and Nature, is an insult upon both. 
 The wretch whom this theory has described as a moral 
 criminal, is innocent in the sight of God, in whose pre- 
 sence he would have been, in all probability, guilty, if 
 he had not done that which political economy imputes 
 to him as " his inexpiable" sin. He has been deprived 
 of that right to subsistence which is as legal and as 
 sacred as the one by which the proudest among us 
 holds his estates, or the benevolent monarch of the 
 British empire wears his crown. He may be incapa- 
 citated for labour by lingering disease, or sudden acci- 
 dent or sickness ; he may be thrown out of his employ- 
 ment by those changes and fluctuations in its demand 
 over which he has no control, and by which the 
 wealthy are alone benefited ; but the moment he 
 becomes in want, he is to be robbed of his natural and 
 legal right, branded as a criminal, insultingly pro- 
 nounced to be deserving of starvation, and private 
 benevolence is warned to assist him sparingly, if at all ; 
 and if his life is preserved, (is life, thus circumstanced, 
 worth preserving ?) he is to be overwhelmed with the 
 
 * Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 539.
 
 Chap. XIX.] PARTIAL AND UNJUST. 353 
 
 deepest gratitude : in a word, as far as the once bene- 
 volent but abrogated institutions of his country are 
 concerned, he must, like another Ugolino, be left to 
 starve in his cottage, surrovuided by the clamorous 
 objects of his affection, whom it would have been 
 more humane in the country to have at once de- 
 spatched, than thus to have deserted. And such must 
 be the condition of all the poor when it may please 
 their employers to dispense with their labours, or 
 the political economists to pronounce them redundant. 
 The recommendation, it may be assuredly asserted, 
 has no parallel in moral literature, sacred or profane. 
 It springs from a system false in itself, and the con- 
 sequences of which neither God nor man would 
 endure ; it is sufficiently repulsive and disgusting to 
 contemplate such a state of things, even in imagina- 
 tion; the reality would be horrible ! 
 
 (15) In enforcing upon the poor the preventive 
 check, the same author thus expresses himself; — " To 
 " this end, I should propose a regulation to be made, 
 ^' that no child born from any marriage taking place 
 " after the expiration of a year from the taking place 
 
 ' of the law ; and no illegitimate child born two years 
 " after the same date, should ever be entitled to parish 
 " assistance." He further proposes that the clergy- 
 man should, previously to the solemnization of each 
 marriage, inform the parties of this law, and read a 
 short address to them, the heads of which he gives, 
 and which are a few of the common places of our poli- 
 tical economists, touching the immorality of marrying 
 without a fair prospect of supporting their children ; 
 the evils of public institutions for relief, &c. : and this, 
 he says, would operate as " a fair, distinct, and pre- 
 cise warning," after which, he thinks, no one could 
 complain, however they might be afterwards over- 
 
 VoL. I. 2 A
 
 354 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 whelmed by misfortune, or abandoned in poverty and 
 distress. It is difficult, liov/ever, to imagine, how this 
 " fair, distinct, and precise warning," of so iniqui- 
 tous an act of spoliation, could be regarded as any 
 satisfaction to the sufferers. And all this, it is pro- 
 posed, should be read from the altar, bearing the 
 sacred symbols of a religion whose very essence is 
 benevolence, and from which, in the service of the 
 offertory, the most strong and touching exhortations to 
 warm and unwearied charity are delivered forth ; not 
 the charity that consists in words, the " Be thou 
 warmed and be thou clothed " system ; nor yet that 
 which confines its attentions to the deserving only, the 
 Author of that religion commanding us to extend it 
 even to the unthankful, to the unholy, nay to our very 
 enemies, if they are in need. 
 
 (16) If, therefore, this duty is to be imposed upon 
 the minister of religion, it is highly necessary that the 
 doctrines he has to enunciate should be revolutionised, 
 and especially the marriage ceremony, which, as it 
 stands at present, contradicts throughout, and in the 
 strongest terms, the views now taken, and consecrates, 
 with the solemnities of prayer and devotion, entirely 
 opposite principles ; which are worse than nonsense, 
 if the theory of population, now propounded, is true. 
 And even then, a fitter officer than the minister of 
 Christianity might be chosen to announce the final 
 destruction of the national charity, with which his 
 very office and its revenues were originally connected. 
 The common hangman, for instance, would be a more 
 appropriate person for the performance of this addir' 
 tional duty, especially as the putting such a scheme 
 into effect would, as Sir Matthew Hale has long ago 
 observed, increase his duties, and be a first intro- 
 duction to many of his ultimate victims : to whom,
 
 Chap. XIX. J PARTIAL AND UNJUST. 355 
 
 however, when plunged into tliis destitution and 
 distress, from which it appears they are by no means 
 to be relieved, his last appearance would be as a 
 minister of mercy. 
 
 (17) But much, and a very unfair use, is made of 
 the expression, " marrying without a fair prospect of 
 supporting their children ^ : " let us, therefore, exa- 
 mine, for a moment, its signification, which, it is to 
 be regretted, has not, on a point of such extreme con- 
 cernment, been more clearly defined. It will be found, 
 however, that the omission is, to all intents and pur- 
 poses, immaterial. But to gather, as well as we may, 
 what is meant by this " fair prospect," There is not, 
 it may be affirmed, one marriage in ten celebrated 
 throughout the entire country, in which the parties 
 could make out, to the satisfaction of our anti-popu- 
 lationists, this fair prospect of a livelihood for them- 
 selves, and probable families, under the various cir- 
 cumstances that may possibly befal them, so as to 
 render them, through life, independent of assistance. 
 Indeed, who, among the working classes, on their en- 
 trance into active life, could do so? Necessity, in 
 every such case, is the mother of industry, as well as 
 of invention. In possession of youth, and health, and 
 strength, with industrious intentions, confiding in each 
 other and in Providence ; aye, and if it must be so 
 expressed, " disgracefully relying" upon their country, 
 if any unforeseen affliction or privation await them, (a 
 reliance which I do not perceive is reckoned dis- 
 graceful, if it exist in a higher sphere,) the humble 
 and affectionate couple fulfil the design of their 
 Creator, and taste the only unpolluted pleasures 
 which are accessible to a life of labour and poverty, 
 and for which there are, as it respects them at least, 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 538. 
 
 2A2
 
 356 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 no substitutes ; the pleasures of mutual care and affec- 
 tion. The custom of their country and its institutions, 
 as one of their own class, Bloomfield, beautifully sings, 
 
 Give love and honest industry their way, 
 And cheer the sunsliiue of hfe's Uttle day. 
 
 And if those institutions did otherwise, if they effec- 
 tually discouraged their marriages, and deserted them 
 in their distresses, with that " dependent poverty," 
 which, Mr. Malthus says, ought to be held disgraceful, 
 would be driven out of the country, as Addison has 
 well observed, its trade, its arts, and its wealth. 
 
 (18) But one of the most singular circumstances 
 attending this cruel proposition is this, that though so 
 much stress is laid upon the necessity of deserting 
 those who have married without this " fair prospect," 
 still, not the least advantage is held out in behalf of 
 those who have married with it, and who may subse- 
 quently fall into unforeseen misfortune, a case which 
 the most inveterate theorist will not have the face to 
 deny is possible, and even frequent. In the destruc- 
 tion of the national charity, no reservation is to be 
 made for these, so that the accusation against those 
 who are said to contract improvident marriages is 
 made the apology for deserting the entire class. It is 
 idle to say, that private benevolence would amply 
 supply the loss of the public provision, as it respects 
 the sufferers under consideration. Private benevo- 
 lence, under the successful pupilage of a system 
 which teaches that the evils endured are traceable to 
 the principle of population ; that a man whose labour 
 is not wanted has no business to be where he is ; 
 that even the sick and the impotent ought to have no 
 claim to relief, it is not likely would be very eager 
 to extend assistance to those, who, in a family which 
 they were incapacitated to maintain, presented so many
 
 Chap. XIX.] PARTIAL AND UNJUST. 357 
 
 living proofs of their criminality, according to poli- 
 tical economy, proofs, the effect of which it would be 
 hard indeed for the poor victims of misfortune to 
 efface. Indeed, under such a system, the attempt 
 would, in most instances, be hopeless. 
 
 (19) Much might be added, as to the dreadful 
 effects of abrogating the national charity ; the cruelty 
 and suffering such a measure would inevitably occa- 
 sion, especially in a country like this, where the 
 population is so dense, and the nature and demand of 
 labour so varied and fluctuating. The injury the 
 lower classes must individually sustain by the spread of 
 the " preventive check" among them will be shortly 
 adverted to in the next chapter ; in the mean time, I 
 think it cannot but be acknowledged, that a system 
 which only prescribes to the rich that they should 
 reform their drawing-room etiquette, but which de- 
 mands, as it regards the poor, the surrender of their 
 natural, moral, and legal right to sustentation in their 
 distresses, is, in the highest possible degree, partial 
 and unjust.
 
 358 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ON THE PREVENTIVE CHECK: ITS CRUELTY. 
 
 (1) The injustice and partiality of the preventive 
 check, in enforcing its restraints, penally, upon the 
 lowest rank of society only, has been already shewn ; 
 the peculiar severity with which its inflictions would 
 be felt by that class, compared with the higher ones, 
 has also been adverted to ; but the latter fact demands, 
 from its great importance, more particular consi- 
 deration. 
 
 (2) Without contending, or believing, that the 
 happiness which the marriage state confers can, in 
 whatever condition of life, be, generally speaking, 
 supplied from any other source ; still, a moment's con- 
 sideration will suffice to convince us, that when inhi- 
 bited to poverty, it implies an incomparably greater 
 injury than it would if denied to Avealth ; one indeed, 
 which, in every subsequent stage of life, is totally 
 irreparable. The condition of affluence, which volun- 
 tarily foregoes the connubial state, makes no sacrifice ; 
 its animal gratifications are the reverse of being sur- 
 rendered ; on the contrary, it is their corrupt indul- 
 gence, probably, which has quenched those sensibi- 
 lities, which render the natural and permanent con- 
 nection marriage requires, desirable. Meantime, it 
 possesses means, potent to command all the plea- 
 sures of life, and all those personal attentions, which 
 the condition we are considering universally enjoys. 
 
 (3) But let the advocates for imposing this yoke 
 upon the poor, behold the consequences with which
 
 Chap. XX.] THE PREVENTIVE CHECK CRUEL. 359 
 
 tlieir attempt is justly cliarg-eable. To a labouring 
 man of whatever pursuit, the wife is at once his 
 solace ; his assistant ; his companion ; his nurse ; nay- 
 even, his servant. Imagine the projected change to 
 have taken place, and then trace one of your poor 
 victims of the preventive check through life, and 
 which of its stages is not cheerless and wretched in 
 the highest degree ? See him retiring from his daily 
 toil, to a dismal hut, where all must be confusion and 
 uncleanliness ; where, weary as he is, he must renew 
 his exertions, in order to prepare his meal, which he 
 must take in comfortless solitude. But I will pass 
 over the misery of a state like this, without a compa- 
 nion or an assistant, in order to advert to another. 
 See this man smitten with disease, and writhing under 
 personal suffering; a state to which his labours render 
 him peculiarly liable, and what then is his condition ? 
 without any to " make all his bed in his sickness," to 
 soothe his sufferings and administer to his pressing ne- 
 cessities, " to preserve him and to keep him alive," or, 
 if it so please Providence, to console his dying hour 
 with the tears of sorrowful affection, and the cer- 
 tainty of a fond and faithful remembrance ; instead 
 of this, I say, he must suffer unassisted and unpitied ; 
 like a stricken beast, which, deserted by its kind, 
 retires to his lair and expires in solitude and desti- 
 tution. Will the political economists supply the 
 place of those affectionate attentions which their 
 system demands that the poor man should surrender ? 
 The idea is ridiculous ! As it respects the poor of the 
 other sex, the imposition of the preventive check 
 would, if possible, render those who were its victims 
 still more forlorn : and it is needless to state, that to 
 dictate its observance in a certain degree to the males, 
 would imply its existence in an equal extent among
 
 3<)0 PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 the females of the same class. As it regards both the 
 sexes generally, no misfortune in life could equal that 
 of rendering them celibates ; the Struldbrugs of Dean 
 Swift's Luggnagg give but a slight idea of the neg- 
 lected and contemptible condition to which they would 
 of necessity be reduced. 
 
 (4) Nor is the wretchedness which the preventive 
 check would impose upon the lower ranks exclusively, 
 all, no, nor the chief part of the evils which it would 
 inflict so exclusively upon that class. Much of the 
 crime, almost all the infamy and suffering it occa- 
 sions, are laid also upon poverty. 
 
 (5) We have already quoted passages, in which 
 the guilt of an improper sexual intercourse is contrasted 
 with what are conceived to be more degrading vices, 
 and seen that " the grace and dignity of man ^" is to 
 be preserved, in many cases, by practising the preven- 
 tive check. But it seems to be totally overlooked, 
 that this " grace and dignity,'' when so preserved in 
 the higher, is too often secured at the expense of dis- 
 gusting infamy in the lower, ranks of life. I think it 
 may be fairly asserted, that, notwithstanding the im- 
 mense disparity in numbers, in nine cases out of ten, 
 when the preventive check produces its foreseen effects, 
 wealth is the tempter, and poverty the victim. Could 
 we trace the general history of prostitution, we should 
 find that, in almost every case, it commenced in yield- 
 ing to the bribes and temptations of wealth ; by which 
 those who were afraid to forfeit the grace and dignity 
 of man, by matrimony, and unwilling to descend two 
 or three degrees in the ladder of life, assail unsuspect- 
 ing and credulous poverty. Now, look at the different 
 consequences, as it regards the two classes. How 
 leniently the tempters are dealt with needs not to be 
 
 ' Malthiis, Essay on Population, p. 513.
 
 Chap. XX.] CRUEL. 36 1 
 
 pointed out; they may suffer somewhat in reputation, 
 and but little in that respect, if the work before us 
 presents a fair view of the subject ; but, as it regards 
 the tempted, probably no picture of human wretched- 
 ness can equal the sad reality of guilt and suffering 
 which awaits them. I shall not advert to the misery 
 inflicted on the parents of these victims of the preven- 
 tive check, whose hearts are wrung with anguish, 
 and, in many cases, actually broken. No ; it is suffi- 
 cient to advert to their ruined offspring, once adorned 
 with youth and beauty, and invested with far greater 
 "grace and dignity" than any of our sex can lay 
 claim to ; robbed, in the first place, of all that renders 
 the sex desirable or estimable, and then deserted; 
 (for such is the conduct of their seducers, who gene- 
 rally compensate themselves for their observance of 
 the preventive check, as it regards marriage, by an 
 unbridled licence in the gratification of their passions 
 in any other form ;) — deserted, I say, by their be- 
 trayers, who liave launched them into a career of 
 infamy from whence there is, commonly, no return ; 
 they descend, by a rapid progress, to still greater 
 depths of misery and degradation : so that, fast as 
 their beauties fade, life, with them, ebbs still faster, 
 and rarely leaves them, as the survivors of their per- 
 sonal attractions, to a fate not less guilty and depraved, 
 but still more forlorn and miserable. Thus, short and 
 bitter is their career of accumulating guilt, remorse, 
 and suffering ; and as to their condition in a future 
 state of existence, when, unnoticed and unregretted, 
 they rapidly drop out of life, that is a thought beneath 
 the recollection of the political economist, pious or 
 profane. They had, perhaps, in their better days, as 
 "noble and ingenuous dispositions^" as their de- 
 
 ^ Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 513.
 
 362 THE PIlEVENTI\rE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 stroyers, to whose " grace and dignity" in society tliey 
 were, and are, constantly sacrificed. But no more of 
 this ; the system of our anti-populationists is as little 
 one of gallantry, as it is of humanity. 
 
 (6) It is unnecessary to pause for the purpose of 
 makino' a distinction between those converts of the 
 preventive check, who are the first seducers, and those 
 who are the more general and indiscriminate support- 
 ers and encouragers of this prostitution. The difterence 
 is that of the advanced guard and the main body of an 
 army of hostile forces ; and the gallants, in both in- 
 stances, aspire to the former rank whenever they can 
 obtain it. They are all accessories ; there may be 
 differences in the depth of their guilt, but it is of pre- 
 cisely the same nature. On this subject, however, I 
 will refer the reader to what has been already quoted 
 from Paley. 
 
 (7) Would that we could invoke the multitudes 
 which have been actually sacrificed, body and soul, 
 to this fiend-like " virtue ! " Fair, innocent, and con- 
 fiding, as they once were ; glowing with future hope, 
 and full of sincerity and affection, they felt the con- 
 sequences of the imposition of the preventive check ; 
 became its victims, and were changed into all that is 
 polluted, loathsome, and depraved. If, I say, these 
 could be summoned up before the gaze of the warmest 
 advocate of the modern system ; if we could bid them 
 
 " Come like shadows, so depart, 
 
 Shew his eyes and grieve his heart," 
 
 he would prefer death itself to the " grace and dignity 
 of man" so purchased. For myself, if I should ever 
 contemplate these, its inevitable results, without exe- 
 crating the system which gives them birth, in the 
 language of another of our bards, then 
 
 " Dead to joy, forget my heart to beat ! "
 
 Chap. XX.] CRUEL. 363 
 
 (8) Nor are even these the darkest or most fatal 
 consequences of the preventive check. There are, 
 among its victims, those who, seduced through the 
 medium of the fondest affection, have been reduced to 
 the level of the brutes ; and, treated worse than they, 
 who, in the agonizing struggle between remaining 
 modesty and recent guilt, mingled with fearful appre- 
 hensions of shame and ruin, resort to the deed of child- 
 murder ! The thought is appalling, and, as it regards 
 those who have occasioned this dreadful crime, hardly 
 to be endured, if they have yet hearts to feel. What 
 must have been the anguish of an individual who, 
 stepping accidentally into a court of justice, beheld 
 the minister of the law with the fatal indication of 
 the awful duty he was about to perform already on 
 his head, and heard him pronounce the doom of 
 death upon a poor, young, fainting female, supported 
 in his presence, for the murder of her infant, of 
 which infant he found himself to be the father, as 
 he had been the seducer and the destroyer of its 
 mother ! I lay to the charge of the preventive 
 check almost every such murder and its expiation, 
 though it falls on the least guilty individual. To 
 prevent two or three descents in the rounds of the 
 ladder, of which Mr. Malthus speaks, how many 
 wretched victims have ascended another — to their ex- 
 ecution ! Such are some of the consequences, infamous 
 as cruel, of controlling the first and purest impulses of 
 Nature ! 
 
 (9) But granting that the illegitimate children are 
 allowed the chance of living, is it not most extra- 
 ordinary, that the system which must have a direct 
 tendency to produce them, and that from considerations 
 of public utility, should nevertheless actually propose 
 their desertion? Yet, so it is* It might be very
 
 364 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 readily shewn, were it necessary, that the number of 
 these unfortunate beings bears a very exact proportion 
 to the prevalence of the preventive check ; indeed, so 
 accurate is it, that in those countries where, in certain 
 months of the year, marriages are ridiculously dis- 
 couraged, and their number at such seasons, conse- 
 quently, greatly diminished, the amount of these 
 births, at the corresponding term, is proportionately 
 augmented. What, then, must be expected were 
 these impediments rendered permanent, and univer- 
 sally operative ? Undoubtedly, an increased number 
 of these, the most unfortunate of human beings, who 
 bear the punishment without the stain and demerit of 
 personal guilt, and who are the most friendless and 
 unhappy part of the human race. Their only support, 
 often, at present, is the national charity, and that, it 
 is strenuously proposed, should be withdrawn from 
 them. The proposition amounts, in its consequences, 
 to a positive sentence of death upon most of them. 
 It is actually infanticide, in a new form. Mr. Malthus, 
 I think, will justify this view of the subject ; he says, 
 " With regard to illegitimate children, after the proper 
 " notice had been given, they should, on no account 
 " whatever, be allowed to have any claim to parish 
 " assistance. If the parents desert their child, they 
 " ought to be made answerable for their crimed" 
 The sentence, however, as far as the public are con- 
 cerned, is as follows. " The infant is, comparatively 
 " speaking, of no value to the society, as others will 
 " immediately supply its place^." Whose minister is it 
 that speaks thus ? That of the lover and avenger of 
 little children ? 
 
 (10) Such are the consequences of the preventive 
 check, and of the recommendations which are founded 
 
 * Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 540. « Ibid., p. 540,
 
 Chap. XX.] CRUEL. 365 
 
 upon it. We find, notwitlistanding', the subject is 
 thus treated in the work which puts forth the notions 
 I am controverting. " A youth of eighteen woukl be 
 " as completely justified in indulging the sexual pas- 
 " sion with every object capable of exciting it, as in 
 " following indiscriminately every impulse of his be- 
 " nevolence^" An aphorism perfectly in its place, 
 as found in the present theory of population ; but 
 concerning which, whether in reference to the age 
 alluded to, when the exercise of charity (in which 
 virtue, Bacon says, there can be no excess) is so lovely, 
 and open debauchery so disgustingly infamous ; or 
 whether, as it respects the consequences of these 
 opposite courses at any period of life, or of such a 
 doctrine generally propounded, — as no language I 
 have at command can sufficiently express my execra- 
 tion, I shall, therefore, not employ any. 
 
 ^ Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 559.
 
 366 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 OF THE PREVENTI\:E CHECK: ITS IMPOLICY. 
 
 (1) But another view of tlie effect of the preventive 
 check, in its mildest form, namely, that of a general 
 postponement of the marriages of the lower classes, 
 remains to be taken ; one which, as far as I have 
 perceived, has been wholly overlooked, both by its 
 advocates and opponents, but which is, nevertheless, 
 of so important a character, as to demand a separate 
 consideration ; and it is hoped, that a short one will 
 suffice to place this boasted check in a light, in which 
 its pernicious tendency will be instantly discovered, 
 and seen to be beyond redemption. 
 
 (2) The Being who fixed the boundaries of human 
 life, distributed its span into distinct periods; assign- 
 ing to each its proper enjoyments and different duties, 
 not merely in respect to the individual, but also in 
 reference to those with whom such individual would 
 be, in the course of Providence, necessarily connected : 
 and the whole scheme of Nature is founded upon these 
 close and essential relations. Nor is it given to the 
 political economist, whatever be the apology, to vary 
 or postpone at his pleasure, and with impunity, these 
 terms ; just so far as he should accomplish this pur- 
 pose, he would inflict an irreparable mischief, not 
 merely upon individual happiness, but on the welfare 
 of society at large. 
 
 (3) Nature having made her computations, which, 
 we may rest assured, are those most conducive to 
 the well-being of her offspring, will not, happily for
 
 Chap. XXI.] IMPOLITIC. 3G7 
 
 tliem, alter or suspend her own laws. To attempt 
 to do so for lier, involves cruelty and injury. If the 
 period which she peremptorily assigns for the deve- 
 lopment and gratification of the affections and pas- 
 sions be disregarded, and marriage be postponed, as it 
 respects the female sex, for instance, to the age of 
 twenty-eight or thirty, see the injury inflicted ! To 
 say no more concerning the vice and suffering which 
 the proposition implies, not to mention the heartless 
 nature of the proposal, which involves the sacrifice of 
 the enjoyment of so large a part of life, and of that 
 which is incomparably the most happy portion of it, as 
 far as personal gratifications are concerned ; let us re- 
 member the further consequences with which this delay 
 thus dictated must be accompanied. The poor female 
 who has to defer her marriage till that late period, 
 will have lost her bloom, which fades the earlier from 
 the constant labour to which she is exposed ; she will, 
 in many instances, have worn out those youthful fasci- 
 nations, with which Nature adorned her, for the pur- 
 pose of rendering her desirable to the other sex, and 
 which, had they been surrendered to a husband before 
 they had faded, would have blossomed in his memory 
 to the end of life ; she will very often have outlived 
 the affection she had inspired, and have become an 
 object of indifference, where she had once been that of 
 the fondest regard ; or, perhaps, have survived her 
 lover, and all her hopes may have been thus blighted 
 for ever. These cases would be neither fictitious nor 
 few, were the virtue in question universally enjoined 
 on the lower classes ; they would have survived " the 
 grace," whatever might be said of " the dignity" of the 
 species. Will any one then, but a political economist, 
 ridicule, or underrate the injury to the hopes and hap- 
 piness of the vast but humble class in question, which
 
 368 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 such a scheme would perpetrate 1 But I shall proceed 
 to mention another of its consequences, which it will 
 be difficult even for him to treat lightly. 
 
 (4) The preventive check, in materially postponing 
 marriage, would not only counteract tlie plain design 
 of Nature, in regard to the period at which that con- 
 nection should take place, that is, when the passions are 
 the least resistible, and when those affections are the 
 warmest on which alone the happiness of future life 
 can be founded ; but it carries its injuries into every 
 subsequent stage, and into all the relations of exist- 
 ence. As the term of human life does not enlarge 
 agreeably to this unnatural interference, so it is quite 
 obvious, that its inevitable consequence would be a 
 disturbance in the natural order and succession of the 
 generations, and of their relative ages, often fatal to 
 the happiness and prosperity of the class affected by it, 
 namely, the poor, for it must be still recollected, that the 
 proposition has reference to the lower ranks of society 
 only ; and it is those whom it would principally injure, 
 were it universally adopted. The parents in their 
 declining days, instead of receiving the solace and 
 assistance of their children, already advanced to the 
 prime of existence, and, therefore, fully capable of 
 yielding it, would often have to render it to their still 
 infant or immature offspring : on the contrary, the 
 latter would, in an appalling number of cases, be ex- 
 posed to the irreparable consequences of losing paren- 
 tal affection and solicitude, when the attentions they 
 prompt are the most essential to their future welfare, if 
 not to their very existence. If the female has to put off 
 her marriage till the age of " twenty-eight or thirty V' 
 as proposed, unless we must again disturb the order 
 of Nature, the corresponding age of the males, though 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 498.
 
 Chap. XXI.] IMPOLITIC. 369 
 
 not so relatively advanced as Plato and Aristotle men- 
 tion, could not be less than thirty-three or thirty- 
 five. This regulation doubtless appears, to the anti- 
 populationists, " a consummation devoutly to be 
 wished ;" but, alas for their discernment ! if carried 
 into effect, the higher ranks would soon have to en- 
 counter the drudgeries of life themselves. 
 
 (5) What does the proposition, then, involve ? 
 Suppose the female marrying between twenty-eight 
 or thirty, to have a child born at the latter age, then, 
 as the mothers, among the poor, do not bear their 
 children so rapidly as those in the higher ranks of 
 society, for reasons sufficiently obvious ; though, as 
 will be fully shewn, they have larger families, the 
 number of which, it will also be distinctly proved, 
 this postponement would not at all diminish, we may 
 assume her to continue to breed till forty, and the 
 father to be forty-five when his last child is born. 
 These, it will be perceived, are no exaggerated cal- 
 culations, but are far within the bounds of truth, 
 in a vast number of cases, were these evil pro- 
 posals to take effect. Let, then, the advocate for 
 them apply to an actuary, or refer to Susmilch, Price, 
 or any other political arithmetician, and he will soon 
 perceive the high probability that the poor couple 
 would leave a part of their family orphans at a pe- 
 riod of life, when, above all others, their loss would be 
 the most deplored, and the deepest felt. Would there 
 be less, on the average, than a fatherless or motherless 
 child to every labouring family in the empire ? Cer- 
 tainly not ! But it is unnecessary to appeal to calcu- 
 lations. " Late marriages make early orphans," is 
 a truth which it did not require a Dr. Franklin to 
 enunciate. 
 
 (G) But this is not all. A poor orphan, under the 
 
 Vol. I. 2 B
 
 370 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK [Book I. 
 
 present system, is, of all objects presented to tlie 
 feeling mind, one of tlie most deplorable ; though the 
 laws for sustaining the poor in this country, contem- 
 plate their preservation and future welfare. But what 
 would be their condition under the guardianship of 
 the theory of the unti-populationists, when reduced 
 to practice, one of whose first and most important 
 demands is, that the poor-laws should be utterly 
 destroyed, and that these forlorn beings should have 
 no longer " any claim of right to the smallest portion 
 of food V According to the present practice, the post- 
 ponement of the marriages of the poor would, of 
 necessity, greatly increase the rates for their susten- 
 tation ; but, in the system recommended, there are to 
 be no poor-laws. O rare Daniels ! 
 
 (7) There is good reason, however, to believe that 
 the proposition regarding the preventive check is not 
 meant to be confined to the postponement of marriage 
 merely, but that it implies, when its projectors think 
 necessary, its inhibition altogether. This opinion does 
 not rest upon the eulogies lavished upon the unmar- 
 ried females of high life, and the adjustment of their 
 claims to precedency; on the contrary, it is founded 
 upon the requiring from the poor, that they should, 
 before they enter into the marriage state, make 
 out that fair prospect of supporting their families, 
 which has been already shewn to be impossible, and 
 which I defy any one in existence to believe that 
 they could, generally speaking, render any fairer, as 
 they advance further in life. In proof of this asser- 
 tion, we perceive the acrimony with which late mar- 
 riages are spoken of. " Such marriages," says Mr. 
 Malthus, " must, to every delicate mind, appear little 
 " better than legal prostitutions, and they often bur- 
 '' den the earth with unnecessary children, without
 
 Chap. XXI.] IMPOLITIC. 371 
 
 " compensating for it by an accession of happiness 
 " and virtue to the parties themselves \" This passage 
 again refers to tlie higher ranks of life, and clearly 
 indicates that he does not require the postponement 
 of marriage from them. The preventive check is 
 meant for the poor only. 
 
 (8) But for whomsoever designed, or whatever it 
 implies, whether the postponement or the forbidding 
 of marriage be meant ; just as it obtains, it defeats 
 the order of nature, spreads vice and misery, and is 
 fatal to human happiness and prosperity. And it will 
 be the purpose of succeeding parts of this work to 
 shew that it does so gratuitously, encountering the 
 mischiefs which itself contemplates, without any pros- 
 pect whatsoever of effecting the object it has in view, 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 524. 
 
 2B 2
 
 372 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 OF THE PREVENTIVE CHECK : ITS DIMINUTION AS 
 POPULATION HAS INCREASED. 
 
 (1) With regard to wliat are called the direct 
 checks to population, it has been already, I hope, 
 most clearly shewn, that their influence and opera- 
 tion have greatly diminished as population has in- 
 creased. Indeed, the fact, as incontrovertible, has 
 been admitted by the most determined advocates of 
 the theory opposed. The business, therefore, of ad- 
 justing the numbers of human beings to their food, 
 and of repressing the former, so as to reduce them 
 to the level of the latter, is left to the increased 
 operation of what is called the preventive check. If, 
 therefore, this check also has diminished in its preva- 
 lence as population has increased, the fact must be 
 fatal to the entire theory in question. 
 
 (2) The great mass of every community consist- 
 ing of the lower classes, it is unnecessary to say 
 that the proof of the prevalence of the preventive 
 check must rest in shewing that it exists among 
 them. But it is, perhaps, one of the most singular 
 parts of the argument of the advocates of the pre- 
 vailing theory, alternately to assert and deny the 
 existence of the preventive check, as it is called, in 
 this immense class. When undeniable facts oblige 
 them to confess that the other and more direct checks 
 to population have greatly diminished in their opera- 
 tion, then it is requisite to state that the diminution 
 has been in consequence of the general observance of
 
 Chap. XXII.] THE PREVENTIVE CHECK. 373 
 
 this prudential restraint, as it is sometimes called. 
 When, on the contrary, it is necessary to shew that 
 the existing- evils of society are attributable to super- 
 fluous numbers, and to point out the remedy for them, 
 according- to their views, then do they inveigh against 
 the early and improvident marriages of the poor, and 
 their non-observance of the restraint in question ; 
 which, they moreover observe, little prevails as it 
 respects that class of society, any where. These 
 contradictions are palpable, but the system is made 
 up of them. When, however, the rights, feelings, or 
 interests of the lower classes are discussed, then are 
 their early marriages insisted upon, their reckless im- 
 providence arraigned, the criminality of their otherwise 
 honourable connexions pronounced; in a word, the 
 evil is declared to be so great, and the consequent 
 dangers so imminent, that the utter abrogation of the 
 poor-laws, as it respects the deserving, as well as the 
 profligate poor, is earnestly propounded as the only 
 effectual remedy. 
 
 (3) Now, still to keep our eye on the vast mass of 
 the community, with whom, in regard of their num- 
 bers, the national calculation must rest, it is necessary 
 to observe, that one of two circumstances must be the 
 fact. The labouring poor either marry early, or they 
 do not. If they do, the preventive check in this 
 country is a mere nonentity, notwithstanding all that 
 has been assumed regarding its negative effects. 
 Where, then, are the tremendous alternations which 
 the system under consideration presents as the only 
 remaining means of keeping down the frightful ten- 
 dency to excess in the population, as compared with 
 the food, of the country? Where are those bloody 
 and desolating wars, those sweeping pestilences, those 
 terrible famines, those horrible infanticides, which we
 
 374 , THE PREVENTIVE CHECK : [Book I. 
 
 are taught to believe would tlien be the necessary and 
 only conservators of the general happiness and plenty 
 of the community ? Where ! In the frightful systems 
 of the anti-populationists ; and, thank God, there 
 only ! 
 
 (4) But if the labouring poor do not marry early, 
 and the preventive check does prevail generally 
 among that class, what then becomes of those direct at- 
 tacks, and still more galling insinuations, against them 
 upon this head ? Let the labouring poor of England 
 have, at least, justice, from a system which delibe- 
 rately denies them mercy ! Let the anti-populationists 
 no longer head the false accusations against a class 
 which must, of consequence, be unspeakably meri- 
 torious in their eyes ; rather let it be acknowledged 
 that they postpone, if they do not finally forego, the 
 sole solace and comfort which fate awards them in 
 this life, (an infinitely greater sacrifice than the same 
 conduct could become in any other rank,) in order to 
 preserve their independence, or rather to avoid bur- 
 dening those for their occasional relief whom their 
 toils are constantly serving and enriching. Let it be 
 proclaimed that this meritorious rank, who are neither 
 philosophers, nor divines, nor economists, make a 
 greater and more disinterested sacrifice than any such; 
 that they cheerfully labour till the short span of their 
 life is still shortened by their toils, and, while so 
 doing, defraud the morning of their days of its only sun- 
 shine, that they may not cast a transient shade upon 
 the bright and lengthened day of prosperity which 
 their richer fellow-creatures enjoy. Regarding this 
 class, therefore, let it be the study of their betters to 
 benefit them ; instead of robbing; them of their birth- 
 right, and furnishing to hearts naturally too hard, 
 and seldom softened by prosperity, those arguments
 
 Chap. XXII.] ITS DIMINUTION. 375 
 
 which will ever be ready to present themselves to 
 justify neglect of the wretched and the desolate. In 
 a word, if, as it is assumed when the argument of the 
 theorists requires it, that the labouring poor do obey 
 the preventive check, how have they attempted to 
 reward this meritorious class, and how do they justify 
 their propositions concerning them? When their 
 theory has to be sustained, as it respects the country, 
 then its population are represented as obedient to the 
 preventive check ; when the national charity has to 
 be attacked, then they are as confidently asserted to 
 be regardless of it. It is high time that this duplicity 
 were abandoned ; it is injurious and discreditable. 
 
 (5) But the people of this country do marry, and 
 marry early. If this, under their circumstances, be a 
 crime, then " they are the most offending souls alive." 
 A single sum in arithmetic would go far to settle this 
 fact : having the number of annual marriages and the 
 amount of the population, we can soon arrive at the 
 proportion, and we shall find it to be great when com- 
 pared with that in almost any other country. But 
 this is not all : the superior longevity of the inhabitants 
 of England must be taken into the computation, when 
 it will be seen that the relative number of the weddings 
 is still greater. The error fallen into by our calculat- 
 ing anti-popidationists is great and palpable, and is 
 utterly subversive of the whole of their deductions on 
 this branch of the subject, and, indeed, of their entire 
 theory ; but as this is made matter of consideration in 
 a subsequent Book of this treatise, where the point 
 is discussed somewhat at large, I shall content myself 
 here with asserting, that the preventive check, gene- 
 rally speaking, does not prevail in England, all that its 
 advocates have said to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 
 (6) I have also to state that this check, instead of
 
 376 THE PREVENTIVE CHECK : [Book I. 
 
 increasing in its operation, as tlie population lias kept 
 augmenting, has regularly diminished in its influence : 
 but this decisive fact, likewise, will be fully substan- 
 tiated in the second volume of this work, to which 
 the numerical part of the argument will be principally 
 confined, and where it is believed the assertion will 
 be placed beyond the reach of doubt or cavil. 
 
 (7) But though I speak thus decisively regarding 
 the facts and calculations which will be given in proof 
 that the preventive check has greatly declined, and 
 that it hardly now exists in this country, still I am not 
 so confident that the conviction as to its folly and 
 wickedness will be so general, or that the knowledge 
 of its being almost obsolete may not induce some in- 
 veterate anti-populationists to wish and attempt its 
 revival. But how is this to be eflJected? " Aye ! there's 
 the rub!" To do so, by any direct means, would 
 speedily shake the pillars of our social system to their 
 very foundation. The time is gone past when such 
 experiments would be either prudent or possible. No 
 thanks to those, therefore, who inform us that they 
 would not interfere by any direct laws on the occasion ! 
 As well might you attempt to interdict the use of those 
 elements of nature which are still unappropriated, (be- 
 cause it is impossible to monopolize them,) as to inter- 
 fere with this sacred right of human beings. In times 
 past, laws have been framed, with such an intent ; but 
 even then they were wholly ineffectual. A puritan of 
 the 17tli century proposed their renewal under se- 
 verer penalties ; but, with a fairness of which the pre- 
 sent projectors have shown themselves incapable, he 
 did not propose that the wealthy should have un- 
 bridled licence, and the poor be solely restricted. He 
 exhorted that the business should be generally and 
 indeed nationally undertaken, with " divine and spi-
 
 Chap. XXII.] ITS DIMINUTION. 377 
 
 " ritual breathings after God, in the sense of our own 
 "• weakness." I have only to add, that such a sense 
 would not be wanting if the attempt were really made. 
 The saints, I mean the ancient and conscientious ones, 
 though moved by a strong and enthusiastic, but, I 
 think, mistaken feeling of religion, found, and have 
 fully recorded, a " sense of their own weakness," under 
 restraints voluntarily imposed. The commonalty, 
 sinners as they are, would, under any compulsory 
 restriction of the magistrate or the country, soon 
 find another sense besides that of their weakness — 
 that of their strength, and would rise against such an 
 outrage upon the rights of Nature and the laws of 
 God, and call their oppressors to an account as severe 
 as it would be certain. Nor would the consequences 
 be evaded, by the attempt being transferred to the 
 rising generation, as is the cowardly proposition of the 
 theory opposed. 
 
 (8) But lastly, what will the advocates of the 
 preventive check have to say, when they find that» 
 were their proposition relative to the postponement of 
 marriages, even to the extent they seem to wish, car- 
 ried into effect, the consequence would be any thing 
 rather than that which they so confidently anticipate ? 
 Nature, knowing the benevolence of her designs, has 
 secured their fulfilment against any meddling inter- 
 ruption or assault that durst be attempted. Allowing 
 to the check in question very ample range, (and still, 
 as it will be fully shown hereafter, the number of 
 children would by no means be diminished,) it would, 
 were it listened to, only " keep the word of promise 
 to the ear, and break it to the sense." Or if so far 
 imposed as to be operative, like all other forced and 
 unnatural remedies, it would relieve by ultimate de- 
 struction.
 
 378 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 ON THE CHECKS TO POPULATION: THEIR MORAL DEFENCE 
 CONSIDERED AND REFUTED. 
 
 (1) Before concluding this examination of tlie checks 
 to population, it seems necessary to notice an argu- 
 ment often put forth in their favour, which is intended 
 to reconcile them to the principles of natural and 
 revealed religion. 
 
 (2) An author, in the Supplement to the Encyclo- 
 pedia Britannica, who may be readily recognized as 
 Mr. Malthus, seeing the importance of the objection to 
 his theory, naturally arising from those principles as 
 hitherto understood, has attempted, very unsuccessfully, 
 as I think, to meet it. He admits, that if the principle 
 of population, as given forth by him, " impeaches the 
 " goodness of the Deity, and is inconsistent with the 
 *' letter and spirit of the Scriptures, the objection 
 " would be the most serious one which has been 
 " brought forward ; but the answer to it," he says, 
 " is very obvious, and it may be compressed into a 
 " very small compass ^" The sum of this answer is 
 as follow^s : — " The evils arising from the principle of 
 " population are exactly of the same kind as the evils 
 " arising from the excessive or irregular gratification 
 " of the human passions in general, and may be 
 " equally avoided by moral restraint." 
 
 (3) A more important series of fallacies, than ap- 
 
 ' Ency. Brit. Supp., Article Population.
 
 Chap. XXIII.] CHECKS TO POPULATION, &c. SJO 
 
 pear in this short sentence, were never crowded into 
 an equal space ; they are, however, so palpable that 
 the slightest notice may suffice for their full exposure. 
 The human passions, it hardly need to be remarked, 
 have their appointed and proper greitificatiou, through 
 which, it is equally clear, they conduce to individual 
 and general advantage : this doctrine, divines as well 
 as moralists have ever maintained, and Burke has 
 emphatically observed upon the injurious, as well as 
 wicked consequences which are the certain result of 
 attempting to interrupt their due enjoyment. As it 
 respects the sexual propensity; who ever found, in tiny 
 system whatever, excepting this, the notion put forth, 
 that the marriage state was either its " excessive or irre- 
 gular gratification," or that it was other than its pure, 
 lawful, and necessary consequence ? On the contrary, 
 it is the vices to which the prevention of marriage, 
 however accomplished, naturally leads, and which the 
 very system under examination contemplates, nay, even 
 palliates, as the consequences of its own proposal, vices 
 which are inevitable, whether contemplated there or 
 not, which constitute the " excessive and irregular 
 gratification " of this passion. When, therefore, this 
 author confounds the regular and proper use of the 
 state of matrimony, as dictated by the laws of God 
 and the institutions of civilization, with the excessive 
 and irregular gratification of human passions in 
 general, he reverses the whole system of morals and 
 religion. 
 
 (4) The restraining of marriage, under whatever 
 pretence, is never, in any part of the Scriptures, for 
 one moment sanctioned. On the contrary, the 
 primary command and blessing of the Deity are, 
 
 " INCREASE AND MULTIPLY ! " NoW, if We SO COn- 
 
 strue this positive command, as to make it an optional
 
 380 CHECKS TO POPULATION: [Book I. 
 
 one — (which, under the conditions Christianity im- 
 poses, it will be a difficult task to do) — still, can any- 
 one with the least claim to common sense interpret 
 it, in any instance, into a positive prohibition? Only 
 one similar method of exposition has, as far as I recol- 
 lect, ever yet been attempted, namely, that put upon 
 the command given by St. Paul to Timothy, that a 
 bishop should be the husband of one wife, which 
 is often construed, practically, into a law that he is 
 to be the husband of none. Again, on the same 
 authority to which this anti-population apologist 
 alludes, it is declared, that " marriage is honourable 
 in all : " he, however, pronounces it to be, in many 
 instances, the excessive and irregular gratification of 
 a mere passion ; and that it is, under circumstances 
 which, as he explains them, are almost universal, a 
 positive " sin." Elsewhere he deems it a pleasing- 
 proof of the truth of Christianity, that its doctrines thus 
 accommodate themselves to the varying circumstances 
 predicated in his system. That religion advances, 
 however, I think, a far more strong and permanent, 
 though, perhaps, to the anti-populationists, a less 
 "pleasing" claim to universal acceptance, in that its 
 principles and duties are settled, and that none of 
 them are mutable or transitory : that it does not, as one 
 of its brightest ornaments has observed, make " morals 
 ambulatory ^" In a word, nothing can be more con- 
 trary to reason, scripture, and truth, than the as- 
 sertion, that marriage is the irregular and excessive 
 gratification of the human passion which prompts it. 
 
 (5) But the writer previously alluded to, says, "It 
 " is almost universally acknowledged, that both the 
 " letter and the spirit of revelation represent this 
 " world as a state of moral discipline and probation." 
 
 * Sir Thomas Browne.
 
 Chap. XXIII.] THEIR MORAL DEFENCE REFUTED. 381 
 
 Certainly : but " the state of moral discipline and 
 probation," relative to this passion, is to preserve 
 purity both of mind and person, by means of mar- 
 riage, and not independent of it. And, according- to 
 the letter and spirit of revelation throughout, as well 
 as the inspiration of common sense, reinforced by 
 human experience, it is clear, that the appointed 
 means are as necessary to the end in this, as in all other 
 cases. The Church to which this author, it is pre- 
 sumed, belongs, is quite explicit upon this head ; and 
 it is for no other reason, than because of the conse- 
 quences which this ordinance averts, and the purity 
 which it ensures, that it denominates matrimony a 
 " holy state." And let not our political moralists 
 fear, but that if the remedy against one of the most 
 injurious and degrading of vices be adopted, there 
 will still remain sufficient trials and temptations, 
 especially as it regards the class mainly concerned, 
 to constitute this world '• a state of moral discipline 
 and probation." 
 
 (6) Revealed religion, if it justify its claims to 
 a divine origin, has left no new discoveries in the 
 science of morals to the political economists. The 
 duties it has clearly enunciated, demand, in order to 
 their due discharge, the utmost vigilance ; and, I 
 think, he acts the part of a very suspicious advocate 
 of Christianity, who would supplement the compre- 
 hensive catalogue of human virtues, which it enun- 
 ciates, by any new or more rigid observances. Such 
 additions may, perhaps, be denominated " virtues ;" 
 but, in their nature and effects, they will be found 
 vices. At all events, the preventive check is no 
 virtue of the code of Divine Revelation. 
 
 (7) That this check is no virtue is sufficiently 
 clear, in that its observance is unnatural, and,
 
 382 CHECKS TO POPULATION : [Book I. 
 
 wlietlier morally or physically regarded, injurious. 
 Enough, however, has been advanced on this head ; 
 I shall, therefore, only remark, that it is utterly im- 
 possible it should be sanctioned by the great Author 
 of nature, either in those laws which he has indicated 
 by the light of reason, or more fully expounded by 
 direct revelation. 
 
 (8) The duties of human beings, as revealed in 
 Scripture, may be clearly resolved into a series of 
 regulations, having a special regard to the well-being 
 of man here and hereafter. As it respects the Mosaic 
 dispensation, however, some of its laws have a peculiar 
 reference to the circumstances in which, for very im- 
 portant purposes, the Israelites were placed ; but 
 these were still not only conducive to their particular 
 advantage, but preparatory to the future welfare of the 
 human race. Now, as Judea was, as contemplated 
 by prophecy, what it afterwards assuredly became, 
 one of the most populous regions that ever existed ; 
 and as its surface, which was narrowly limited, was, 
 in many parts, irretrievably barren, if the principle 
 of population liad been that of nature, the evils, 
 moral and physical, to which it would have led, must 
 have been more severely felt, and more generally no- 
 ticed there, than in any country under the sun. How, 
 then, is it that the anti-populationists, who, lastly, 
 appeal to Revelation in favour of their theory, account 
 for the fact, that in no one part of the sacred records 
 is there the least recognition, direct or indirect, of the 
 " virtue " they enunciate ; and which, according to 
 their confident assertions, can alone save society from 
 the most appalling misery, and the most degrading vice? 
 How happens it that the very contrary conduct is 
 prescribed and enforced in every possible manner 
 whether as a sacred command and blessing ; as con
 
 Chap. XXIII.] THEIR MORAL DEFENCE REFUTED. 383 
 
 nected with promises of future happiness, individual 
 or general ; or as constituting, in its consequences, a 
 mark of the Divine complacency towards the nation at 
 large ? Why was it that all the institutions of the 
 Jews, re-inforced by their constant habits, should have 
 led directly to early and universal marriage, regard- 
 ing, as they did, human increase as the first of bless- 
 ings, whether personally or nationally considered; and 
 yet that they interdicted that increase when produced 
 by any other means than this sacred institution, visiting 
 the offence, when it occurred, with penalties unknown 
 ill any other code, human or divine^? If the principle 
 of population, as recently advanced, be true, never 
 could there be a system of policy more adverse to the 
 interests of human beings than that propounded by Re- 
 velation, its very virtues administering to the miseries 
 of mankind by results the most direct and irremediable. 
 (9) Much less does Christianity sanction the prin- 
 ciple of human superfecundity. Its doctrines are still 
 more irreconcileable with the consequences of that 
 theory. One text is quoted, and indeed so fre- 
 quently, as to show how few there are which can 
 by any possibility be tortured into an apparent 
 sanction of any of the views it entertains. " He that 
 will not work, neither let him eat." Does this mean, 
 then, that he that has no work, neither shall he eat ? 
 or, he that cannot work, therefore let him starve? 
 Part of an Epistle of St. Paul is also referred to in re- 
 spect to his advice to some of those whom he ad- 
 dressed, to remain as he then was, that is, unmarried ; 
 which advice he gives, as he himself explains, not of 
 commandment from God, but permissively ; and he 
 
 1 (( 
 
 There shall be no whore of the " congregation of the Lord; even to his 
 
 " daughters of Israel." — Dcut. xxiii., 17. "tenth generation, he shall not enter 
 
 See ch. xxii., 21, &c. " into the congregation of the Lord."— 
 
 " A bastard shall not enter into the Deut. xxiii. 2.
 
 384 CHECKS TO POPULATION : [Book I. 
 
 afterwards states his reason for so giving it to the 
 Corinthian Christians, namely, " because of the pre- 
 sent distress ;" the church being then under grievous 
 persecution. But his general direction touching what 
 is now termed the preventive check is decisive. " Ne- 
 " vertheless," he says, (notwithstanding the persecution 
 of this primitive church,) "to avoid fornication, let 
 " every man have his own wife, and let every woman 
 " have her own husband ;" a doctrine which he conti- 
 nues to enforce in the succeeding paragraphs. And 
 again, in giving his special instructions to Timothy, 
 he says, that even '' a bishop must be the husband of 
 " one wife ;" but as to the duty of marriage, more gene- 
 rally considered, he expressly declares himself; " I 
 " will therefore that the younger women marry and 
 " bear children." Finally, he leaves this solemn record 
 of his judgment regarding the preventive check, and, as 
 he professes, under the express sanction of the Spirit 
 of God, " the forbidding to marry is the doctrine of 
 " devils !" 
 
 (10) But we are enabled to appeal to the Divine 
 Author of our religion on this important point. It is 
 represented that moral restraint is an optional, indeed 
 it could not otherwise be a possible, virtue. But what 
 says the Saviour upon this precise subject ? Speaking 
 of abstinence from marriage, his doctrine is, " All 
 men cannot receive this saying," and he further- 
 more limits its application thus, " but they to whom 
 it is given." Now, to whom is it given ? Hear, ye 
 political moralists and anti-populationists, who pre- 
 sume to quote his Divine institution in behalf of your 
 corrupt system and its consequences ! — it is given to 
 those, and to those only, who, in a state of celibacy, can 
 " look upon a woman " without " lusting after her in 
 his heart." Now, be ye the judges how far your doc-
 
 Chap. XXIII.] THEIR MORAL DEFENCE REFUTED. 385 
 
 trine would, on strictly Christian principles, (and on 
 those only, let it be remembered, we are now arguing,) 
 limit population ! He left this matter, where it had 
 been more to the credit of our theorists had they left 
 it ; to the natural and moral feelings of those to whom 
 he addressed himself. They recommend a different, 
 and indeed an impossible course. 
 
 (11) I proceed. Immediately upon the promulga- 
 tion of this truth, we read that they (signifying, pro- 
 bably, the females, whom the, purity and benevolence 
 of his doctrines, and his discourse on the orio-in and 
 duties of the marriage state had, doubtlessly, attached 
 to him) brought infants to him. Did he, in the cant- 
 ing terms of the modern system, insultingly remind 
 the mothers of their selfishness, tell them that their 
 children burdened the world with " superfluous num- 
 bers ;" that they were, "comparatively speaking, of no 
 value ? " No. His disciples, indeed, rebuked them, 
 though on very different grounds ; but Jesus said, 
 " Suffer little children, and forbid them not. He took 
 *' them up in his arms and blessed them!" Political 
 economist, go and do thou likewise, or appeal no 
 longer to the religion of the lover and avenger of 
 little children. 
 
 (12) The author already quoted goes on to express 
 himself thus : " it follows, then, that the principle of 
 " population, instead of being inconsistent with Re- 
 " velation, must be considered as affordino; strong ad- 
 " ditional proofs of its truth;" and he further argues, 
 that the law of moral restraint which that principle 
 enjoins, is of such a nature as to reward those who 
 obey it with happiness both here and hereafter ; and 
 hence he infers that it accords with the views of a be- 
 nevolent Creator. And he lastly adds, that every in- 
 dividual has the power of avoiding the evil conse- 
 
 VoL. I; 2
 
 386 CHECKS TO POPULATION : [Book I. 
 
 quences to himself and society resulting from a con- 
 trary conduct, by the practice of a virtue dictated, as 
 he supposes, by the light of nature, and sanctioned by 
 revealed religion. It only needs to be observed that 
 the practice in question is contrary to the author's 
 own admissions, contrary to the unalterable laws of 
 Nature, and to the express declarations of Jesus Christ 
 himself. A duty, wholly impracticable as it respects 
 the great mass of the community, is a very singular 
 sort of virtue, and its reward here or hereafter a very 
 slight privilege. But the supposition is unworthy of 
 a further word. 
 
 (13) The consequences to which this pretended 
 virtue necessarily leads, have already been pointed 
 out ; let its advocates gainsay them if they deem it 
 possible so to do. 
 
 (14) On the whole, therefore, the Author of our 
 religion knew nothing of the principle of population 
 according to the prevailing notion on the subject. Its 
 one virtue he never once recognizes ; his doctrines 
 counteract its operation in the utmost possible degree, 
 while all the institutions of his church are such as to 
 lead to what the same system stigmatizes as the vices 
 most injurious to the interests and happiness of so- 
 ciety. The very feelings which Christianity inspires 
 and demands are utterly inconsistent with the letter 
 and spirit of the entire theory. While obeying the 
 commands, and practising the duties it enjoins, 
 amongst which the preventive check will be sought 
 for in vain, it reprehends that anxiety about the con- 
 tinued supply of the necessaries of existence, which 
 distrusts the wisdom or benevolence of the heavenly 
 Father, while the divine instructor, pointing to the 
 abundance wherewith the Universal Parent provides 
 for those of his creation, whose multiplication is evi-
 
 Chap. XXIII.] THEIR MORAL DEFENCE REFUTED. 387 
 
 dently unrestrained, founds thereon a visible demon- 
 stration that the power and benevolence of the Deity 
 stand engaged in a far higher degree to feed and clothe 
 those of his creatures to whom he has rendered the 
 rest of creation subservient. Unbounded charity, the 
 exercise of which our anti-populationists represent 
 as injurious, and, indeed, impossible, and would, 
 therefore, greatly restrict, he has pronounced to be 
 the first duty, and indeed business, of human beings. 
 Lastly, to that life of righteousness which he pre- 
 scribes, and with which the preventive check has 
 nothing to do, excepting, perhaps, often to pollute 
 it, he promises the addition of all that is needful — in 
 a word, happiness here and hereafter. But what says 
 another and a different authority? Without obedience 
 to the preventive check, he asserts that the universal 
 prevalence of every known virtue, in the greatest con- 
 ceivable degree, w^ould fail of rescuing society from the 
 most wretched and desperate state of want, and all 
 the diseases and famines which usually accompany it \ 
 The vice and impurity to which the main virtue of the 
 system necessarily leads, have been already dwelt 
 upon, and are wholly inconsistent with the doctrines 
 of religion. No two systems can be more opposite, 
 both in their letter and spirit, than that of Population, 
 as now expounded, and Christianity. 
 
 (15) But what is called " moral restraint," or the 
 " preventive check," though the worst, is, by no 
 means, the only check to population. Tlie rest com- 
 prise that catalogue of human crimes and calamities 
 which, it is held, long kept down the population of 
 the world to " the level of the means of subsistence ; " 
 and which, it is supposed, the prudential check has 
 not yet altogether superseded. These scourges of 
 
 ^ Malthus, Essay ou Population, p. 493. 
 
 2C2
 
 3S3 CHECKS TO POPULATION : [Book I. 
 
 human existence, as necessary regulators of tlie num- 
 bers of mankind, it is also agreed by some, are not 
 inconsistent with the wisdom or benevolence of the 
 Governor of the universe ; though such think that it is 
 a mere after-concern to " reconcile the undeniable 
 " state of the fact to the attributes we assign to the 
 " Deity." "The purpose of the earthquake," say 
 they, '' the hurricane, the drought, or the famine, by 
 " which thousands, and sometimes almost millions, of 
 " the human race, are at once overwhelmed, or left the 
 " victims of lingering want, is certainly inscrutable ^" 
 How singular is it that a sophism like this, so false, 
 as a mere illustration, should pass for an argument, 
 as it lias long done ! The principle of population 
 is declared to be naturally productive of evils to 
 mankind, and as having that constant and manifest 
 tendency to increase their numbers beyond the means 
 of their subsistence, which has produced the unhappy 
 and disgusting consequences so often enumerated. 
 This is, then, its universal tendency or rule. But 
 is there in Nature the same constant tendency to 
 these earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts, and fa- 
 mines, by which so many myriads, if not millions, 
 are overwhelmed or reduced at once to distress 
 and ruin ? No ; these awful events are strange ex- 
 ceptions to the ordinary course of things ; their visi- 
 tations are partial, and they occur at distant intervals 
 of time. While Religion has assigned to them a very 
 solemn office. Philosophy readily refers them to those 
 great and benevolent principles of Nature by which 
 the universe is reo-ulated. But were there a con- 
 stantly operating tendency to these calamitous occur- 
 rences ; did we feel the earth beneath us tremulous, 
 and <'ivinQ; ceaseless and certain tokens of the comino^ 
 
 ^ Dr. Rces's Cyclopaediaj in verb. Population.
 
 Chap. XXIII.] THEIR MORAL DEFENCE REFUTED. 3S9 
 
 catastrophe of nature ; were the hurricane heard 
 mustering' its devastating powers, and perpetually 
 muttering- around us; were the skies, "like brass," 
 without a cloud to produce one genial drop to refresh 
 the thirsty earth, and famine, consequently, visibly on 
 the approach ; I say, would such a state of things, as 
 resulting from the constant laws of Nature, be " recon- 
 cileable with the attributes we assign to the Deity," 
 or with any attributes which in these inventive days 
 could be assigned to him, so as to represent him as any 
 thing but the tormentor, rather than the kind bene- 
 factor, of his creatures? Life, in such a condition, 
 would be like the unceasingly threatened and miser- 
 able existence of Damocles at the table of Dionysius, 
 and the tyrant himself the worthy image of the deity 
 of the anti-populationists. 
 
 (16) Nor is the portraiture of this boasted argu- 
 ment of the modern theory yet complete ; forbidding 
 as it is, it wants its most disgusting and characteristic 
 feature, — its gross partiality. Let it be recollected, 
 that, practically, its restraints and inflictions affect 
 the poor only. To give, therefore, the foregoing 
 illustrations, which are to pass for arguments, the 
 slightest weight, it must be shewn that these catas- 
 trophes of Nature are not only constantly threatened 
 and inflicted, but that they are laid upon the most 
 suffering and defenceless part of mankind only. Do 
 then these convulsions thus discriminate ? Is wealth, 
 like iEneas with his golden bough, safe amidst the 
 surrounding horrors? Are the victims of poverty, 
 like another Korah's company, those alone whom 
 the earthquake would inhume ? Do the tempest and 
 the storm spare the lofty mansions, and sweep only 
 the lowly cottage to destruction? Is the "pestilence
 
 390 CHECKS TO POPULATION : [Book I. 
 
 which walketh in darkness," or the " arrow that fiieth 
 by noon-day," a respecter of the persons of the great? 
 If these strange and dreadful visitations must be 
 appealed to in favour of the system in question, let its 
 advocates at least learn from them the impartiality 
 with which the chastisements of Nature are inflicted. 
 Instead of thus acting, however, their remedial mea- 
 sures are all centered in interfering with the rights, 
 virtues, and happiness of poverty. These wise and 
 humane political anatomists would demonstrate on the 
 inferior animals only. 
 
 (17) If, therefore, the principle of population, 
 founded upon these checks, is true, and if they thus 
 operate with cruelty, corruptness, and partiality, 
 affecting principally, if not wholly, the poorer part of 
 the human race, then let us resign at once, and for 
 ever, our belief in that Being whose all-comprehending 
 attribute has hitherto been deemed to be goodness. 
 Let us no longer speak of that Providence, mysterious 
 indeed in its operations, and often inscrutable ; but 
 which, in its final results, is efl'ulgent in benevolence 
 and mercy ; beaming, upon all, the smile of the Eter- 
 nal, and equally sharing amongst his common offspring 
 the pleasures and the privileges of existence. The idea 
 of an all-superintending Power thus tempering his 
 various dispensations, and resolving the whole into 
 ordinations of equal and unerring benevolence, was 
 lovely and consoling, indeed ; but, if the system in 
 question is that of Nature, it is false. On the con- 
 trary, on this system nothing can then be less equal 
 than the government of the Deity. The poor, whom 
 the voice of reason, as well as of revelation, declares 
 we shall always have with us, have no legal part in the 
 distributions of his bounty ; and it is calmly recom-
 
 Chap. XXIII.] THEIR MORAL DEFENCE REFUTED. 391 
 
 mended that tliey slioidd be deserted. The most piti- 
 able of human bemg-s, who have hitherto been connected 
 in a peculiar manner with God, and remain so united in 
 every form of religion which prevails upon earth, are 
 to be robbed of their just rights, insulted as having 
 no business to live, and deprived of those common 
 privileges which Nature awards to the humblest 
 objects in existence. To them the innocent gratifica- 
 tions for which he that formed them adapted their 
 being, are to be denied ; an institution honourable in 
 all other conditions, and peculiarly necessary to theirs, 
 is interdicted to them, and, in innumerable cases, 
 pronounced a crime ; to which the severest conse- 
 quences are awarded. If the religion they have been 
 taught is true, the consequence of obeying this re- 
 straint will, in many instances, draw down upon them 
 the present displeasure, and future vengeance of 
 Heaven. Thus is it, that to rectify the different ratios, 
 the poorer part of our fellow-beings must be injured, 
 and the penalty awarded is such as will inflict misery 
 in both worlds : by this reciprocal operation of poli- 
 tical economy and religion, they are to be, 
 
 First starved in this, then damn'd in that to come. 
 
 (18) The effects which this system, when fully 
 imbibed, must necessarily have upon the heart, need 
 not be mentioned. " Assuredly the tendency of the 
 " doctrine is to diminish our sympathy with the poor, 
 " as a class, teaching us to consider them, in general, 
 " as improvident intruders ; and in the same propor- 
 " tion, its tendency is to furnish an apology to the 
 " selfish and the wealthy." That it must greatly 
 weaken, if not finally overthrow our reliance on the 
 Deity, and consequently our love and reverence for 
 him, is abundantly plain ; while its necessary conse-
 
 392 CHECKS TO POPULATION: [Book I. 
 
 quences must familiarise us witli those offences, 
 tvliicli the laws of God and man represent as ulti- 
 mately fatal to the moral character and welfai'e of 
 mankind. 
 
 (19) Nothing is there in the system more extraor- 
 dinary than the attempt to ingraft it upon religion. 
 Even the institutions of the Jews, which will be more 
 fully adverted to in a succeeding part of this work, 
 encouraged beyond those of any other nation, and in 
 every possible way, the increase of the people; and these 
 institutions Christianity not only spread through the 
 civilized world, but added those precepts, whether of 
 purity or benevolence, which so greatly contribute to 
 the increase and happiness of human beings. Its mis- 
 sion, " peace and good will towards men," imperfectly 
 as it has been obeyed, has yet, on the admission of its 
 very enemies, effected much, very much, and especially 
 in behalf of the humblest portion of the huinan race. 
 Above all, it has greatly weakened, and promises 
 finally to remove all those checks to population, on 
 which so much has been already said ; and as it has 
 in great measure subdued these pests of mankind, I ■ 
 challenge their advocates to shew that it has substi- 
 tuted any other. All the moral and many of the 
 natural evils of human life recede before its sacred 
 influence, while the real and appointed check to jdo- 
 pulation. Death, it forbids to be inflicted by the 
 cruelty, or precipitated by the neglect of man, and 
 not only mitigates and softens, but postpones the final 
 blow to a later period of existence — a religion this, 
 which not only multiplies mankind, but still more 
 largely increases their happiness and prosperity. 
 " Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left, 
 " riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasant-
 
 Chap. XXIII.] THEIR MORAL DEFENCE REFUTED. 393 
 
 " ncss, and all her paths are peace." Thus, as the 
 numbers of mankind have augmented, their morals 
 have improved, and their prosperity advanced with 
 equal steps, and the future prospects of society glow 
 with those still brighter hopes, equally predicted in 
 the dreams of philosophy, and the prophecies of reli- 
 gion. 
 
 (20) Finally, had the theory of human superfc- 
 cundity been founded upon truth, there might have 
 been some necessity for these laboured and unsuc- 
 cessful attempts to reconcile the principle and its 
 consequences with the doctrines and duties enun- 
 ciated by Christianity ; but the utter fallacy of the 
 proofs by which it is supposed to be demonstrated, a 
 branch of the argument on which we are now about to 
 enter, will shew that such attempts, by whomsoever 
 made, as it respects that religion, have been worse than 
 superfluous.
 
 BOOK 11. 
 
 OF THE THEORY OF HUMAN SUPERFECUNDITY: 
 ITS PRINCIPLE AS FOUNDED UPON THE POPU- 
 LATION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 AND OF CHINA, STATED AND DISPROVED.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IXTRODUCTOllY. 
 
 (1) The preceding book of this treatise has been 
 devoted to the refutation of the first principles of the 
 geometric theory of human increase, and to the detec- 
 tion of the fallacies in the proofs and illustrations 
 derived principally from ancient history, on which it 
 is founded. The present section vi^ill be exclusively 
 appropriated to the consideration of the facts relating- 
 to two existing countries of the world, which, it 
 is supposed, afford the demonstration of the same 
 principle, and constitute far the most important 
 part of the argument. Both these countries are im- 
 mense in territorial extent, and sufliciently fortunate 
 in their soil and climate. The one, however, is the 
 newest considerable nation existing, the other, per- 
 haps, the most ancient. In the former, the geometric 
 ratio of increase is represented as in full operation \ 
 indeed, the very existence of the theory is profes- 
 sedly thence deduced ^ : in the latter, the ultimate 
 effect of the principle is stated to have been produced ; 
 in a surcharge of inhabitants, excessive in reference 
 to their means of subsistence, and restrained from fur- 
 ther increase by that universal misery and that execra- 
 ble vice, which are asserted to prevail throughout, and 
 triumphantly appealed to in proof of what is called 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, * jvi-jithus, Letter to Godwin, p. 122, 
 pp.4, 338, 339, &c.
 
 398 INTRODUCTORY. [Book II. 
 
 " the principle of population ^" The countries in 
 question are America and China, and thus is it that 
 the system I am opposing, placing one foot on the old, 
 and the other on the new world, lifts up its hateful 
 front to Heaven, whose mercies it underrates, and 
 whose laws it contemns, and tramples on the dearest 
 feelings, and most valuable rights, of human beings, 
 or rather upon those of the poor and the wretched : a 
 system which, investing itself with pretended proofs 
 and demonstrations, assumes the attitude and sem- 
 blance of substantial truth, and delivers forth those 
 pretended axioms which have been more injurious to 
 the cause of humanity, than any ever propounded, 
 whether in the heathen or Christian age of the world. 
 Frightful, however, as it appears, we shall proceed to 
 prove it but a phantom, and that its pretended founda- 
 tions are rottenness and delusion. 
 
 (2) In the enunciation of any new theory, more 
 especially such as wound the feelings, and contradict 
 the settled opinions of mankind, great care ought un- 
 doubtedly to be taken, that the facts upon which they 
 are founded should be fully known and authenticated, 
 and fairly given to the public. Such, however, has 
 not been the case respecting the present argument. 
 Information regarding the early population of Ame- 
 rica, of an official nature, is in existence ; and recent 
 Censuses of China have been several times taken and 
 made known, utterly subversive of the pretended 
 proofs of the principle of population ; and yet not the 
 slightest notice has been taken of documents of so 
 authoritative and decisive a character ; an omission, I 
 fear, fatal to the pretensions of those, who, without the 
 knowledge of such facts, or otherwise while sup- 
 pressing them, have so confidently arraigned the laws 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay oa Population, b. i., chap, xii., on China, passim.
 
 Chap. I.] INTRODUCTORY. 399 
 
 of Nature, and built their pretended demonstrations 
 upon the progress and condition of the population in 
 these very countries. These omissions 1 shall pro- 
 ceed to supply, and shall accompany, in each case, 
 the direct proofs which will thus be given of the entire 
 fallacy of the system in question, with corresponding 
 evidence to the same effect, drawn from more general 
 sources of information. 
 
 (3) The necessity of examining this part of the 
 subject at considerable length, and with the utmost 
 attention, is manifest, from the importance attached to 
 it by those who found upon it those conclusions which 
 it is the purport of this work to overturn. Thus, 
 regarding America, the principal advocate of the geo- 
 metric theory asserts it to be " proved the moment 
 American increase is related V' ^s he says the arith- 
 metical one was as " soon as it was enunciated." 
 Assertions like these, which, to use an expression of one 
 of our poets, " throw conclusions at us in the lump," 
 are, it is true, far more easily made than refuted, 
 as it always takes ten times the pains to detect the 
 most obvious fallacy as it does to declare it; never- 
 theless, in the cause of truth and humanity, I shall 
 attempt to shew, and I hope, satisfactorily, that the 
 stronghold of the system opposed, " is a refuge of 
 lies." 
 
 (4) Regarding America, in the first place, let us 
 attend to the facts which it will be requisite to ad- 
 vance and substantiate, before the geometric theory 
 of human increase, which it is so confidently asserted 
 that country exemplifies and proves, can be ascertained 
 or contradicted. They are these: First, it will be ne- 
 cessary to obtain, at some early period of its history, 
 the actual amount of the population. Second, it will 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population.
 
 400 INTRODUCTORY. [Book II. 
 
 be equally essential to the calculations, to learn the na- 
 ture and amount of the accessions to that population, 
 which are known to hcive been, in this instance, great 
 and unceasing. It will, then, be satisfactory to con- 
 firm the results thus obtained, and the effects dedu- 
 cible from them, by facts and observations generally 
 recorded ; and to shew them to be not only irrecon- 
 cileable to what is called " the principle of popula- 
 tion," but fully confirmatory of another and a better 
 system. Previously, however, to entering upon these 
 more important parts of the argument, I shall exa- 
 mine, somewhat particularly, the statement put forth 
 by the anti-populationists, touching the progress of 
 population in certain states of North America, on 
 which the theory they advocate is solely founded.
 
 401 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF THE ERRONEOUSNESS OF THE SUPPOSED FACTS AND 
 DEDUCTIONS RELATIVE TO PARTICULAR STATES OF AME- 
 RICA, ON WHICH THE GEOMETRIC THEORY IS FOUNDED. 
 
 (1) Before I proceed to the consideration of more 
 important parts of the present argument, I shall exa- 
 mine, as succinctly as possible, the particular proofs 
 (and they are the only ones) of the geometric theory 
 of human increase, — being those derived from the pro- 
 gress of population in particular States in North Ame- 
 rica. These, though often repeated during more than 
 a generation past, and, hitherto, uncontradicted, are 
 totally fallacious ; and it is high time the public were 
 disabused regarding them. The facts, however, which 
 will be brouo:ht forward in some of the succeeding' 
 chapters, would have rendered the present more par- 
 ticular examination of these fallacies unnecessary ; but 
 their detection will not only demolish the erroneous 
 theory of population ; it will prepare the foundation 
 for another and a better system. 
 
 (2) The pretended proofs are these, and, I repeat, 
 they are the only ones I have ever yet seen advanced. 
 '^ Throughout all the northern provinces " (of America) 
 " the population was found to double itself in twenty- 
 " five years. The original number of persons which 
 " had settled in the four provinces of New England, in 
 " 1643, was 21,200. Afterwards, it was calculated 
 " that more left them than went to them. In the year 
 " 1760, they were increased to half a million. They 
 
 Vol. I. 2D
 
 402 ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS [Book II, 
 
 " had, therefore, all along, doubled their number in 
 " twenty-five years. In New Jersey, the period of 
 " doubling appeared to be twenty-two years ; and, in 
 " Rhode Island, still less. In the back settlements, 
 " where the inhabitants applied themselves solely to 
 " agriculture, and luxury was not known, they were 
 " supposed to double their number in fifteen years. 
 " Along the sea-coast, which was naturally the first 
 " inhabited, the period of doubling was about thirty- 
 " five years ; and, in some of the maritime towns, the 
 " population was absolutely at a stand. From the late 
 " census made in America, it appears, that, taking all 
 " the States together, they have still continued to dou- 
 *' ble their numbers every twenty-five years. And as 
 " the whole population is now so great, as not to be 
 " materially afiected by the emigrations from Europe, 
 " and as it is known that, in some of the towns and 
 " districts near the sea-coast, the progress of population 
 " has been comparatively slow, it is evident, that in 
 " the interior of the country, in general, the period of 
 " doubling, from procreation only, must have been con- 
 " siderably less than twenty-five years ^" I will only 
 add, that these statements were put forth many years 
 ago, and are still repeated, and the ratio of increase 
 contended for, it is now said, is " demonstrated " to be 
 independent of foreign accessions. 
 
 (3) I shall first observe, on certain parts of this 
 statement, that the assertions that the population of 
 the maritime towns is at a stand, is incorrect, and that 
 the inhabitants in the back settlements ever doubled 
 themselves in fifteen years, is impossible ; as will be 
 fully shewn in the first chapters of the next book of 
 this treatise. 
 
 (4) First, as it respects New England generally : 
 
 ^ Malthus, Essay ou Population; pp. 338, 339.
 
 Chap. II.] RELATIVE TO NORTH AMERICA. 403 
 
 this part of the United States, as forming the basis of 
 American population, will be more particularly exa- 
 mined, in reference to this subject, in the ensuing 
 chapter, in which it will be seen on how incorrect a 
 basis the preceding- calculation is founded; in the 
 mean time, I will remark here, that had I wanted a 
 disproof of the theory I am opposing, I could not 
 have wished for one of a more decisive character than 
 that afforded by this very province. Let us continue 
 the proof by means of those facts which time has since 
 afforded. Assuming the statement made above to be 
 true, and that there were, in 17G0, in those States, 
 500,000 inhabitants, there ought to be, at the end 
 of other five years, from the present time (1830,) 
 4,000,000 people, that is, according to the geo- 
 metric ratio ; whereas, there were, in 1820, 1,424,090 
 only, and they were increasing after the rate of 13^ 
 per cent, only decennially. Since the censuses have 
 been accurately taken, the population of New Eng- 
 land, including the States of Maine and Vermont, has 
 augmented as follows ^ : — 
 
 1790 .... 992,505 
 1800 .... 1,214,286 
 1810 . . . . 1,452,007 
 1820 .... 1,038,435 
 Which numbers give an increase during the first de- 
 cenniary of rather more than 22 per centum ; in the 
 second, of upwards of 19 ; while that of the third, was 
 still further diminished to less than 12 per centum ; 
 disproving therefore, at once, any geometric ratio of 
 increase whatsoever, and indicating a happier prin- 
 ciple of population, which will be developed and 
 proved hereafter. If the population in 1700 was 
 500,000, the increase between that period and 1790, 
 
 ^ National Calendars. 
 
 2 D2
 
 404 ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS [Book II. 
 
 indicated a period of doubling of about 30 years; 
 from 1790 to 1800, that term had enlarged to about 
 35 years; from 1800 to 1810, to 40 years; and the 
 last, namely, from 1810 to 1820, it had still further 
 lengthened, and had become 60 years. 
 
 (5) Should it be objected to this total disproof of 
 the theory under examination, as founded upon the 
 population of New England, that increasing misery 
 has checked the natural progress of human increase 
 in its States, the supposition would be negatived by 
 another series of statistical facts, equally striking 
 and conclusive. The increase of prosperity has not 
 merely kept pace with, it has greatly exceeded that 
 of the population, amongst whom we are assured 
 the preventive check does not exist at all ^, and it may 
 be added, that they are as little chargeable with that 
 kind and degree of vice which could injure the procrea- 
 tive faculties, as, probably, any community upon earth^. 
 
 (6) " In New Jersey the period of doubling ap- 
 peared to be 22 years.' This assertion is taken from 
 Dr. Price, who states, that in 1738, the number of in- 
 habitants there was taken by order of government, 
 " and found to be 47,3G9. Seven years afterwards, 
 " the number of inhabitants was again taken, and 
 " found to be increased by procreation only, above 
 '' 14,000" (or 61,403) ^ This remark, " by procrea- 
 tion only," I deny, simply because it is impossible to be 
 true, as I shall shew. Further observations are there- 
 fore, perhaps, unnecessary. I may, however, notice, 
 that the population, other eighteen years afterward, 
 namely, in 1763, was still only stated as being " more 
 than sixty thousand*." What should have hindered 
 
 * Dr. Seybert, Statistical Annals, a j)^ Price, Revers. Payments, vol. i., 
 
 r- 52. pp. 27G, 277. 
 
 2 See Dr. Dwight's character of the ■* Dr. Holmes,' American Annals, 
 
 New Eiiglanders — Travels passim. vol. ii., p. 222.
 
 Chap. II.] RELATIVE TO NORTPI AMERICA. 40d 
 
 procreation from being- as productive in the latter 
 term as in the former? But to calculate upon the 
 whole population in 1745 ; this amounted to 5G, 797, 
 which, doubled twice, would give 227,188 : the white 
 population of that State, in 1810, was found to be 
 226,868 ; having doubled nearly twice, therefore, in 
 65years. In 1820, the white inhabitants of the same 
 State were 257,409 : the period of a single doubling 
 is now, therefore, lengthened to above 56 years. Mr. 
 Malthus calculates the progress of his ratios, three 
 centuries forward ^ ; in following whose example, we 
 may soon see the immense disparity between his 
 theory and facts. Did the population of New Jersey 
 double every 22 years as asserted, then, commencing 
 with the date Dr. Price first mentions, and carrying 
 the computation forward to 2090, there ought, theo- 
 retically, to be three times as many inhabitants as 
 there are, probably, individuals on the face of the 
 earth ^ ; whereas, according to the actual rate of in- 
 crease, there would not exist as many on the same 
 space as there are, at the present moment, in some of 
 the provinces of the Netherlands ^. This computation 
 is made on the actual and present rate of increase, but 
 that rate will diminish as the population advances, 
 even without the intervention of the checks to popu- 
 lation ; as will be proved hereafter. 
 
 (7) Rhode Island is lastly particularised in the 
 foregoing statement. It is said, that the period of 
 doubling was still " less than in New Jersey," where 
 it is represented to have been 22 years ; if, therefore, 
 we assume 20 years as what is meant, we shall take 
 no unwarrantable liberties with the text. Respecting 
 this State, a few preliminary observations are called for. 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Poimlation, p. 5. ^ Namely, 8,233,088 in 2100. 
 
 2 Namely, 2,843,313,936.
 
 408 ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS [Book II. 
 
 (8) Certainly, a more favourable district in wliicli 
 to exemplify, to its fullest possible extent, the effects 
 of procreation only, in augmenting population, could 
 hardly have been imagined. Rhode Island, it ap- 
 pears, is one of the most temperate and equable 
 climates in the v\^hole Union \ to which the citizens 
 from the south constantly resort for health ^ ; endemi- 
 cal diseases are very rare ^, and epidemics, the yellow 
 fever for instance, are unknown ^. Volney observes, 
 that were he to select the most favourable spot in 
 America, as the place of his abode, his choice would 
 fall there ^ ; and Morse has denominated it, the Eden 
 of America*'. In this State, according to the last 
 census, there were still only 48^'Lg_ individuals to a 
 square mile"; consequently, there must be abundant 
 scope for agricultural pursuits, to which, we are in- 
 formed, the soil is highly favourable, especially the 
 pasturage ; advantages of which the inhabitants fully 
 avail themselves, as the " large and wealthy farmers 
 raise some of the finest neat cattle in New England ;" 
 are famous for their breed of horses, and export the 
 other products of their pasturage, in large quantities, 
 and of the finest quality^. Nor are there no other em- 
 ployments than agricultural ; on the contrary, this State 
 is the seat of the most flourishing manufactures in the 
 Union^, having, for instance, more than 100 cotton-mills 
 already established ^'^. Its fisheries might be rendered 
 highly productive ; indeed, its capital is now said to be 
 " the best fish market in the v/orld ^^" Its position is 
 
 ' Warden, Statistical Acct. of the ^ Morse, Geog., p. 340. 
 
 United States, vol. i., p. 457. ^ American Census, 1820. 
 
 ^ Ibid,, p. 459. * Morse, American Geog., p. 343. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 459. Morse, Parish Hist. '^ Ibid , p. 344. Carey and Lea, Geog., 
 
 N. England. &c., p. 117. 
 
 ^ Warden, Statistical Account, &c., '" Malte-Brun, Geog., b. Ixxix., 
 
 vol. i., p. 459. p. 176. 
 
 ^ Volney, View of the Climate and " Morse, Geog., p. 340. 
 Soil of the United States.
 
 Chap. II.] RELATIVE TO NORTH AMERICA. 407 
 
 peculiarly favourable for tlie shipping trade, in all its 
 branches ; and, as a celebrated writer observes, by its 
 excellent harbours, and easy access to the ocean, it is 
 admirably fitted for foreign commerce, in which it is 
 actively engaged \ As to the inhabitants, the Ame- 
 rican writers inform us, that they exhibit a marked 
 superiority. " Their general appearance," says 
 Warden, " indicates health and strength, and bears 
 " evidence of the salubrity in the climate. The wo- 
 " men, especially," he adds, " have long been cele- 
 " brated as among; the finest in the United States^." 
 Not supposing that the people of Rhode Island are free 
 from all those troubles and miseries which "flesh is heir 
 to," I must contend, nevertheless, that in possession 
 of all these great advantages, few parts of the earth 
 could have been better chosen than this State, wherein 
 to exhibit the proof of the geometric theory of human 
 increase, had any such principle been in existence ; 
 and it has been so chosen, and it is consequently 
 given, as the climax of the proofs of American proli- 
 ficness. 
 
 (9) Let us now examine how this State justifies 
 the appeal made to it in favour of the geometric 
 theory. In the last cited instance, that of New Jersey, 
 the absurdity of that theory was exposed by a prospec- 
 tive view of its effect, compared with that which must 
 result from a continuance of the existino- rate of in- 
 crease there ; as it respects Rhode Island, the same 
 argument will be presented, but in a less debatable 
 form, namely, retrospectively. The progress of popu- 
 lation has been more frequently and exactly enume- 
 rated in this, than in any other of the States ; a 
 circumstance which will enable us to exhibit the dif- 
 
 ' Warden, Statistical Account of the - IbM, vol. i., p. 476. 
 United States, vol. i., p. 476.
 
 408 
 
 ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 ference between the theory of population, even in the 
 very province chosen for its demonstration, and matter 
 of fact. 
 
 Table I. 
 
 Shewing the Difference between the Geometric and the 
 
 Actual Ratio of Increase in Rhode Island, 
 
 United States. 
 
 Years of 
 Doubling. 
 
 Geometric 
 Theory. 
 
 Years of 
 
 Censuses. 
 
 Actual 
 Fact. 
 
 1730 
 
 17.935 
 
 1730 
 
 17.933 
 
 
 
 1748 
 
 32.773 
 
 1750 
 
 35,870 
 
 
 
 
 
 1761 
 
 40.636 
 
 1770 
 
 71.740 
 
 
 
 
 
 1774 
 
 59.678 
 
 1790 
 
 143.480 
 
 1790 
 
 68.825 
 
 
 
 1800 
 
 69.122 
 
 1810 
 
 28C.960 
 
 1810 
 
 76.931 
 
 
 
 1820 
 
 83.038 
 
 1830 
 
 573.920 
 
 
 
 This table requires no comment. It merely exhibits 
 the theory and the truth in close contact. In the 
 space of 90 years only the former has outrun the latter 
 about five-fold ; or, excluding the coloured popula- 
 tion altogether, as not w^orthy to exemplify the prin- 
 ciple of human increase, far above four times over. 
 
 (10) Were I to go back to the state of the colony 
 in 1680, I could easily shew from the answers of 
 Governor Peleg Sandford to the Committee of Planta- 
 tions at home, cautious as they are, that it never had 
 increased in the ratio attributed to it, even including
 
 Chap. II.] RELATIVE TO NORTH AMERICA. 409 
 
 all its foreign accessions ^ To this point, however, 
 I shall not at present advert ; especially, as it appears 
 quite clear, that it is upon the increase between the 
 first and second periods, particularized in the above 
 table, that the assertion, that Rhode Island doubled 
 in less than 22 years, is founded. Immaterial as it is 
 to attend to this circumstance, as far as my argument, 
 already so abundantly triumphant, regarding this 
 colony, is concerned ; still, I will seize the occasion 
 (though many others will be afforded) of shewing the 
 nature of the demonstrations of those anti-popula- 
 tionists who have, either ignorantly or deceptiously, 
 presented this and similar proofs of the truth of their 
 theory. There had been, in the interim, a large ac- 
 cession of territory and of inhabitants, ceded from the 
 State of Massachusetts to that of Rhode Island. But 
 to give the facts in the words of Dr. Douglas, — " The 
 " valuation or census, anno 1730, was, whites 15,302, 
 '' blacks 1684, Indians 985 ; in all, 17,935. The va- 
 " luation, anno 1748, was, whites 28,439, blacks 3,077, 
 " Indians 1257 ; in all, 32,773. From these deduct 
 " Bristol, Tiverton, Little Compton, Warren, and 
 " Cumberland, a late addition taken from the jurisdic- 
 " tion of Massachusett's Bay, and added to Rhode 
 " Island colony, of 4196 whites, 343 blacks, and 228 
 " Indians, remain 24,243 whites, which is an increase 
 "of near 9000 whites upon 15,500, in 18 years; 
 " that is more than one-third increased in the space 
 "of 18 years ^." So far Douglas, who, moreover, 
 only records facts of universal notoriety ^ Our theo- 
 rists, however, have made it out to their satisfaction, 
 that the population of Rhode Island actually doubled 
 
 ' Chalmers, Polit. Annals, pp. 283 and ^ Douglas, Summary, vol. ii., pp. 89, 90. 
 
 284. — "As for horse, we have hut few, ^ Holmes, Amer. Ann., vol. ii., p. 15G. 
 
 " bvit the chief of our militia consists of Adams' Letters, xvii. Brit. Emp. iji 
 
 " ten companies of foot/' &c. &c. N. Amcricaj vol. ii., p. 145.
 
 410 ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS [Book II, 
 
 in less than 22 years, by procreation only. So mucli 
 for either the intellig'ence or the candour of their de- 
 monstrations. Just upon this principle do they pro- 
 ceed in calculating the natural increase of the whole 
 American and Russian population. Accessions of 
 territory and inhabitants are totally overlooked. Quite 
 as convincing' a method of demonstrating the " power 
 of population " is it, as though, in estimating English 
 increase by procreation only, I were at once to take the 
 population of British Hindostan into the account. 
 
 (11) It may seem superfluous to pursue the 
 subject ; but in dealing with an argument which is 
 perpetually appealing to futurity, it is perhaps ne- 
 cessary to do so. Calculating, then, the increase by 
 the ratio that has prevailed during the last thirty 
 years, a hundred years hence, there would be, in 
 Rhode Island, somewhat above 300,000 inhabitants, 
 or about half the number on the square mile that there 
 is now in England : whereas, reckoning from the date 
 with which the theorists commence, their ratio 
 threatens them with a population of more than six 
 hundred millions at that, comparatively speaking, 
 early period. 
 
 (12) I had constructed a table, in which was col- 
 lected all the information accessible to me, shewing 
 that, with respect to this State, the ratios so much 
 referred to ought to be reversed ; inasmuch as, dur- 
 ing the period in question, the population had in- 
 creased only arithmetically, while the elements, or 
 at least the indications, of plenty and prosperity had 
 actually multiplied geometrically. The results were 
 curious enough ; they are, however, omitted, as su- 
 perfluous to the general argument. 
 
 (13) As to the assertion, that the period of dupli- 
 cation in the back settlements, from procreation only,
 
 Chap. II.] RELATIVE TO NORTH AMERICA. 411 
 
 was only fifteen years, tliat will be dealt with in the 
 first chapter in the ensuing Book, in which the possi- 
 bility of that, and far more extended terms, will be 
 distinctly disproved. 
 
 (14) Thus, then, is it, that these particular States 
 prove, by the force of incontrovertible facts, directly 
 the contrary to that for which they are appealed to. 
 No error was ever more great or palpable, though, it is 
 true, none was ever more tenaciously maintained, or 
 more frequently asserted, than that any of them have 
 ever continued to double their numbers by procrea- 
 tion only, or indeed by any other means, in the slow- 
 est rate mentioned, or indeed in any geometrical ratio 
 whatsoever. I am well aware of the way in which the 
 force of the, otherwise inevitable, conclusion is evaded : 
 though, in a system which maintains that emigration 
 has little or no effect, either in ultimately lessening 
 the community it leaves, or in increasing that to which 
 it proceeds, it must be rather tacitly relied on, than 
 ostensibly put forth. Nearly a hundred years ago, it 
 will be hereafter seen, another reason, for the compara- 
 tively slow rate of increase then visible, was put forth. 
 Now, when explained at all, it is exclusively attributed 
 to emigration to the newer States. That this may 
 have had some influence, I will not dispute; but that 
 it has occasioned an effect to cease which never ex- 
 isted, may be confidently denied. It is rather amusing 
 to see to what shifts some of the American assertors of 
 the natural increase of the population of their respec- 
 tive States are put, when accounting for the facts to 
 which I have been adverting. For instance, Mr. 
 Warden, speaking of Connecticut, explains the cir- 
 cumstance in reference to that province, by stating, 
 that at least from 12,000 to 15,000 persons emigrate
 
 412 ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS [Book II. 
 
 annually tlience to the other territories of the Union ^ 
 In other words, admitting the correctness of another 
 statement of his, that in that prolific region there is 
 annually one birth to every twenty inhabitants^, he 
 informs us that, annually, many thousand more indi- 
 viduals emigrate from that State, than arrive at the 
 as'e of discretion, nay, than are even born in it ! An 
 opinion, nevertheless, more reasonable than others of 
 his, upon the same subject, that will be hereafter no- 
 ticed. On similar absurdities are the whole of these 
 pretended demonstrations founded. 
 
 (15) But supposing, for a moment, that, in one 
 and the same countr}^, emigration shall have no per- 
 ceptible effect on the population, and yet migration a 
 most powerful one, and allowing the argument to be 
 transferred from the States selected as its proofs, but 
 in which it has totally failed, to all the original States 
 of the Union, even then the geometric ratio of increase 
 cannot be substantiated. The population in these old 
 States (including Vermont and Maine) was, in 1790, 
 3,070,102; in 1800, 3,975,667; in 1810, 4,962,461; 
 and in 1820, 6,010,466^: giving, therefore, an in- 
 crease, in the first period, of 29 per centum ; in the 
 second, of 25; and in the last, of 21 per centum ; or 
 multiplying in the first at a rate which would double 
 the numbers in 27 years, in the second in 31 years, 
 and in the third in 36 years. 
 
 (16) Nay, if we give the argument such a latitude 
 as to render it ridiculous, transferring the compu- 
 tation to the utmost extent of the Union, include in it 
 all the late cessions, both of territory and inhabitants 
 from whatever country, and drop, in its progress, all 
 
 ' Warden, Statistical Account of the in Connecticut, vheu lie ^^Tote, to be 
 United States, vol. ii., p. 10. 255,179. Vol.ii., p. 10. 
 
 - Mr, Warden makes the popiiktiou ^ National Calendars.
 
 Chap. II.] RELATIVE TO NORTH AMEPaCA. 413 
 
 recollection of tlie emigrations whence tlie newer 
 provinces have almost exclusively sprung, still the 
 theory fails. There were, of white inhabitants, in 
 the whole of the United States in 1790, 3,093,111; 
 in 1800, 4,309,650; in 1810, 5,862,093; and in 
 1820, 7,861,710 \ The increase, in the first term, 
 being 39 per cent. ; that in the second, 36 per cent. ; 
 and that in the third and last, 33 per cent. It is super- 
 fluous to say, that it is utterly impossible to deduce the 
 geometric theory of human increase, whatever be the 
 period of duplication, from such terms as these. 
 
 (17) Hitherto, however, the argument has been 
 pursued in reference to those proofs only, which the 
 advocates of that theory have chosen to select, to the 
 rejection of others of a far more authentic and import- 
 ant character; and still these deductions have been 
 fully disproved. But this mode will be pursued no 
 longer. The facts which have been either suppressed 
 or contradicted, will be brought forward and sub- 
 stantiated ; and those which have been misrepresented 
 will be rectified. The early population of New Eng- 
 land, which has been so grossly underrated, and that 
 of the colonies generally, which has been carefully 
 overlooked, will be ascertained ; and also the exist- 
 ence and extent of emigration to both, which has been 
 denied at one period, and only acknowledged at ano- 
 ther — when it was supposed it could be pronounced 
 immaterial — will be enquired into somewhat at large, 
 as most essential to the determination of the entire 
 question. It will then be seen, that the theory of 
 human superfecundity, as founded on the history and 
 progress of American population, is one of the most 
 palpable sophisms that ever imposed upon the under- 
 standing, or deadened the feelings of mankind. 
 
 ' National Calendars.
 
 414 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF THE ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS RELATIVE TO THE AMOUNT 
 
 OF THE EARLY POPULATION OF AMERICA. THAT OF 
 
 THE NEW ENGLAND STATES ASCERTAINED. 
 
 (1) Mr. Townsend and Mr. Maltlius, copying from 
 Dr. Price, and the latter frorti Dr. Styles and Dr. 
 Franklin, have asserted that the period of doubling, 
 from natural causes only, is, and has been, in the 
 New England States of North America, twenty-five 
 years only. With the latter writers this opinion was 
 a pardonable, if not a praiseworthy, error ; inasmuch 
 as it was adopted to favour their views regarding the 
 multiplication of human beings, which they identified 
 with the increase of universal happiness : as it regards 
 the former, they seized upon the same supposition for 
 a diametrically opposite purpose, to prove that in- 
 evitable evils result from the principle of population, 
 and the consequent necessity of checking its progress ; 
 views which have not infested the philosophy of the 
 country merely, but its policy and humanity. Hence 
 the necessity of refuting notions which might other- 
 wise have been suffered to remain unquestioned 
 amongst innumerable other visionary speculations, 
 which, while evincing, perhaps, the weakness, have 
 still more exalted the moral excellence, of the human 
 mind, by displaying its enthusiastic and restless 
 benevolence. The fundamental principles of policy 
 and religion are, however, changed, and human
 
 Chap. III.] ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS, &c. 415 
 
 beings are now called upon to prove, by calculation, 
 that tliey are not nuisances to each other and to their 
 country. 
 
 (2) These are the terms in which the first cited 
 author has summed up the argument, or rather the 
 assertion, on which his system is founded, at least as 
 it respects the New England States. " The original 
 " number of persons which had settled in the four 
 " provinces of New England, in 1643, was 21,200. 
 " Afterwards, it was calculated, that more left them 
 " than went to them. In the year 1760, they were 
 " increased to half a million. They had, therefore, 
 " all along, doubled their number in twenty-five 
 " years \" Other States are instanced as proving a 
 still more rapid duplication. From a review of the 
 whole, it is concluded that " the period of doubling 
 " from procreation only" (throughout the United 
 States) " must have been considerably less than 
 " twenty-five years ^." 
 
 (3) Before I proceed to the more particular con- 
 sideration of the subject, I must notice, in the outset, 
 an error which, from what cause soever introduced, is 
 fatal to the entire argument, and consequently to the 
 system founded upon it. Supposing that the sum 
 total of the emigrants to these States, from their first 
 settlement, had amounted to 2 1,200 only, a fact which 
 I neither admit nor believe, still that number is evi- 
 dently exclusive of their increase up to the date spe- 
 cified, though the colonies had then been settled up- 
 wards of twenty-three years, and principally, we may 
 be assured, by individuals in the prime of life, whose 
 rapid additions to the increase of any community need 
 hardly be proved. Still, from the birth of Peregrine 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Ponulatiou, ^ Ibid., p. 339. 
 p. 338. *
 
 416 ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS [Book II. 
 
 White, in 1620, the first " native-born American^" of 
 the colony, to the year 1643, not a single individual is 
 added to the original number of emigrants as resulting 
 from internal procreation ; though from that precise 
 date, and thenceforw^ard, the entire increase is to be 
 made up from that source only. Now, I maintain, and 
 shall hereafter show more particularly, that a body of 
 individuals, such as emigrants almost exclusively con- 
 sist of, will of necessity add to their numbers, witli far 
 greater rapidity than an equal number born in and 
 taken promiscuously from an entire community ; for 
 example, very many of these 21,200 would doubtless 
 duplicate themselves as rapidly as did the father of 
 Peregrine White, though it will be probably allowed 
 that the latter must have waited till nearly the year last 
 named before he did the same. But nothing can be 
 more whimsical than the assumption that these original 
 settlers should remain sterile down to the year 1643, 
 and then have the date of their natural prolificness 
 elongated five-and-twenty years, in which to duplicate 
 their numbers. And yet it is on this very supposition 
 that the pretended demonstration regarding human 
 increase is built. 
 
 (4) The medium through which most of the cir- 
 cumstances quoted in the above statement were pro- 
 bably obtained, fell, however, into no such absurdity. 
 Governor Hutchinson, in the preface to his History of 
 Massachusetts Bay, says, " in the first ten years about 
 " 20,000 souls had arrived in the Massachusetts, since 
 " then more have gone from thence than have come 
 " hither^; " a statement which he repeats, with still fur- 
 ther particulars, in a subsequent part of his work^, in 
 which he gives the number of settlers as amounting to 
 
 ' Tliis expression, and "native son of - Hutchinson, Hist, of Massachusetts 
 America," are common in American Bay, vol. i., pref. p. iii. 
 ^mters, especially of an early date. ^ Ibid., vol. i,, p. 93.
 
 Chap. ITI.J RELATIVE TO NORTH AMERICA. 417 
 
 21,200, and says that the importation had ceased in 
 1 640 \ Tlie whole account, however, was, as Dr. Hohiies 
 (one of the most accurate and industrious of all the 
 American compilers) notices, derived from Josselyn"; 
 and he adds, that though it has been quoted by re- 
 spectable authority, it is neither stated with precision 
 nor with confidence. The language of Josselyn is, 
 " in the ten first years chkjlij,'" and (in reference to the 
 number of emigrants) " as near as can be guessed^.'' 
 It may, too, have referred to Massachusetts only ; at 
 all events, it is given under the date of 1G37. Mr. 
 Malthus, however, brings the time down to 1G43, 
 equally rejecting, as we have seen, all internal increase 
 whatsoever down to that date, and thenceforward all 
 from any other source. No demonstration, espe- 
 cially one which is held to be " proved the moment 
 it is related," was probably ever before formed of such 
 a mixture of palpable errors and doubtful guesses. 
 
 (5) The very basis of the geometric theory thus 
 proved to be incorrect, let us now proceed to show 
 the extent of the error. Taking the pretended facts, 
 as before stated, and calculating the progress of po- 
 pulation from them, as we have been instructed to do, 
 if there were 21,200 inhabitants in the New England 
 States in 1 643, that number would have increased in 
 1668 to 42,400. We have no occasion, at present, to 
 extend the calculation any further. 
 
 (6) At the former of these periods, the domestic 
 troubles of England engaged the public mind too 
 much to enable us to gather any definite information 
 regarding the state of the settlement : not so, how- 
 ever, at the latter one ; it was a subject that already 
 began to excite deep and universal attention. Were, 
 
 ' Hutchinson, Hist, of Massachusetts p. 246. A.D. 1637. 
 Bay, vol. i., p. 93. ^ Josselyn, Voy., p. 258. 
 
 * Holmes, American Aunals, vol. i., 
 
 Vol. I. 2 E
 
 418 ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS . [Book 11. 
 
 then, the colonies regarded in sucli a light as to war- 
 rant the idea that they were inhabited at most by 
 about twenty thousand adults, and, perhaps, by not 
 more than half that number of men ? To believe any 
 such thing would imply a thorough ignorance of the 
 afiairs of even the Mother Country at that period. 
 Their high importance, in a commercial point of view, 
 appears from almost all the writers on such subjects at 
 that period ; and they were numerous and respectable, 
 such, for instance, as Sir Joshua Child, Dr. Dave- 
 nant, and Sir William Petty. The latter observes 
 that these plantations employed, in his time, 400 sail 
 of ships \ The former, who wrote, as he informs us 
 himself, " long before 1669^," positively asserts that 
 they employed, even then, " liear two-thirds of all our 
 English shipping^." Nay, they were considered as 
 greatly interfering with the trade of the Mother Coun- 
 try, even in Europe *. 
 
 (7) The importance of these colonies, politically 
 considered, was, at this period, equally apparent. We 
 have decisive evidence of the light in which they 
 were regarded by the government of the country, in 
 the Diary of the celebrated Evelyn, who was, about 
 this time, appointed one of the " Council of Plan- 
 tations," where he thus speaks on entering upon the 
 duties of his office, and assisting in its deliberations. 
 " But what we most insisted upon was, to know the 
 *' condition of New England, which, appearing to be 
 ^' very independent as to their regard to Old England, 
 " or his Majesty, rich and strong as they now were, 
 ^' occasioned great debates, ^'c.^ " Difficult and deli- 
 cate, indeed, must have been the deliberation of these. 
 
 1 Petty, Pref. to Polit. Arithmetic, » n^;^,^ p 203. 
 
 Tracts, p. 205. * Chalmers, Political Annals, p. 317. 
 
 2 Child, Discourses on Trade, &c., ^ Eveljii, Memoirs, vol. i., p. 415. 
 Pref., p. i.
 
 Chap. III.] RELATIVE TO NORTH AMERICA. 419 
 
 gentlemen of the Council, had the data on which the 
 geometric theory is founded been true ; the manage- 
 ment of such a body must have involved fearful 
 responsibility ! But, seriously, the counsellor did not 
 over-rate the difficulties of his situation, the colonists 
 were not very docile in disposition, nor yet very des- 
 picable in strength ; on the contrary, they knew that 
 they could, as Sir Thomas Browne informs us, re- 
 specting them at that period, raise, upon an emergency, 
 a force of " between twenty and thirty thousand 
 men^" 
 
 (8) If we turn to the internal affairs of these 
 colonies, we meet with equal proofs of the fallacy of 
 the supposition I am combating. We are informed 
 by Roberts, in his " Mappe of Commerce," who pub- 
 lished his book in the year 1638, that New England 
 was already " full of good townes and forts ^." Even 
 thus early, the establishments of the colonists, whe- 
 ther civil, military, or ecclesiastical, were as efficiently 
 organized as they are at this moment. The exe- 
 cutive, representative, and judicial system was in 
 complete operation^. There was even a college 
 already established*; some proof, certainly, that the 
 settlers were prolific. But this state of things could 
 not have existed in a society consisting of a mere 
 handful of men, scattered over so immense a tract as 
 New England, unless each, in the theatrical phrase, 
 had been " an actor of all work," or except they 
 could have done, as well as the creative genius of 
 Shakspeare did, 
 
 Into a thousand parts divide one man, 
 And make imaginary puissance. 
 
 'Sir Thomas Browne, Tracts, xii., 1G35— 1G40. 
 
 p. 64. * Mather, Magn. Christ. Americ, 
 
 ' 2 Lewis Roherts, ftlerchants' Mappe of Book iv., p. 12G. Winthrop, Journal, p. 
 
 Commerce, p. 57. 155. 
 
 3 Dr. Holmes, American Annal., A.D. „ „ „ 
 
 2E 2
 
 420 ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS [Book II. 
 
 Such conduct, however, was not consistent with their 
 habits, which were sober in the extreme ; and, above 
 all, averse, by both principle and policy, to unneces- 
 sary display. 
 
 (9) But we are not left to mere incidental notices 
 respecting the colonies, from which to draw our con- 
 clusions regarding- their early population. Nor yet 
 need we trust to mere unauthorized suppositions in re- 
 ference to it, otherwise there lies before me a statement 
 made by the Reverend Samuel Clarke, one of their 
 ministers, published in 1670, which makes the number 
 many times as great as that which will be adopted ^ 
 There exists in the archives of the country authentic 
 information on this very point. The importance which 
 these colonies had soon attained, dictated to the Go- 
 vernment at home (as we have seen) the necessity of 
 sending out to the governors a set of queries^ one of 
 which related especially to the subject of population. 
 These functionaries were, in the New England states, 
 chosen by the free men, with whom they were iden- 
 tified in feelings, interests, and origin. They, as well 
 as all in subordinate offices, were upon their guard 
 respecting these interrogatories, which they answered 
 vaguely and reluctantly ; as we are assured they 
 deemed it " a principle of patriotism," it was cer- 
 tainly one of policy, " to represent the low condition 
 of their country^." Hence, many of the questions 
 were evaded, rather than fully answered, particularly 
 those respecting Rhode Island^, New Hampshire ^ 
 Maine ^, and Connecticut ^, and whether the results 
 were given in the accounts of New England generally, 
 
 • Clarke, Rev. Samuel, " True Ac- » Ibid., p. 283. 
 
 "count of the Four Chiefest Planta- Mbiil., p. 511. 
 
 " tions of the English in America," fol., ° Ibid., p. b07. 
 
 1670. p. 55. "^ Ibid., p. 309. 
 
 '' Chalmers, Political Annals, preface.
 
 Cliap. III.] RELATIVE TO NORTH AMERICA. 421 
 
 wliicli was frequently identified with the state of Mas- 
 sachusetts, seems rather doubtfuL Be that as it may, 
 it is clear that the facts regarding the colonies thus 
 given would not be exaggerated ; on the other hand, 
 it is certain they would err greatly in deficiency. 
 
 (10) The ofticial information thus obtained was 
 brought to light many years ago by Dr. Chalmers, 
 who was aided in his researches by the then govern- 
 ment, which gave him full access to the original 
 documents. The authenticity of his statements have 
 never yet been disputed on this side of the water, and 
 they have been constantly adopted on the other, espe- 
 cially by one of the ablest historians America has yet 
 produced, in his life of the great Washington ^ On the 
 authority of these official reports, then. Dr. Chalmers 
 gives the population of New England, (whether refer- 
 ring to Massachusetts Bay, or to the whole of the pro- 
 vinces, I will not determine,) as amounting, in 1G73, 
 to one hundred and twenty thousand souls ^. We 
 have already noticed the just suspicion he entertained 
 regarding the disposition of the governors to under- 
 rate, in all respects, the condition of their people, and 
 more particularly, of course, as to their numbers ; a 
 fact which fully justifies the conclusion of one of the 
 most exact statistical writers of that age. Sir William 
 Petty, who wrote his Political Arithmetic in 1676^; 
 and, consequently, his information could hardly have 
 been more recent than that which Chalmers refers to. 
 He states that the population, of New England 
 amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand persons, 
 and he gives the facts upon which he founded his 
 computation "*. 
 
 ' Marshall, Life of Washington, vol. i., ^ Macpherson, History of Commerce, 
 p. 178. &c.,vol. ii., p. 579. 
 
 . 2 Chalmers, Political Annals, p. 434. •* Petty, Polit. Arithmetic, p. 257.
 
 422 ERRONEOUS STATEIIENTS [Book II. 
 
 (11) I shall not stay to inquire what could have 
 been the inducement with our anti-populationists, to 
 overlook facts of this character, and supply their place 
 with the speculations (for such they are) contained in 
 a marginal note of an anniversary sermon \ but pro- 
 ceed to apply the geometric system to the facts deve- 
 loped. One hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants 
 existing in 1673, doubling themselves not once every 
 twelve years", or fifteen years ^, or twenty years*, or 
 twenty-two years ^, which we are informed was the case 
 in some of the back settlements, (and all new colonies 
 are originally in the very condition of back settlements,) 
 but, according to what we are assured, falls short of 
 the slowest rate of increase altogether; once every 
 twenty-five years would, seven years ago, have swelled 
 the population to nearly ten millions. Or if we 
 take the lowest of the preceding computations, one 
 hundred and twenty thousand would have become by 
 this "slowest rate of increase," nearly eight millions. 
 
 (12) Nay, supposing that, deaf to both history 
 and common sense, we consented to believe that the 
 21,200 first mentioned, were the whole amount of 
 men, women and children, in New England at the 
 period referred to, even these, doubled according to 
 the geometric ratio, would, in 1837, or 1840, or 1843, 
 (whatever period as to starting two centuries before 
 the reader may judge has the most evidence in its 
 favour,) amount to 5,427,200; whereas the entire 
 population of these States was, in 1820, only 1,424,090; 
 and increasing little more than one per cent, annually, 
 or, to speak with more precision, thirteen and a half 
 
 ^ Dr. Ezra St5'les, Semion before the whose " reckonings" more hereafter. 
 
 Clerg\- at Bristol, Rhode Island, 23 - Malthus, Essay ou Population, p. 5. 
 
 April. 1760. In enunciating what he ^ Ibid., p. 338. 
 
 calls " patrial maturity," he appeals ■* Dr. Franklin, 
 
 for his facts partly to Dr. Franklin; of ^Malthus, Essay on Population, p.338.
 
 chap. III.] RELATIVE TO NORTH AMERICA; 423 
 
 percent, decennially, which would bring up the num- 
 bers to the former sum, when somewhat less than a 
 third part of the twentieth century shall have elapsed. 
 (13) The confident prognostications respecting the 
 reofular doublina; of human beino-s have been so often 
 put forth, and so constantly falsified by facts, that it 
 is truly astonishing how any such notion should have 
 continued to be entertained, much less have been 
 elevated at length to the rank of a general principle 
 of Nature. Thus, " a Gentleman of the Province" of 
 Connecticut, one of the States in question, con- 
 templating the future progress of population in his 
 native country, says, "the people of Connecticut did, 
 " in ninety years, double their number ten times 
 " overV and adds, " I see no reason in Nature why 
 " they should not again double ten times in the en- 
 " suing ninety years^," or, in other words, calculating 
 from the period with which he commences, multiply 
 into twice as many inhabitants as exist upon the face 
 of the earth. This speculator upon the laws of Nature 
 wrote in the year 1781, the year afterwards the popu- 
 lation of Connecticut was 208,870^: it amounted in 
 1820 to 275,248 ; a rate of increase which would not 
 double the numbers once, instead of ten times over, in 
 the ninety years he mentions, more than half of which 
 has now elapsed. Dr. Styles, agreeably to his theory, 
 which, however, is far different to the geometrical one, 
 says, that the population of the New England States 
 would amount, in the year 1835, to 4,000,000. I 
 need not say how much his computation, far the 
 most moderate I have seen, has, in a single age, out- 
 run the truth. Mr. Warden's is the last calculation I 
 have noticed ; he prognosticates that the inhabitants 
 
 ' Hist, of Connecticut, by a Gentleman ^ Dr.Holmes, American Annals, A.D. 
 of the Province, p. 263.' 1782, vol. ii., p. 380. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 264.
 
 421 ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS [Book II. 
 
 of tlie United States will amount to 224,000,000 
 within a century \ and consequently govern the ocean, 
 as he somewhere promises they shall. His prophecy 
 is quite as certain, and, at the present, as safe from 
 detection, as were any of the foregoing ones at the 
 periods in which they were uttered. 
 
 (14) But to return. It would have been well if our 
 theorists, before pronouncing upon a point so deeply 
 affecting the destiny of human beings, had put them- 
 selves to the school of experience. I will supply one 
 of its lessons, and it is the more interesting because it 
 relates to the very country and province under consi- 
 deration. It is delivered, moreover, by an authority 
 in all respects better qualified to decide the matter at 
 issue than any who have hitherto discussed it, inas- 
 much as he was many years one of the resident go- 
 vernors of the principal State referred to, and had, 
 consequently, the most ample means of possessing 
 himself of the necessary information : he lived, too, 
 at a very favourable time for enabling him so to 
 do, almost equidistant from the commencing and the 
 present period ; he was, moreover, the historian of 
 this his native province, and, consequently, little dis- 
 posed to underrate its existing condition, or its future 
 prospects : I mean Mr. Hutchinson, Lieutenant-Go- 
 vernor of Massachusetts Bay, which, as before ob- 
 served, was often exclusively denominated New Eng- 
 land, and which, certainly, at that period, compre- 
 hended a great portion of the wealth and population 
 of the States, properly so called. Speaking on the 
 very subject under consideration, he thus expresses 
 himself: " In the year 1713, there was not double 
 " the number of inhabitants in the Massachusetts 
 
 ' Warden, Statistical Account of the United States, vol. iii. p. 236. 
 
 lutrod. J). XXXV.
 
 Chap. III.] RELATIVE TO NORTH AMERICA. 425 
 
 " province, wliicli the several colonies of which it is 
 " formed, contained fifty years before. During the 
 " period there was no remarkable emigration to other 
 " colonies. There was vacant land sufficient to ex- 
 " tend settlements upon," (there is abundance still,) 
 " and as easy to be procured as anywhere else. The 
 " same observation," he says, " may be made from 
 " 1722 to 17C2. The inhabitants have not doubled 
 " their number \'' 
 
 (15) It is to the facts regarding* the actual increase 
 in the population of New England, to wliicli the 
 theorists have professed to appeal. They have now 
 been detailed. As to any reasons why the augmenta- 
 tion should not have been greater, that is palpably 
 wide of their argument: into such, however, I am 
 not unwilling to enter ; these certainly are not resolv- 
 able into any of the restraints to population, enume- 
 rated by the anti-populationists, respecting our own 
 country. The principal one assigned by Governor 
 Hutchinson, (for he was among those who had been 
 instructed respecting the geometric theory of dupli- 
 cation,) was the annual average loss of 88 young- 
 men by war ; an explanation which I hardly think 
 will be urged by those who argue that a yearly 
 accession often thousand such, by emigration, is " im- 
 material"' to the increase of American population. I 
 am aware of another cause, which Mr. Warden 
 assigns for this defalcation in the American ratio of 
 increase, regarding another of the States of New Eng- 
 land, and which, as too amusing to be passed over 
 unnoticed, will be attended to hereafter. In the 
 mean time, I shall conclude these remarks by ob- 
 serving, that notwithstanding that part of the world 
 
 ' Hutchinson, Hist, of Massachusetts Baj', vol. i., pp. 202, 203.
 
 426 ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS, &c. [Book IL 
 
 has been selected as affording a full proof of the geo- 
 metric theory of population, it is a notorious fact, 
 open to casual and general observation, that " in most 
 " of the New England States, the increase is extremely 
 " small ^" 
 
 Hall, Travels in America, p. 464.
 
 427 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF THE AMOUNT OF THE EARLY POPULATION OF THE 
 
 NORTH AMERICAN COLONIES, NOW THE 
 
 UNITED STATES, GENERALLY. 
 
 (1) The proof of tlie geometric ratio of liiiman 
 increase having entirely failed, even in the provinces 
 from whence it was professedly deduced, that failure 
 is now attempted to be accounted for, so as still to 
 preserve the theory. It is attributed to emigrations 
 from the States in question, to other parts of the 
 Union. The same theory, however, demands that the 
 effect of emigration in materially increasing popula- 
 tion, should be peremptorily denied. In the very 
 same argument, therefore, the most palpable contra- 
 diction has to be maintained ; namely, that emigration 
 greatly diminishes the increase of the inhabitants from 
 whom it proceeds, without equally augmenting those 
 to whom it is added. It might be very properly ob- 
 jected, that such a mode of reasoning negatives itself. 
 This, however, will not be persisted in. The argu- 
 ment shall be willingly transferred from the very 
 ground the advocates of superfecundity have chosen, 
 to a wider field, that of the whole of the United 
 States. Error may a while escape detection, from a 
 dexterous change of its position ; but truth, however 
 baffled and resisted, must be finally triumphant. 
 
 (2) To pursue the inquiry, therefore, regarding 
 the original population of North America. After 
 New England, ' the State of Virginia, prior, indeed, to
 
 428 EARLY POPULATION OF [Book IL 
 
 the former in its date, demands the first attention. 
 This colony, on the authority of its governor, Sir Wil- 
 liam Berkley, contained in 1671, " above 40,000 
 " persons, men, women, and children, of which there 
 " were 2000 blacks \'' He adds, that 1500 servants 
 came in annually, nor are we to suppose, that other 
 accessions from the mother country had yet ceased ; 
 these, therefore, added to the former number, justify 
 the account dated four years afterwards, which makes 
 the inhabitants amount to 50,000 ". From a despatch 
 of a subsequent governor. Lord Culpepper, in 1681, 
 we learn the vast increase which was going forward. 
 He makes the fighting men to have been augmented, 
 in ten years, from about 8,000 to 15,000 men^. 
 
 (3) Maryland, Ogilvy s^js, had been so effectually 
 supplied with people and necessaries, by Lord Balti- 
 more, that in the year 1671, there were then from 
 15,000 to 20,000 souls in it"*: certainly no exaggera- 
 tion, as in the year 1665, several accounts concur in 
 stating the English inhabitants as then amounting to 
 16,000^. In 1676, the Rev. John Yeo, in an ofhcial 
 letter addressed, in behalf of the colony, to the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, stated the inhabitants to be 
 " 20,000 at least''\" 
 
 (4) The inhabitants of the province of New York 
 were about this time at least 15,000. In 1678, the 
 governor. Sir Edward Andros, says, " We have about 
 " twenty-four towns, villages, or parishes, in six rid- 
 " ings or courts of session^;'' the militia he states at 
 about 2000, of which 140 were horse ^. These facts 
 were probably understated, as eight years afterwards, 
 
 ' Chalmers, Polit. Annal., p. 601. vol. iii., p. 4. Dr. Holmes, American 
 
 2 Ibid, vol. i., p. 33G. Annals, vol. i., p. 331. 
 
 3 Ibid., pp. 326, 356. ^ Chalmers, Polit. Annals, p. 375. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 375. 7 Ibid., p. 602. 
 
 * Universal Hist., Mod. Pt., vol. xl., ^ iijjj_^ ^ goi_ 
 p. 469. British Empire in N. America,
 
 Chap. IV.] THE NORTH AMERICAN COLONIES. 429 
 
 Dongan reported to the Britisli government that the 
 militia were 4000 foot and 300 horse, and one com- 
 pany of dragoons, and added, " I wish for more fortih- 
 " cations, as the people grow every day more nume- 
 " rous, and are of a turbulent dis})Osition ^" 
 
 (5) In Carolina, the titheables, as they were 
 termed, amounted at about the same period to 1400 
 only ; perhaps, therefore, the population did not much 
 exceed 5000. A remark, indeed, in the History of 
 Carolina would warrant me in stating it as much 
 higher, which, however, I shall decline doing ^. 
 
 (6) The Jerseys^, and the tract afterwards called 
 Pennsylvania, we may safely assume were inhabited 
 at this period by at least 10,000 or 12,000 people. 
 Both these regions had been settled early in that cen- 
 tury. In the latter, particularly, Penn found on his 
 arrival several thousand colonists^; and in the former, 
 the population in which was then said to increase very 
 slowly, owing to various causes, there were early in 
 the ensuing century 1G,000 inhabitants^. 
 
 (7) Other territories, of which the United States 
 are now in possession, were not without white in- 
 habitants at the period in question. It may also be 
 assumed that some of the preceding estimates are 
 much understated, as will always be the case where 
 censuses are founded upon fiscal data. Making, how- 
 ever, no addition to the total amount on either ground, 
 and to keep far within the bounds of certainty, we 
 may safely conclude, that the British colonies of North 
 America, including the New England States, amounted, 
 in the year 1676, to two hundred and fifty thousand 
 
 ' Clialmevs, Polit. Annals, p. GOl. " mated at half as many as the towns." 
 
 2 Hist, of CaroUna, p. 308. (Six thousand persons r*) — Smhh, New 
 
 •^ ''The towns in East Jersey alono Jersey, p. 1G4. 
 
 " were supposed, in 1G82, to he settled by * Chalmers. Polit. Annals, p. 643. 
 
 " seven hundred families, exclusive of ' Proud, Hist. Peunsylv., vol. i., p. 
 
 '•' the out-plantations, which wore csti- 204 — 20G.
 
 430 EARLY POPULATION OF [Book IL 
 
 souls. This estimate is considerably under that of 
 many of the writers of those times, and particularly 
 that of Sir William Petty \ 
 
 (8) Now, supposing- that there had not proceeded 
 to the shores of North America, from that period to 
 the present hour, one single emigrant, (an assumption 
 not more false or extravagant than, as it will be seen, 
 are many of those upon which the geometric theory 
 professes to be built,) there ought, according to the 
 " very slowest rate of increase" it admits, and which 
 its advocates are so " perfectly sure is far within the 
 truth ^," to have been in 1826 sixteen millions of 
 Anglo-Americans in the United States, whereas there 
 were, in 1820, far less than half that number, namely, 
 7,861,710 whites, including people and their descend- 
 ants of every kindred, nation, and tongue, of the 
 civilized world. 
 
 (9) But during this whole period, a tide of emi- 
 gration has set in from the Old World to the New, 
 and which for several generations past has not been 
 poured from the mother country only, but has been 
 swelled by the contributions of every nation in Eu- 
 rope. In behalf of the system I am controverting, the 
 effect of this emigration on the increase of the popula- 
 tion has been attempted to be disputed in every possi- 
 ble way ; by totally denying its existence, as in the 
 case of the New England States^; by underrating its 
 amount when it is adverted to ; and, finally, and more 
 particularly, by concluding that it is immaterial, in its 
 consequences^, as to the question at issue. Assertions 
 like these, dictated by the false philosophy I am op- 
 posing, have been too congenial to the feelings of 
 the country concerning v»diich they have been put 
 
 ' Petty, Polit. Arithmetic, p. 257. ■* Ibid., p. 339, note. 
 
 2 Maltlms, Esstay oil Populatiou, p. 5. ^ Ibid,, p. 339. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 338.
 
 Chap. IV.] THE NORTH AMERICAN COLONIES. 431 
 
 forth, not to be eagerly adopted and reiterated from 
 thence ; till the theory of American increase, inde- 
 pendently of emigration, is now held to be an incon- 
 trovertible fact, and demonstrative of the principle of 
 population as soon as it is stated. It is one, however, 
 which we proceed to prove is founded on statements 
 and suppositions utterly erroneous in every possible 
 point of view.
 
 432 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. ITS 
 HISTORICAL PROOFS. 
 
 (1) The mere enunciation of the early population of 
 the British Colonies having- totally destroyed the sole 
 proof of the geometric theory, and shewn that the 
 population of America has not doubled, as asserted, 
 every five-and -twenty years, by all the means that 
 have contributed to its increase, much less by pro- 
 creation only, it may, perhaps, seem unnecessary to 
 pursue the argument, at least as it regards that part 
 of the world, any further. But, as the theory in ques- 
 tion is fraught with a variety of explanations, and is 
 described in its effects as subject to the influences of 
 " tendencies and oscillations," which might easily 
 adjust it to another, and a somewhat lengthened term 
 of duplication, founding thereon a fresh series of 
 " demonstrations," as they are called, in its favour ; it 
 appears necessary to take a more precise and par- 
 ticular view of the subject, in order to satisfy our- 
 selves whether any, and how great a part, of the 
 increase which has actually taken place, has been 
 attributable to a cause, the material effect of which 
 its advocates necessarily and strenuously deny ; I mean, 
 continued emio-ration. A brief examination of this 
 subject will give us a more clear and comprehensive 
 view of the nature of American population, and of its 
 progress, and will also prepare the way for other in- 
 quiries, closely connected with the general argument.
 
 Chap, v.] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 433 
 
 (2) It is somewhat singular, that nearly all the 
 American writers, few of whom could reckon two pure 
 American descents, almost unanimously pronounce the 
 increase of their population to be wholly independent 
 of emigration, and, therefore, can reckon with great 
 precision when they shall attain to the sovereignty 
 of the ocean, and the consequent command of the 
 world. Thus, Mr. Jeiferson informs us, in his Notes 
 on Virginia, that all their importations had ceased in 
 his State in 1654 ^ The historian of Vermont seems 
 never to have acknowledged any whatever^. That of 
 Connecticut is very jealous, even about the original 
 peopling of that colony ; denying that it was founded 
 from Massachusetts ; and asserting, that since the 
 year 17G0, the emigrations from Europe, or elsewhere, 
 to Connecticut, have been trifling, in comparison to 
 the emigrations from Connecticut to New Jersey, New 
 Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Nova Scotia, &c. ; 
 and, that it nevertheless doubles ten times in less than 
 a century^. Governor Hutchinson informs us, that 
 the importations of settlers to New England, gene- 
 rally, had ceased in 1640; since which time, as in the 
 case of Connecticut, " more persons," he says, " have 
 " removed out of New England to other parts of the 
 " world than have come from other parts to it*." 
 
 (3) Mr. Malthus takes up the last passage, but de- 
 duces from it a very contrary conclusion to his authority, 
 as has been already shewn : as he attempts to prove 
 therefrom, that the inhabitants in the New England 
 States have gone on doubling every five-and-twenty 
 years. He seems, however, as he proceeds in his pre- 
 tended demonstration, to desert New England, and to 
 
 ' Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, p. 138. ^ Hist. Connecticut, p. 2G3. 
 2 Dr. Williams, Hist. Vermont, pas- ■» Hutchinson. Hist. Massachusetts 
 sim. Bay, vol. i., p. 93. 
 
 Vol. I. 2 F
 
 434 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 transfer liis argument to the United States generally : 
 and though several of those States have been founded 
 since the period at which he starts, and by emigration 
 exclusively, still he omits all consideration of emigra- 
 tion whatsoever, till, I think, 1784, at which time, 
 and thenceforward, he pronounces it to be (how 
 erroneously remains to be seen) immaterial. And yet 
 the geometric ratio cannot, after all, be made up. On 
 such a rotten foundation is the pretended principle of 
 population erected. 
 
 (4) I shall proceed to take a hasty and imperfect 
 sketch of the history of emigration, from the period at 
 which, in respect to some of the States, we are so con- 
 fidently assured that it had ceased, down to the 
 date of the last American census : imperfect and 
 hasty it must necessarily be, as I am not in possession 
 of all the authorities I could have wished to consult 
 on the subject, nor have I sufficient leisure fully 
 to examine those I possess. Moreover, were all the 
 notices of emigration, direct or incidental, which are 
 so profusely scattered over the records of the inter- 
 vening times, collected before me, and could I present 
 them entire to the reader, still the whole would only 
 be so many evidences of the existence of emigration, 
 instead of amounting to any proof of its actual extent. 
 The great mass of those deportations has, as I con- 
 ceive, been made up of those individual removals 
 which were constantly taking place, and were little 
 likely to attract the attention of the historian, though, 
 in their consequences, they have not always escaped 
 that of the statesman. It is not the perpetual recur- 
 rence of the genial showers, but the rarer visitations 
 of the hurricane and the inundation, that are recorded ; 
 though the latter are as nothing compared with the 
 former, in distributing the copious moisture that re-
 
 Chap, v.] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 435 
 
 freshes the earth. Wliat follows, therefore, will be 
 but the examples, rather than the history of emi- 
 gration ; which, indeed, would be little short of a 
 record of the errors and the enterprises of modern 
 Europe. 
 
 (5) It may be premised, that the causes of the 
 emigration we are about to consider have been so 
 numerous and powerful as to prove, at the outset, the 
 consequences which will be shewn to have resulted 
 from them. It is scarcely possible to imagine any 
 motives which influence the conduct of human beings, 
 that have not, in turn or unitedly, contributed to 
 it. The love of dominion in the prince^, of liberty 
 and independence in the subject'^ ; religious perse- 
 cution^; political despotism^; the dread of po- 
 verty^; the thirst of gain^; the love of indolence"^, 
 the spirit of enterprize*^ ; the noblest and the most 
 degrading motives g, have alike contributed to people 
 America. To these shores the sovereign has sent his 
 adherents for their reward ^°, or his opposers to their 
 punishment^^ During the earlier periods of this 
 great migration, individuals of the highest rank and 
 affluence personally engaged in its promotion ^^. Men 
 of the lowest and most debased habits were included 
 in it, either as fugitives or victims ^^. So important 
 was it deemed, that the ruling powers, on principles 
 of policy, alternately checked ^^ and encouraged it'^; 
 
 ' Morse, Geog., p. 93. "> Hisi of South Carolina, vol. i., p 
 
 ° Cose, View of the United States, 55. Morse, Geog., p. 55. 
 
 p. 202. " Hist, of South Carolina, vol. ii., 
 
 3 M'Pherson, vol. ii., p. G46. p. 132. 
 
 * Hist, of South Carolina, vol. i., p. 9G. '^ Chalmers, Polit. Annals, p. 125. 
 
 ^ Hubbard, Present State of New '^ Douglas, Summary, vol. i., p. 206, 
 
 England, p. 8. 490. 
 
 ^ Gent. Mag. vol. xxv. p. 413, xli. " Hutchinson, Hist, of Massachusetts 
 
 p. 260. Bay, vol. i., pp. 32, 33. 
 
 7 Hubbard, p. 8. " Hist, of South Carolina, vol. i., p. 
 
 ^ Dr. Douglas, Summary, vol. i., p. 206. 54. 
 
 Ibid., p. 216. 
 
 2F2
 
 436 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 but, ill conformity with the prevailing spirit of the 
 age\ the government of the mother country generally 
 afforded direct encouragements to the numerous adven- 
 turers who were perpetually resorting to her colonial 
 stations. If religious dissensions no longer fostered 
 to so great a degree these expatriations, civil dif- 
 ferences abundantly supplied their place. In the 
 political revulsions which took place in the mother 
 country, parties of the most opposite principles 
 alternately made these colonies their asylum^; while 
 a motive still more general than either, the spirit of 
 commercial enterprise, contributed in a yet greater 
 degree to the same result. Thus, for at least a cen- 
 tury after the period to which we have particularly 
 adverted, there never was a moment when events and 
 feelings, in one country or other of the old world, did 
 not contribute to increase rapidly the population of 
 the new. At length, that greatest of all transatlantic 
 events since the first colonization of America, the 
 independence of the United States, took place ; when, 
 to the numbers still poured forth from every division 
 of the mother country, multitudes were added from 
 every kingdom of Europe, and emigration, as Simond 
 expresses it, became "a fashion*:" so that at length 
 there is not a settler, of whatever nation, that can 
 arrive there an entire stranger ; that is, who may not 
 meet with the society of his own countrymen, if not 
 of his kindred and personal friends, and fix where his 
 language is spoken, and his religion professed. In a 
 word, America has now become, as one of her best 
 writers expresses it, "the colony of all Europe^" 
 
 ' Davenant, Works, vol. ii., p. 3. ^ Robertson, Hist, of America, b. x., 
 
 2 Dr. Holmes, vol. i., p. 234. Rush- p. 163. 
 forth, Collect., vol. ii., p. 2, p. 410. ■* Simond, Switzerland, vol. i., p. 272. 
 Chalmers, Polit. Ann., p. 330. ^ Coxe, View of the United States, 
 
 p. 506.
 
 Chap, v.] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 437 
 
 (6) Commencing-, then, with the date when it has 
 been so frequently asserted emiorations to America 
 ceased. The very year afterwards, it is stated, that 
 the " flourishing colony of Newhaven " was settled by 
 an emigration direct from England, headed by Messrs. 
 Davenport and Eaton ^ In the summer of the same 
 year also " there arrived in the colony of Massachu- 
 " setts, twenty ships, with at least three hundred 
 " persons^." The next year George Fenwick, an emi- 
 grant gentleman " of great estate," founded Seabrook^ ; 
 at the same time, Rowley, in Massachusetts, was set- 
 tled by " sixty industrious and pious families from 
 Yorkshire," who first introduced the woollen manufac- 
 ture into North America^. But, not to particularise, 
 to whatever period we advert, we shall find that some 
 of the causes which originally planted America, still 
 continued to increase its inhabitants. After the pass- 
 ing of the Act of Uniformity, especially, we learn that 
 great numbers of dissenters continued to take refuge 
 in the different colonies^. In the reign of the infatu- 
 ated James, many also fled beyond the direct influence 
 of his arbitrary proceedings*^. He likewise banished 
 thither the adherents of the unfortunate Monmouth'^, to 
 be dealt with as convicts, who had been constantly 
 transported to the colonies, since the days of his 
 grandfather, James P. The number of the latter I 
 cannot ascertain, but I find in a provincial history, 
 that those sent to one district only, about half a cen- 
 tury afterward, were estimated at from 300 to 400 
 annually ^ During the reigns of both the last Stuarts, 
 
 'Winthrop, Journal, pp. 131. 151. * Winthrop Journal, p. 1 73. 
 
 Mather, Magnal., book i., p. 25. Hutch- = Hist, of South CaroUna, vol. i., p. 
 inson, Hist, of Massachusetts Bay, vol. i., 172. 
 
 p. 83. Chalmers, Polit. Ann., p. 290. « Ibid., voL i., p. 94. 
 
 2 Winthrop Journal, p. 156. '^ Chalmers, Polit. Annals, p. 358. 
 
 3 Dr. Holmes, American Annals, vol. i., ^ Douglas, Summary, vol. i., p. 206. 
 p. 256. " Ibid., vol. ii., p. 360.
 
 438 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book U. 
 
 grants of immense tracts of land continued to be made 
 to distinguished individuals \ Avho consequently esta- 
 blished their proprietary governments there, and who, 
 to render their patents of any value, had to take pos- 
 session of their territories by sending out considerable 
 bodies of emigrants, and to reinforce them continually 
 by fresh supplies from the mother country. Hence, 
 at this very period, to say nothing of minor settle- 
 ments, two of the most populous and flourishing states, 
 containing nearly one-third of the entire number of 
 the white inhabitants now existing in the Union, were 
 founded. I mean. New York ^ and Pennsylvania ^. 
 Both the Jerseys, also, were settled long after the 
 period when we are to understand emigration had 
 ceased ^, which, either in reference to New England 
 or the other states of America, was just as true as 
 though it had been said it had never begun. 
 
 (7) But the numbers individually withdrawing 
 to the colonies were doubtless far greater than 
 those taken thither at the expense of public pro- 
 prietors. For instance, we find Sir William Petty 
 and Lord Clarendon (no dubious authorities) both 
 stating, regarding this continued emigration, and in 
 the very same terms, that " men do daily go away^" 
 Sir Matthew Hale speaks of " the vast number of 
 " men that have transplanted themselves into Vir- 
 " ginia, Maryland, and New England^." Evelyn, 
 whose situation as one of the council of plantations 
 enabled him to judge accurately on this matter, men- 
 tions the " ruinous number of our men, daily flocking 
 " to the American plantations ^" But we have in- 
 
 ' Ramsay, Hist. S. Carolina, p. 1, 12. ^ Sir William Petty, Aual. of Ireland, 
 
 Smith, New York, pp. 10, 11. Uuiver- p. 18. Lord Clarendon (Letter, Oct. 2, 
 
 sal Hist, Mod. vol. xxxix., pp. 348, 362. 1686), Memoirs. 
 
 ^ Dr. Holmes, vol. i., pp. 325, 326. ^ Hale, Origination of Mankind, p. 13. 
 
 3 Proud, Hist. Pennsyl., p. 170, 196. '^ Evelyn, Navigation and Commerce, 
 
 * Holmesj Amer. Ann.j vol. i., p. 325. p. 112.
 
 Chap, v.] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 
 
 439 
 
 formation of a still more decisive, because of an 
 official character, upon this matter. The commis- 
 sioners of the customs, from their situation certainly 
 the best enabled to judge as to the extent of these 
 deportations, remonstrated against the encouragement 
 of people to remove to the plantations. " Too many," 
 said they, " go thither to the unpeopling and ruin 
 *' of the kingdom ^" The same fact was repeated in 
 Parliament, where we meet with such language as 
 this ; " They" (the plantations) " have a constant 
 " supply out of England, which will in time drain us 
 " of people, as now Spain is, and will endanger our 
 " ruin, as now the Indies do Spain ^." 
 
 (8) It is as clearly impossible to fix, with any appear- 
 ance of precision, the annual amount of emigration at 
 this period, as it is to deny that it was great, and must 
 have been astonishingly conducive to the increase of 
 the colonies. Gregory King and Davenant, it is true, 
 both estimate its extent. The latter writer, who, 
 when advocating, in the spirit of a special pleader, 
 the colonial system, and labouring to obviate the 
 great objection to it, on account of its " draining the 
 kingdom of its people," was certainly little disposed 
 to overrate the numbers it abstracted, says, that " for 
 " the last eighty years, there have not gone more than 
 " 1000 annually to America, over and above the ac- 
 " cession of foreigners to this country^." The very 
 expression which King also makes use of '^. We must 
 learn, then, the amount of these accessions to the 
 mother country, which must be added to this thou- 
 sand, before we can judge of the yearly additions made 
 to the population of the colonies, from England alone, 
 
 ^ Chalmers, Polit. Annals, p. 541. ^ Davenant, AVorks, vol. ii., p. 3. 
 
 ^ Grey, Parliamentary Debates, vol. i., ■* Gregory King, Polit. Conclusions. 
 p. 40. Chalmer, Estimate, p. 418.
 
 440 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 by emigration. And we need not hesitate to con- 
 clude, that these foreign accessions had been very 
 great, especially as the term takes in the revocation of 
 the edict of Nantes. Davenant informs us, in another 
 part of his works, that they already amounted to 30,000 
 in two quarters of London alone, living entirely to- 
 gether without intermarrying with the English, or 
 learning their language \ exclusive of those residing 
 in other parts of the metropolis, or dispersed through- 
 out the kingdom. Indeed, it is supposed, that the 
 number of French protestants alone, who fled to Eng- 
 land during the reign of Charles II., amounted to 
 about 100,000 souls ^. Whatever might have been 
 the number, it was doubtless greatly augmented, when 
 the persecutions of Germany were added to those of 
 France. Let those who totally lose sight of emigra- 
 tion to North America at this period, and declare it 
 immaterial in any subsequent one, add to Davenant's 
 thousand, the total amount of the continental emi- 
 grants and refugees to England at this period, which 
 his computation plainly includes ; and reducing, like 
 him, their calculation to the lowest possible number, 
 deny, if they can, the great effect which such constant 
 accessions must have upon the increase of any com- 
 munity, and especially one so small as that which 
 they represent the colonies to have been. 
 
 (9) Nor are we, by any means, to suppose that the 
 population of America was, in the mean time, re- 
 cruited by emigrations from these shores exclusively ; 
 on the contrary, numbers of the persecuted, both of 
 France^ and Germany^, had found the nearest way 
 to their ultimate asylum from the inhuman atrocities 
 
 ■ Davenant, Works, vol. ii., p. 187. i., p. 397. Hist, of Virginia, p. 389. 
 ^ Dr. Short, New Observations, p. 183. * Proud, Hist, of Pennsylvania, pp. 
 3 Dr. Holmes, American Annals, vol. 219,220.
 
 Chap, v.] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 441 
 
 to wliicli they were exposed ^, and proceeded directly 
 to America ; induced to do so, no doubt, by the repre- 
 sentations made by their brethren, many of whom 
 had been settled there by the last Charles ^. Nor were 
 foreia'ners insensible to those other motives which have 
 contributed so largely to the increase of American 
 population. Holland, for instance, had not ceased to 
 send emigrants to America, though she had lost her 
 settlement there ^ ; and we are also informed^ that even 
 thus early, " the renown of the country, and the 
 " encouragement given by the proprietaries, induced 
 " many foreigners of various nations to emigrate 
 " thither *." Hence, the recently established colony 
 of Philadelphia had, from the very first, numerous 
 such accessions. In the first three years, there arrived 
 fifty sail of ships with passengers or settlers, amongst 
 which were vessels direct from Holland and Germany, 
 as well as from various parts of England ^. We are 
 informed also, that there were great emigrations to 
 Carolina, and, indeed, to America generally, during 
 the reign of James H.^ In a word, we are assured, 
 that between the Restoration and the Revolution, 
 " great numbers of foreigners transported themselves 
 thither '." 
 
 (10) The computation of King and Davenant, 
 regarding the annual emigrations to the colonies, ex- 
 tend far into the succeeding reign, that of William 
 III. ; and, consequently, render any other proof of 
 the continuance of these large and constant additions 
 to the population of America unnecessary. It was 
 the policy of his government to encourage the trade 
 
 ^ Hist, of South Carohiia, vol. i., ^ Proud, Hist, of Pennsylvania, pp. 
 p. 94. 219, 220, 230. 
 
 - Chalmers, Polit. Annals, p. 541. ^ Hist, of Carolina, vol. i., p. 94. 
 
 3 Smith, Hist, of New York, p. 9. Universal Hist., Mod. Part, vol. xli., pp. 
 
 * Chahners, Polit. Annals, p. 541. 424,426. 
 
 ^ ChalmerSj Polit. Annals, p. 315.
 
 442 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book II. 
 
 and support the colonies of the country ; and his poli- 
 tical views and religious principles equally disposed 
 him to promote the emigration of his persecuted Pro- 
 testant brethren, and to afford them an asylum. Be- 
 sides, therefore, the continued additions to the colonial 
 population already adverted to, he settled large num- 
 bers of French refugees and others in the different co- 
 lonies, particularly in Virginia^ and Carolina^, in which 
 latter state they are noticed as having been a great 
 acc|uisition ^. Their number I do not find mentioned, 
 but they had six representatives allotted to them in 
 the assembly ^, and became so numerous as to excite 
 constant jealousy in the colony^; which feeling, how- 
 ever, their quiet and inoffensive behaviour at length 
 allayed*^. These settlements of foreigners, by the 
 British government, was a circuitous mode of emigra- 
 tion, which always led to a direct one. For instance, 
 in the concluding year of the seventeenth century, we 
 find that three hundred French people followed their 
 countrymen, and arrived in Virginia ; the year succeed- 
 ing, two hundred others, and afterward one hundred 
 more '^. 
 
 (11) In the reign of Queen Anne, emigrations 
 were constantly going on, though not so liable to notice 
 as those which originated in European politics, or 
 especially such as went in bodies to settle new states. 
 The supply of numbers the mother country sent forth 
 was still increased by foreign accessions. Thus, the 
 French emigrants had become so numerous in this 
 early period as to have a church, even in Boston^. 
 We read, in M'Pherson's History of Commerce, that 
 
 1 Hist, of South Carolina, &c., vol. i., ^Ibid., p. 132. 
 
 p. 108. 6 Ibid., p. 139. 
 
 * Ibid. 7 Hist, of Virginia, p. 380. 
 
 ^ Ibid. 8 Dr. Douglas, Summary, vol. i., p. 
 
 "Ibid,, p. 111. 368.
 
 Chap, v.] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 443 
 
 " ill May, 1709, seven thousand poor Palatines and 
 " Swabians took refuge in England. Three thousand 
 " of these were sent over to New York and settled 
 " there ; many of whom being badly received, removed 
 " to Pennsylvania, and being kindly entertained by 
 " the Quakers, afterwards proved the means of draw- 
 " ing many thousands of German and Swiss Protestants 
 " thither, whereby Pennsylvania is since become by 
 " far the most populous and flourishing colony of any 
 " in North America \" Another body of foreigners, 
 as they were then termed, (the emigrants from the 
 mother country being never yet so denominated,) 
 settled in South Carolina : Swedes also continued to 
 emigrate during this reign ^; in which, from first 
 to last, the population of the colonies received large 
 additions, otherwise than by " procreation only." 
 
 (12) The accession of the House of Brunswick 
 gave an additional impulse to the advance of British 
 America, both as to its prosperity and population ; 
 and the colonial governments held out great induce- 
 ments to settlers, which were eagerly accepted from 
 all parts. This is particularly noted of the state of 
 New York ^ ; the other colonies, however, participated 
 in the same policy, which had the effect of bringing 
 over great numbers. Five hundred Irish settled in 
 South Carolina at once, in consequence of the privi- 
 leges thus afforded^. Indeed, the emigrations from 
 Ireland to the different states of North America, from 
 that period to the present, were they accurately enu- 
 merated, would, of themselves, without a single ac- 
 cession from any other country, be fully sufficient to 
 demolish the geometric theory of human increase, as 
 
 ' M'Pherson, Hist, of Commerce, ^ Universal History, Mod. Part, vol, 
 
 vol. iii., p. 6. Douglas, Summary, vol. xxxix., p. 354, 
 ii., p. 146. ■• Hist, of Carolina, p. 230. Newen- 
 
 * Douglas, Summary, vol. ii., p. 146. ham, Statistical Inquiry, pp.58, 59.
 
 444 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book II. 
 
 founded on American procreation. In a little tract 
 by Prior, published in 1729, entitled "A List of 
 Absentees," it is noticed that already 3,000 went 
 annually to America^ — a fact which only confirms 
 the assertions of Primate Boulter on the same sub- 
 ject. In a letter to the Duke of Newcastle, dated in 
 1728, his Grace says, " we have hundreds of families 
 " moving out of the north of Ireland to America ^" 
 In another letter, written in the same year, and to the 
 same nobleman (the Prime Minister), he says, " what- 
 " ever occasions their going, it is certain that above 
 " 4200 men, women, and children, have been shipped 
 " off from hence, within these three years, and of these 
 " above 3000 last summer ^." An historian of Ireland 
 says, that the annual emigration from Ulster alone was 
 not then less than the latter number, which, he observes, 
 afterwards increased *. Indeed, in the very year fol- 
 lowing, we have an account of the emigration to 
 Pennsylvania alone, amounting to 6200 persons, above 
 5000 of whom were Irish, the remainder English, 
 Welsh, Scotch, and Germans ^. Extraordinary as 
 these early accessions may appear to those who re- 
 present emigration as so trifling an accessory to Ame- 
 rican increase, they are substantiated on all hands, 
 and are, undoubtedly, true. Thus, M'Pherson, no- 
 ticing the thousands of Irish tenants who went thither, 
 mentions also the continued emigration of the English, 
 Welsh, and Scotch, as well as that of the German 
 Protestants, at this period *". Indeed, the history of 
 the State of Pennsylvania is one continued record 
 of emigration, and its effect on population, and might 
 be transferred in those respects to the other and newer 
 
 ^ Prior, List of Absentees, p. 13. 'Dr. Douglas, vol. ii., p. 326. Uni- 
 
 2 Boulter, Letters. versal Hist., Mod., vol. xli., p. 28. War- 
 
 3 Ibid. den, United States, vol. ii., p. 101. 
 
 * Gordon, Hist, of Ireland, vol. ii., ^ M'Pherson, Hist, of Commerce, 
 p. 206. vol. ii., p. 599.
 
 Chap, v.] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 445 
 
 states. " After tlie revolution of 1G88 had taken 
 " place," say the writers of the Universal History, 
 " Pennsylvania was no longer considered a refuge for 
 " the persecuted, but as one of the chief emporiums of 
 " America, and it was filled with colonists of all parts 
 " of the world. Besides the English, Scotch, and 
 " Irish, vast numbers of Palatines went every year to 
 " it from the port of Rotterdam, and their example 
 " was followed by other Germans, Swedes, &c. ^'' 
 Not that we are to suppose that the stream of emigra- 
 tion was directed to this State exclusively, though it 
 has always been observed to flow principally towards 
 one point for a limited time. Shortly after the period 
 last mentioned, we find a single individual settling 
 600 Swedes in Carolina" ; a number of Saltzburghers 
 also fixed in the same district ^, and were soon fol- 
 lowed by others of their countrymen^. In the 
 following year, 1735, the Vaudois began to settle 
 there ^, and their countrymen, as well as those of the 
 former, it is said, continued to flock to them**. 
 
 (13) About this time, a new colony, Georgia, was 
 projected, and upon very benevolent, though, as I 
 presume to think, mistaken principles. There were 
 then numerous converts, as there always have been, 
 to the notion of a " redundant population," but with 
 this difference : in those times they little dreamt of 
 restraining it by what are called the checks. It is, 
 however, worthy of remark, that it was at the period 
 when the population of England was actually retro- 
 grading, that it was thought to be most " redundant," 
 and such will always be found the case, as it always 
 has been. The first embarkations to Georgia were of 
 
 ' Universal Hist., Mod. Part, vol. xli., ■» Ibid., vol. xli., p. 459. 
 
 P-26. « Ibid., vol. xl., p. 442. 
 
 « Ibid., vol. xl, p. 441. 6 Ibid. 
 ^ Ibid., vol. xli., p. 458.
 
 446 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 " poor people from England, collected from towns and 
 " cities ^ who, by their labour, were not able to pro- 
 " cure a maintenance for themselves and families^." 
 This colony was first settled in 1733, and, in three of 
 the succeeding- years, colonists from the highlands of 
 Scotland and from Germany^ were also added. With- 
 out, however, going into particulars, I find that more 
 than five thousand persons had been sent thither be- 
 tween 1732 and 1741 ^,- and, from the shares of land 
 distributed to adventurers, we perceive that an almost 
 equal number of the latter description of persons had 
 also emio^rated ^. 
 
 (14) It is superfluous to observe that emigration 
 had not abated, as it respected the other and more 
 prosperous colonies. Not only did England replenish 
 these, but we learn that the people of Ireland still 
 continued to proceed to America in great numbers. 
 Multitudes of Irish labourers and husbandmen em- 
 barked about this period for Carolina ^. To this co- 
 lony the Switzers also began to resort at about the 
 same period. M. Pury brought over from Switzerland 
 one hundred and twenty of his poor countrymen, and 
 was joined soon after by two hundred more''. Since 
 which time it is needless to say how large a propor- 
 tionate quota that country has added to the population 
 of America^. The state gave every encouragement to 
 these, aswell as to all other settlers^. It would seem, in- 
 deed, that emigration from the continent of Europe had 
 now become general ; as not only colonial regulations, 
 but various general acts of Parliament, were made with 
 
 1 Hohpes, Amer. Ann. , vol. ii., p. 1 13. missioners of Trade and Plantations, pp. 
 Hist, of South Carolina, vol. ii., p. 45. 14, 15, 16. 
 
 2 Georgia Charter, published by the * Historical Account of South Caro- 
 Commissioners of Trade and Planta- lina, vol. ii., p. 6.3. 
 
 tions, p. 1. 7 Hist. South Carolina, vol. ii., p. 26. 
 
 3 Hist, of South Carolina, vol. ii., p. 45. ** Simond, Switzerland, vol. i., p. 272. 
 
 * Gent. Mag., 1756, p. 26. ^ Dr. Holmes, American Annals, vol. 
 
 ^ Georgia Charter, pub. by the Com- ii., p. 118.
 
 Chap, v.] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 447 
 
 the express view of regulating it : such as the statute 
 of 13 of Geo. II., c. 7, which was passed in favour 
 " of some thousands of protestants, persecuted and 
 '' oppressed in Germany and elsewhere ; also in favour 
 " ofprotestants from Switzerland, &c., all of whom were 
 " before and about this time, settled in the different 
 " provinces of the British continent of America, chiefly 
 " in the back parts thereof westward ^" In reference 
 to the general subject of these volumes, the preamble 
 to this act is well deserving of notice : " Whereas, 
 " the increase of people is the means of advancing the 
 " wealth and strength of any nation ; be it enacted," 
 &c.^" Another act was passed soon afterwards, ex- 
 tending the same provisions " to Moravians, and other 
 " foreign protestants, who had settled in the colonies, 
 " and many others of the like persuasion who were 
 " desirous to transport themselves thither," &c. ^ 
 About this time, the prisoners taken at Culloden and 
 elsewhere, adherents to the unfortunate Charles, were 
 deported to the colonies ^ as were another and a more 
 disgraceful class of culprits, to an extent that at length 
 gave the colonists umbrage. I mean the transported 
 felons : their numbers were small, indeed, compared 
 with the additions of a more reputable kind ; but still 
 they were additions. By an accurate census of the 
 State, taken a little after this time, I find they were 
 nearly one-fiftieth part of the entire number of the 
 white inhabitants"'; a population which by no means 
 justifies the observation of a sarcastic political writer 
 of our day, that the Adam and Eve of America came 
 out of Newgate, but still one which certainly was not 
 
 ' Anderson, Hist, Commerce, vol. ii., ' Holmes, American Annals, vol. ii., 
 
 p. 363. p. 184. By a very accurate census, the 
 
 ^ statutes at large, c. ii. white inhabitants were found to be, in 
 
 ' Anderson, Hist. Commerce, vol. ii., Maryland, 107,208 persons, of whom 
 
 p. 384. 1981 were convicts. 
 
 * Hist. Carolina, vol,ii.,p. 132.
 
 448 .EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 immaterial to tlie increase of the population. In the 
 summer of 1749, we are informed, nearly 12,000 Ger- 
 mans came over to Philadelphia, many of whom staid 
 in that province ^ In the year following (unless 
 different authorities have confounded the same facts) 
 there arrived an equal number in 24 or 25 sail of 
 ships ^. About the same time another body of 4317 
 Germans, and above 1000 British and Irish, were im- 
 ported into the province of Pennsylvania alone, in one 
 year ^ ; and 3000 persons are noticed as having em- 
 barked at this period in this country for America"*. 
 Nor had the emigration to the New England States 
 even yet ceased, as in the year 1752 it is recorded 
 that several hundred German protestants settled in 
 Massachusetts ^ ; and again, (though it is an anachro- 
 nism to introduce it here,) 2000 families, twenty years 
 afterwards, made application for new or vacant lands 
 in the same Province ^. 
 
 (15) Whichever way, therefore, we direct our at- 
 tention, we find abundant proofs not only of the exist- 
 ence, but of the vast extent of emigration, at this 
 period ; which is one sufficiently removed from the 
 present time to make the slightest fact relative to it 
 bear strongly upon the pretended demonstration of 
 the geometric theory. Thus, in the year 1762, the 
 governor of South Carolina informs the assembly 
 in his speech, in which he dilates upon the pros- 
 perity of the colony, that " there are at present in 
 " this harbour of Charleston, two ships, with up- 
 " wards of 800 protestants on board, and two others 
 " are expected hourly with a like number. If they 
 " are settled comfortably," he adds, " they will en- 
 
 ' Professor Kalm, Travels in North ^ Gent. Mag. 1751, p. 26-1. 
 
 America, vol. i.,p. 48. = Ibid., vol. xxii., p. 383. 
 
 2 Gent. Mag. for 1 750, p. 533. « Ibid., vol. liii., p. 469. 
 ^ Dr. Douglas, Sum., vol. ii., p. 327.
 
 Chap. V.J ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 
 
 449 
 
 " tliey will encourage many others to come^" in- 
 formation which was subsequently confirmed to us 
 from another quarter -. We cannot suppose that the 
 other colonies were less fortunate in this respect, 
 though their governors might not happen to pro- 
 nounce the intelligence of similar arrivals so ostensi- 
 bly. In 1754, 5000 Germans landed in Philadelphia 
 alone^. This was indeed the chief, but certainly not 
 the only colony to which the Germans resorted. In the 
 latter end of Queen Anne's reign they first found their 
 way thither in considerable numbers, and those who 
 were settled encouraged their friends throughout Ger- 
 many to come over to them. From that time to this 
 (1755), says the writer I am quoting, it has been cal- 
 culated that there went from the port of Rotterdam 
 alone, from 4000 to 8000 Palatines annually to Penn- 
 sylvania, besides many English, Scotch, and Irish*. 
 The consequence was, that the Episcopalians, Pres- 
 byterians, Anabaptists, &c., who had crowded upon 
 them, far outnumbered the original settlers and their 
 descendants, the Quakers, and (which is an abundant 
 proof of the fact) fixed a military establishment upon 
 the colony^. 
 
 (16) The greater increase of this State, than any 
 of the others, notwithstanding that the accession to 
 the rest had been constant and large, is therefore ac- 
 counted for. Dr. Douglas, who published his Histo- 
 rical Summary of the British Settlements, before the 
 close of the former half of the last century^, speaks of 
 the vast importation of Palatines, Saltzburghers, and 
 other foreigners; and mentions his apprehensions, 
 
 ' Universal History, Mod. Pt., vol. xl., ^ Furstenwarthers Deutsche in N. 
 p. 443. Amerika. 
 
 * Wynne, History of the British Em- "' Gent. Mag., vol. xxv., p. IG. 
 pire in America, vol. ii., p. 272. ' Ibid., vol. xxv., p. 413. 
 
 « He died in 1752. 
 
 Vol. I. 2 G
 
 450 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book 11. 
 
 that the Germans, in particular, would, in progress of 
 time, become possessed of the chiefest and most valu- 
 able part of our lands ^ Indeed, he said, that "the 
 " number of Germans imported into this province or 
 " colony, in the course of about twenty-five years last 
 " past, has been so excessive, that if it is not limited by 
 " a provincial act, or by the dernier resource, an act of 
 " parliament, the province and territories of Pennsyl- 
 " vania may soon degenerate into a foreign colony^." 
 A German writer also notes, that from 1750 to the 
 time in which he wrote, 1754, there arrived at Phila- 
 delphia, yearly, about the close of autumn, from 
 twenty to twenty-four vessels, which, during that 
 period, disembarked more than 24,000 persons ^ Nor 
 can we suppose that the practice ceased as he laid 
 down his pen. Even Franklin, after having said so 
 much in honour of American prolificness, (how cor- 
 rectly remains to be shewn,) and who, consequently, 
 was little disposed to attribute the increase of popu- 
 lation there to any other cause, allows, neverthe- 
 less, that there were, in 1755, 80,000 emigrants in 
 Pennsylvania ; meaning, doubtless, to confine that 
 number and his objection to its increase, to what 
 were then denominated foreigners, which the English 
 then never were*, and, indeed, seldom now are — a 
 most important distinction, which must be kept in 
 mind throughout. It is, indeed, impossible to suppose 
 otherwise ; else his vituperative remarks would have 
 reflected on his own father and his whole kindred. Re- 
 garding others, and especially the Germans, he ex- 
 
 ^ Dr. Douglas, Summary, vol. ii., * " By foreign setUers isto be uuder- 
 
 pp. 119, 120. "stood— 1. Germans from the Rhine, 
 
 2 Ibid., p 317. " Mozelle, and other parts. 2. Protest- 
 
 ^ Hist, of Pennsylvania, translated " ants from the South of France, &c." — 
 
 from the German, by M. Roussetot, Bartram, Description of East Florida, 
 
 quoted from Warden, vol, ii., p. 101. (1769) p. 31, note.
 
 Chap, v.] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 451 
 
 claims loud enough, " Why should the Palatine boors, 
 " be suffered to swarm into our settlements, and by 
 " herding- together establish their manners and lan- 
 " guage, to the exclusion ofours^?" 
 
 (17) But, it is somewhat singular and illiberal 
 that these views should have been entertained in a 
 province where every soul, either in his own person, 
 or in that of his immediate ancestor, had been an 
 emigrant within the short period of threescore and 
 ten years before. They, however, prevailed, and 
 the governor of the province at length yielded ; and, 
 " as the emigrants poured in,'" it is said, " in such 
 '' numbers, he refused to receive any more, unless 
 " they paid a tax for their reception, which obliged 
 " many ships, full of them, to go to other British set- 
 " tlements." Henceforth, the stream of emigration 
 divided, as it approached the Transatlantic shores, and 
 became more equally diff"used through every part of 
 our colonial dominions. 
 
 (^18) Let us here pause, and, taking into consider- 
 ation the comparative paucity of the population of the 
 American States at about this period, whether we 
 estimate it according to the diiferent enumerations 
 which remain concerning it, or calculate its amount 
 inversely from the last census, according to the ratio 
 in which we are assured it has since increased " by 
 procreation only;" and, going backwards to the time 
 with which we commenced, comprehending a period of 
 above a century, let us ask, whether any one can be so 
 wedded to a theory as to persist in supposing that acces- 
 sions, so constant and vast, to numbers originally so 
 feeble, can have been " immaterial?" The absurdity 
 of such an assertion could hardly be increased were the 
 
 * Dr. Franklin. 
 
 2G2
 
 452 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. [Book II. 
 
 period to which it is applied doubled, and it should 
 therefore be maintained that American increase has 
 proceeded, independent not only of these early and 
 uninterrupted accessions, but even of the original 
 planters themselves, the founders and fathers of Ame- 
 rican colonization.
 
 453 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OF EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. ITS HISTORICAL 
 PROOFS CONCLUDED. 
 
 (1) In the last reign, the most eventful epocha in 
 modern times, whether it respects American or Euro- 
 pean history, and after the peace of 1763, which had 
 added greatly to the security and extent of the American 
 colonies, the encouragements to emigration were consi- 
 derably increased. Not only did government hold out 
 every facility to private enterprise, but rewarded its 
 victorious officers and soldiers by large donations of 
 land, in proportion to their rank, to induce them to 
 settle there ^ Palatines ^, and other foreigners, con- 
 tinued to emigrate, but the largest accessions of in- 
 habitants were still from the mother country, espe- 
 cially from Ireland and Scotland. Thus an historian 
 of one of the provinces, already quoted, says, " Be- 
 " sides foreign Protestants, several persons from Eng- 
 " land and Scotland resorted to Carolina after the 
 " peace ; but, of all other countries, none has furnished 
 " the province with so many inhabitants as Ireland. 
 " In the northern counties of that kingdom the spirit 
 " of emigration seized the people, to such a degree, 
 " that it threatened almost a total depopulation. Such 
 " multitudes of husbandmen, labourers, and manufac- 
 " turers flocked over the Atlantic, that the landlords 
 '' began to be alarmed, and to concert ways and means 
 " to prevent the growing evil. Scarce a ship sailed 
 
 ' King's Proclamation, Dr. Holmes, ^ Hist, of South Carolina, rol. ii., p. 
 vol.ii., p.221. 273.
 
 454 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 " for any of the plantations that was not crowded 
 " with men, women, and children ; and the merchants 
 " often crammed such numbers into their ships, that 
 " they were in danger of being stifled during the pas- 
 " sage^" Nor was Ireland the only division of the 
 kingdom which furnished the emigrations to America. 
 We have no particular account, indeed, of the num- 
 bers that went from England or Wales at this period, 
 but concerning Scotland, Knox, in his view of the 
 British Empire, says, " it is certain that between the 
 " years 1763 and 1775, above 30,000 people aban- 
 " doned their habitations in the highlands, besides great 
 " numbers in the lowlands^"' " Admitting," says Mac- 
 pherson, " the immense number to be just, we may 
 " safely venture to assert, that the emigrants from the 
 " highlands alone are now (1799) increased to 60,000 
 " subjects of the United States ^" We know also 
 that the spirit of emigration had begun to spread 
 in the more populous districts of the lowlands, though 
 the numbers from thence, any more than those from 
 England, we find nowhere estimated *, 
 
 (2) But the emigrations to America were neither 
 confined to the British islands, nor exclusively directed 
 to any particular province of America. Thus we learn, 
 incidentally, (as, I again observe, we must gather all 
 the facts pertaining to the subject,) from the report of 
 Lieut.-Governor Bull, of South Carolina, dated 1770, 
 among other important matters, the prosperous state 
 of a colony of French Protestants, settled in that pro- 
 vince in 1764, and of a large body of Germans, esta- 
 blished there in the ensuing year ^ Indeed, the 
 
 ^ Hist, of South Carolina, vol, ii., p, •» Sir J. Sinclair, Statistical Account 
 
 '^'^^- of Scotland, vol. vi., p. 146. 
 
 « Knox, View of the British Empire. » Universal Hist., Mod. Part, vol. xl. 
 
 ^Macpherson, Hist, of Commerce, p. 443, ' 
 vol. iii., p. 546,
 
 Chap. VI.] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 455 
 
 Assembly of that province had appropriated a large 
 fund for bounties to foreign Protestants, and such poor 
 people of Great Britain and Ireland as should resort 
 thither \ And we are informed that besides foreign 
 Protestants, several emigrated from England and 
 Scotland, and great multitudes from Ireland, in con- 
 sequence ^. But, the emigrations from the latter 
 country, connected as they were with questions of 
 deep national interest, have usually attracted the 
 most specific notice. Thus, in the two years 1771 
 and 1772, Macpherson informs us, that there sailed 
 from the northern parts of Ireland for North America, 
 sixty-two vessels, measuring 17,350 tons, and it is 
 supposed these vessels carried as many passengers as 
 they measured tons. Most of the emigrants paid for 
 their passage £3. 10,s. each^\ The same author sub- 
 sequently says; " the spirit of emigration from the 
 " north of Ireland last year still continued. The 
 " highland part of Scotland was also infected with 
 " the same eagerness of change, and great numbers 
 " of people from Glengary, Ross, and Sutherland, 
 " and from the islands of Sky, Lewes, &c. broke 
 " through the strong attachment to the land of their 
 " fathers, which had been for ages their distinguishing 
 " characteristic," (he should have said, their inexorable 
 landlords broke it asunder,j " and crossed the Atlantic, 
 " to cultivate the waste lands, and augment the mili- 
 " tary force 'of America, where such an accession of 
 " population, at such a critical moment, was welcomed 
 " with joy and astonishment ^" But, referring to the 
 note below for further proofs of the general emigra- 
 
 ' Dr. Holmes, American Annals, vol. '^ Hist, of South Carolina and Georgia, 
 
 ii., p. 224. They are at the expense of vol. ii., pp. 268. 274. 
 4000/. a-year, in bounties given for ' Macpherson, History of Commerce, 
 
 the importation of foreign Protestants, vol. ii. 
 (1769.) Bartram, Descrip. of East Flo- * Ibid., vol. iii,, p. 546. 
 rida, p. 31.
 
 456 
 
 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 tion from the liig-lilands at this period \ I return to 
 Ireland. In the year 1784, there appeared an accu- 
 rate statement of the numbers who emigrated to 
 America in the years 1771, 1772, and 1773. It was 
 as follows : — 
 
 PORTS. 
 
 In the Year 1771. 
 
 In the Year 1772. 
 
 In the Year 1773. 1 
 
 Ships. 
 
 Peopli). 
 
 Ships. 
 
 People. 
 
 Ships. 
 
 People. 
 
 Belfast - 
 Newry 
 Derry 
 Larne 
 Portrush - 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 13 
 
 2 
 1 
 
 1750 
 
 2S00 
 
 3650 
 
 450 
 
 250 
 
 10 
 5 
 9 
 5 
 1 
 
 2650 
 1600 
 2600 
 1300 
 250 
 
 13 
 
 8 
 
 14 
 
 ■ 4 
 
 3400 
 2550 
 4050 
 1300 
 
 32 
 
 S900 
 
 30 
 
 8400 , 
 
 39 
 
 11300 
 
 ' I take a few instances from one of 
 Sir J. Sinclair's invaluable works. " Tlie 
 Statistical Account of Scotland" : — 
 
 From 1 771 to 1 775, several thousands 
 emigrated from the 'Western Highlands 
 to America, vol. xiii., p. 31 6. 
 
 Glenely. — Inhabitants 1286. Emigi-a- 
 tions from 1770 to 1774, 100 ; in 1783, 
 14; in 1787. 10; in 1793, 130— total, 
 414, or one-third of the population. 
 
 Knowdort. — One thousand inhabi- 
 tants. Emigrations from 1770 to 1793, 
 800. Vol. xvi., p. 267. 
 
 Sky.— From 1771 to Oct 1790. eight 
 large Transports have sailed from this 
 island with emigrants, to seek settle- 
 ments in America, which have, at a 
 moderate computation, taken away 2400 
 souls: exclusive of the above, 200 males, 
 and 207 females, emigrated from this 
 parish alone from 1772 to 1775. Dui- 
 rinish, Sky. Vol. iv., p. 133. 
 
 Ardchattan. — Within these two or 
 three years, 140 persons have emigrated 
 from hence to America, and this year 
 more are proposing to follow. Vol. vi., 
 191 ; XV. 495 ; xvi. p. 178. 
 
 Jura. — Emigrating to America has 
 proved, once and again, a drain to this 
 island. Vol. xii., p. 324. 
 
 Colonsay. — A few emigrated from 
 hence to America in the summer of 
 1792, but in the summer of 1791 a 
 
 considerable portion of the inhabitants 
 crossed the Atlantic. Vol. xii., p. 324. 
 
 South Uist. — Emigration from hence 
 commenced in 1772. Vol. xiii.. p. 298. 
 
 Isleof Eigg.— In 1788 and 1790, 18.3 
 souls emigrated from this parish to Ame- 
 rica. N.B. Population only 399. Vol. 
 xvii , p. 281. 
 
 Coll. — Men, women, and children 
 emigrated to America in 1792. Vol. x., 
 p. 416. 
 
 Lochbroom. — Great numbers of the 
 people emigrate to America. Vol. x., p. 
 470. 
 
 Highlands. — A rage for emigration 
 has got to a great height of late in the 
 highlands. Vol. i., pp. 488, 489. 
 
 Begun in the lowland country. Vol. 
 p. 146. 
 
 It is unnecessary to augment these 
 extracts. I shall rather refer to a few 
 of the passages where emigration is fur- 
 ther noticed, such as those in vol. vi., pp. 
 131, 132, 305, 574; ix. 159; x. 62. 
 324, 325 ; xi. 293. 425 : xiii. 332 ; xiv. 
 191; XV. 495; xvi. 290, &c, &c., 
 where these, and similar passages, 
 describe the " spirit of emigration," 
 " the rage of emigration," or " fre- 
 quent and numerous emigrations," 
 as taking away great numbers. I 
 shall only add, with a view to the fur- 
 ther consideration of the effect of this
 
 Chap. VI.] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 45? 
 
 These make a total number of 28,600 persons, or an 
 annual averao-e of 9532 emiorants^ From another 
 quarter we learn, that so vast was the emigration from 
 Ireland in the last year, " that there landed in Phila- 
 " delphia, from only two ports, not less than 12,000 
 " families." 
 
 (3) These statements receive confirmation from 
 an official document of the highest authority. A Re- 
 port of a Committee of the Irish Parliament states, 
 that from the port of Belfast, 3541 persons embarked 
 for America, between Oct. 1771 and Oct. 1773. 
 About GOOO shipped at Derry at the same time ; and 
 the whole emigration from the province of Ulster 
 was estimated to amount to, at least, 30,000 people, 
 whereof 10,000 were weavers, many of whom carried 
 their weaving utensils with them. B\it the Report 
 alluded to was upon the state of the linen manufac 
 ture of Ireland, which, it is well known, is almost en- 
 tirely limited to that province, to which the notice of 
 these emigrations was consequently also confined. We 
 are not to conclude, therefore, that accounts regarding 
 the amount of emigration throughout the whole island, 
 which exceed the foregoing numbers, are exaggera- 
 tions. Commencing with the year 1771, we find "the 
 " number of emigrants from five ports in Ireland, for 
 " five years, estimated at 43,720 ; " but to this docu- 
 ment is added a remark, highly pertinent to the full 
 view of the subject, — "it were to be wished we 
 had " an estimate of the other parts of Ireland^;" 
 whence we know from other sources, that there were 
 perpetual, though not such extensive, emigrations^. In 
 
 constant emigration on the population ' Newenham, Statis. Inq. concerning 
 of America, that they are sometimes said the Population of Ireland, pp. 58, 59, 60. 
 to consist of 3'oung men exclusively. ^ Gent. Mag., vol. xliv., p. 332. 
 See vol. iv., p. 106 ; vol. vi., p. 145, &c. ^ Arthur Young, Tour in Ireland, vol. 
 
 ii., p.6.
 
 458 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book II. 
 
 a document, which has the appearance of correctness, 
 we meet with the entire number of emigrants, which 
 arrived in six of the colonies, during a period of less 
 than four months only, namely, from the 3d of Au- 
 gust, 1773, to the 29th November following; the 
 amount was 7678 individuals, of whom 6222 were 
 Irish ^ Indeed, it is impossible to turn to documents 
 at all bearing upon the question, whether historical or 
 statistical, in which the vast emigration to the colonies, 
 and especially from Ireland, is not recorded. Even 
 the daily papers of that period are constantly noticing 
 the fact^. 
 
 (4) If the American war gave a temporary check 
 to emigration to the then colonies of America, at least 
 as far as it regarded the mother country, the event of 
 that contest, which constituted them an united and 
 independent country, has unquestionably promoted it 
 to a degree previously unparalleled. One of its first 
 
 ' The particiJars are as follows: 210 passengers; ship Needham, from 
 " Emigrations from Ireland, from the 3d Newry, with 500 ; ship Betsey, from 
 of August, 1773, to the 29th of Novem- Newry, with 360; snow Penn, from 
 ber following, which was taken in Phi- Cork, with 80. Within the first fort- 
 ladelphia, and the other to^vns, upon the night in August, 3500 passengers ar- 
 emigrants being landed there, and trans- rived in Pennsylvania from Ireland, 
 mitted by the Isabella, Capt. Fleming : In October, a snow arrived at Phila- 
 delphia, from Galway, in the north of 
 Ireland, with 80 passengers ; a ship 
 from Belfast, with 170 passengers ; 
 and a sliip from Holland, with 140 
 passengers. In December, a brig from 
 Dornock, in Scotland, arrived at New 
 York, with about 200 passengers, and 
 Emigration from Ireland in 1 ^-ooo ^ost about 100 on the passage. Some 
 nearly four months - J " emigrants settled in the more southern 
 
 From England, Scotland, and 1 colonies. In August, 1 773, 500 arrived 
 
 Germany, there were land- /> 1400 at North Carolina from Ireland. In 
 ed within the same period J September, a brig arrived at Charleston, 
 
 From the Isle of Man - - 56 South Carolina, from Ireland, with 120 
 
 settlers." — President Styles, M. S 
 
 7678 quoted from Dr. Holmes's Amer. Ann., 
 
 vol. ii., p. 255. 
 
 * For instance ; The Pliiladelphia The above extract is given to shew, 
 Gazette of the 4th of July, says, " Since that the emigration was not confined, 
 our last, arrived here and at New- at this period, to Ulster, nor yet to Ire- 
 castle, brig Agnes, from Belfast, with land. 
 
 At New York 
 
 - 1611 
 
 Philadelphia 
 Charleston 
 
 - 2086 
 
 - 966 
 
 New Jersey 
 Halifax - 
 
 - 326 
 
 - 516 
 
 Rhode Island, 
 
 , Newport, 7 1 7
 
 Chap. VI.] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 459 
 
 fruits was the settling of the Hessian troops there, 
 almost to a man \ But it is almost frivolous to men- 
 tion such an accession, after an event which had en- 
 tirely removed one of the greatest remaining- barriers 
 against continental emigration, and had constituted 
 America, as one of her best writers expresses it, " the 
 colony of Europe." Henceforth, the tide of emigra- 
 tion set in from almost every quarter of the old world, 
 and threatened to overwhelm, instead of replenishing, 
 the New. So great, indeed, did these accessions 
 become, that some of the most influential of her public 
 " characters took reasonable alarm. Mr. Jeflerson, for 
 instance, does not argue, as if he supposed these acces- 
 sions "immaterial," in a political point of view; how 
 they could have been deemed so, in an arithmetical 
 one, is, indeed, astonishing. They " will," says he, 
 " share with us the legislation. They will inspire 
 " into it their spirit ; warp and bias its direction, and 
 " render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted 
 " mass." He adds, and it is a direct proof of the pre- 
 sence of a vast mass of emigrants, at the period at 
 which he wrote, " I may appeal to experience, for a 
 "verification of these conjectures ^" It is a great 
 doubt, nevertheless, whether he, any more than Dr. 
 Franklin, adverted to accessions from the mother 
 country, in his objections to such unlimited emigra- 
 tions, which had been encouraged from " the desire 
 " of America to produce rapid population, by as great 
 " importations as possible ;" on the contrary, one of 
 his strongest objections to such immense foreign im- 
 portations is, " that they will transmit their language 
 to their children." These views, founded doubtless 
 upon obvious facts, whether those of sound policy or 
 otherwise, prevailed : and the legislature of the United 
 
 * See Carey and Lea's America. * Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, pp. 141, 142,
 
 460 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book II. 
 
 States, sensible of the political danger to wliich they 
 were thus exposed, altered the law of naturalization, 
 postponing the admission of emigrants to the rights of 
 citizenship some years beyond the term of residence 
 previously required \ That this was no work of 
 political supererogation is evident enough, from 
 a fact which will be referred to hereafter. In one 
 of the most flourishing States of the Union, it was 
 found that a great majority of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives were Irish and Germans, or their immediate 
 descendants. Indeed, just at the period M'hen the 
 first census was taken, I see Mr. Coxe estimates the 
 number of Germans only, at 150,000 to 180,000 
 souls ^. Pennsylvania, indeed, to use the expression 
 of Dr. Rush, in a short time after the termination 
 of the war, had become " the great out-port of 
 the United States, for Europeans^," an advantage 
 which New York soon shared with her ; hence the 
 vast increase of those two States, while that of Vir- 
 ginia, little more than half as well peopled as 
 either, is far slower even than that of the mother 
 country. 
 
 (5) But it is perhaps less easy to fix upon any 
 direct calculation, as to the annual emigrations to 
 America, since the war of independence, than it was 
 even before that event : we meet, indeed, in every 
 direction, indications that they were vast and uni- 
 versal ; but the great increase in the commercial in- 
 tercourse between the whole of Europe and America, 
 and of the shipping engaged in it, had now given the 
 utmost facilities to individual and independent emi- 
 
 ' Such was the vast influx of Euro- U.S , p. 243. 
 peans, that the legislature altered the * Tench, Coxe, View of the United 
 
 temi of residence required for natura- States, p. 101. 
 
 lization, from two to five j^ears. — Wan- ^ Manchester Phil. Transactions, 
 
 ley, Journal of an Excursion to the vol. iii., p. 183.
 
 Chap. Vr.] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 4G1 
 
 gration, which was perpetually proceeding, and to a 
 vast extent ; but still the circumstance was too common 
 and constant to be directly recorded. In addition, 
 however, to such perpetual opportunities of transport, 
 the great demand for conveyance created a distinct 
 and gainful branch of commercial pursuit, namely, 
 that of carrying emigrants to America ^ And I may 
 so far digress, as to ask whether this part of the " car- 
 rying trade" is even now immaterial ? On the con- 
 ^trary, how many thousand tons of vessels are em- 
 ployed in the conveyance of these " commodities," as 
 they were then called-! So active has been this 
 " branch of business," that the governments of dif- 
 ferent countries, and especially, to its high honour, that 
 of America, which witnessed the necessity of interfer- 
 ing, have from time to time regulated it, and at- 
 tempted to adjust its " briskness" to the feelings of 
 humanity, but too often, alas ! ineffectually. In their 
 crowded condition, these vessels too often equalled 
 slave ships, and not unfrequently exceeded the latter 
 in mortality^. 
 
 (6) It is neither necessary, nor would it be pos- 
 sible, to give an estimate of these annual accessions to 
 the population of America during the few years from 
 the close of the war to the commencement of the pre- 
 sent century. France, we know, now began to send 
 forth settlers to these States *. Germany still furnished 
 them in " incredible numbers 5." Scotland, especially 
 its highlands, resumed its spirit of emigration, so that, 
 asDupin observes, " towards the close of the eighteenth 
 
 ' Macphersou, Auiials of Commerce, are daily expected from the latter place, 
 
 vol. iii., p. 644. — Ibid. 
 
 - The ship Paca, Captain Kelly, from ^ J\Iacpherson, Annals of Commerce. 
 
 Belfast, arrived at Baltimore on the "* Volney, View of the United States, 
 
 20th July, 1784, with above 4G0 emi- p. 3G0. 
 
 grants ,• and on the 24th of the same * Dr. Render, Travels in Germany, 
 
 month, another vessel arrived with 600 ! vol. J.; p. 176. 
 More ships with the same commoditi/,
 
 462 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 century, the depopulation became alarming \" In 
 one year, I find it noted, that " five thousand high- 
 " landers had emigrated to America ; and that five 
 " thousand or more were about to follow ^" Regard- 
 ing England, how niany families are there of the 
 middle and lower ranks, or, in other words, of the mass 
 of the community, who did not, at this period, add a 
 friend or a relative to the population of the United 
 States ? As it respects Ireland, it is, assuredly, 
 superfluous to continue the proofs of the extensive and 
 continued emigrations it poured forth to America. 
 Major Newenham, after a careful and patient examina- 
 tion of the subject, in his invaluable volume regarding 
 the population of Ireland, concludes that, during fifty 
 years of the last century, in seven of which emigration 
 was interrupted by the war, two hundred thousand 
 Irish had emigrated to America ; a computation which, 
 I conceive, falls much short of the real number, as, 
 indeed, he himself apprehended^. 
 
 (7) I shall equally decline attempting any detailed 
 account of emigration during the present century, 
 which is the less necessary, as subsequent views of 
 the subject will shew the vast number of emigrants 
 that are now existing in the United States. As, how- 
 ever, we approach the period of the last census, I 
 shall select a few unconnected notices of these acces- 
 sions to its numbers, in order to leave the subject more 
 fully upon the reader's mind ; who has finally to judge 
 whether, from first to last, the aggregate of such 
 additions can have been immaterial to American in- 
 crease. 
 
 (8) To commence, then, with the first year of 
 general peace. In 1815, we are informed, that the 
 
 ' Dupin, Commercial Power of Great * Ir%'ine, Inquir}', &c., p. 158. 
 Britain, p. 190. ^ Newenham, Inquiry, p. 60.
 
 Chap. VI.] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 463 
 
 arrivals in America from Ireland exceeded any thing 
 in the Custom-house books \ In the three years suc- 
 ceeding, Mr. Godwin gives us, on official authority, 
 the number of persons who had emigrated from the 
 same country to North America. The total, he in- 
 forms us, stands thus : — 
 
 Number of Persons emigrating from Dublin 6,645 
 
 from Ireland generally . 35,633 ^ 
 
 The following is an extract of notices (I am still 
 quoting the same able writer) appearing in Miles's 
 Baltimore Weekly Register, a journal of the highest 
 character in the United States for authenticity ^. 
 
 "Au2:ust 16, 1817. Within the last two weeks, 
 " ending yesterday morning, we have received ac- 
 " counts of the arrival of twenty-six vessels at the 
 " several ports of the United States, with two thou- 
 " sand five hundred and twelve passengers, viz. 
 
 From Amsterdam, Germans and Swiss 1896 
 
 From England, Scotland, and Ireland 281 
 
 From the same, via Nova Scotia and Newfoundland .... 238 
 
 From France • 97 
 
 2512 
 
 " Emigration. — August 30, 1817. The two weeks, 
 " ending yesterday, gave us accounts of the arrival of 
 " twenty-one vessels with emigrants from Europe, 
 " viz. 
 
 From England, Ireland, and Scotland 557 
 
 From Holland, Germans and Swiss 365 
 
 From France 25 
 
 947 
 
 " Of these one hundred and seventy-one reached the 
 " United States via Halifax, though great inducements 
 
 > Monthly Mag., 1815, p. 191. ^I observe Mr. Warden frequently 
 
 * Godwin, Inquiry concerning Po- quotes this paper as undoubted autho- 
 pulation, p. 411. rity.
 
 
 (( 
 
 464 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 " are held out to settlers there. Many settlers, as they 
 " are called, arrive in Canada, from whence hundreds 
 " of them pass up the river, &c., and across into New 
 " York and Ohio. It seems to be discovered, that it 
 " is more convenient to reach our countries through 
 " the British colonies than to come direct. Facilities 
 " are afforded to the former, which are denied the 
 " latter." 
 
 Oct. 25, 1817. — Emigration. — The British ship 
 Mary Ann has arrived at Boston, in 50 days from 
 London, with 204 passengers. The Mary Ann was 
 bound to St. John's, Newfoundland, but the pas- 
 " sengers, not wishing to go there, rose upon the crew, 
 " and brought the vessel to Boston ^'" 
 
 (9) But we are not left to form an opinion as to 
 the extent of emigration, from incidental notices only. 
 Dr. Seybert says, that the passengers to ten of the 
 principal ports of the United States, in the year 1817, 
 amounted to 22,235; of whom 11,977 were from 
 Great Britain and Ireland; 4164 from Germany and 
 Holland; 1245 from France; 58 from Italy; 2901 
 from the British possessions in North America; 1569 
 from the West Indies ; and from all other countries, 
 321. These, however, we may conclude, with the 
 editor of Styles's Register, were far short of the num- 
 ber that arrived. And, independently of the general 
 reasons why such accounts, if not wilfully exagge- 
 rated, must always fall short of the truth, the follow- 
 ing in this instance may be specified : first, great 
 numbers, it is understood, work their passage over to 
 America, and are consequently not numbered as pas- 
 sengers ; at all events, thousands of individuals in 
 the mercantile navy of the United States, who are 
 not natives of that country, ultimately settle there. 
 
 2 Godwin, Inquiry concerning Population, pp. 412,413.
 
 Chap. VI.] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 4G5 
 
 Second, the ten ports enumerated by Dr. Seybert, 
 though the principal, are not the only ones ; on the 
 contrary, not fewer than thirty ports were specified, 
 as early as the year 1796, as being- placed under their 
 custom-house regulations ^ Third, many emigrants 
 land at Amboy, to avoid the bonds into which tlie 
 captains are obliged to enter regarding them ; and, 
 lastly, immense numbers, it is stated, avail themselves 
 of the facilities afforded by our Government for emi- 
 grating to our Canadian territories, and pass thence 
 into those of the United States : a mode of emio-ra- 
 tion of which it is impossible to calculate, with any 
 precision, the extent. And it is conceived that these, 
 as well as other reasons, will always keep the numbers, 
 as reported, very much under the truth, supposing 
 even that there were a less evident disposition on the 
 other side the water to underrate these accessions to 
 American population. We have further reasons for 
 believing Dr. Seybert's statement to be very far short 
 of the whole truth. We can check one of his items 
 by the report of M. Von Furstenwarther, who was 
 commissioned to proceed to America, to serve and 
 assist, as far as possible, the immense number of 
 German emigrants who had settled in the United 
 States, and were proceeding thither, especially that 
 class of his countrymen well known by the ap- 
 pellation of Redemptioners, and who constitute the 
 stock in what is called, in the United States, " the 
 white slave trade." He says, when writing on 
 the matter on which he was employed by his own 
 government, — from the 12th of July, 1817, to the 
 beginning of January ensuing, there arrived nine- 
 teen vessels, bringing with them passengers of thai 
 class to the amount of more than six thousand, being 
 
 ' ^lacpherson, Annals of Commerce, vol. iv., p. 390. 
 Vol. I. 2 H
 
 466 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book 11. 
 
 lialf as many more of these only, and during' the space 
 of little more than five months, as Dr. Seybert allots 
 to the Dutch and Germans of every description for 
 the whole year. This is of itself a sufficient proof of 
 the great deficiency (unintentional, I am sure) in his 
 account of the emigration of the year in question, the 
 only one concerning w^hich he gives us any particulars 
 on the subject. But, as it is observed in Styles's Re- 
 gister, in an article I am about to quote, the difficulty 
 of obtaining information of the full number, even to 
 those who are in the habit of collecting such accounts, 
 is often insurmountable. But were we to admit that 
 22,235 was the real limit of emigration during one 
 year, (1817,) still it will hardly be contended that 
 such an addition, continued annually, would be im- 
 material. 
 
 (10) Dr. Seybert, indeed, seems to think that, in the 
 year above mentioned, the one in which he wrote, 
 unusually large emigrations had taken place. But 
 this only argues that the practice was increasing. 
 Thus, in the very year ensuing, namely, 1818, that 
 emigration was still more extensive, is very certain. I 
 again quote from Styles's Register, and am still obliged 
 to Mr. Godwin's book for the opportunity of so doing. 
 " Sept. 12, 1818. — The current of emigration from 
 " the British dominions to the United States never 
 " was so strong as it is now. For the week ending 
 " 31st August, 2150 passengers, nearly the whole of 
 " them emigrants from Europe, arrived at the single 
 " port of New York ; and for the subsequent week we 
 " kept an account of the passengers registered in the 
 " newspapers, (which is far short of the numbers that 
 " arrived,) and found them to amount to 3000, for 
 " five or six principal ports ; and the aggregate may 
 " be fairly estimated at COOO for the two weeks pre-
 
 Chap. VI,] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 467 
 
 '' ceding tlie 6tli of September. Of tlie 0000, about 
 *' 4000 were from England, 1000 from Ireland, and 
 " the rest from Scotland, Holland, and France; about 
 " 100 only from the latter ^" Thus we see, that the 
 amount of emigrants in a single fortnight, and to one 
 port only, amounted to 6000. 
 
 (1 1) Mr. Hodgson, in his interesting " Letters from 
 North America," has inserted an account of the num- 
 ber of passengers that arrived at the single port of New 
 York, from the 1st of March, 1818, to the 1 1th Decem- 
 ber, 1819, which he copied from the official account 
 at the mayor's office, and these amount to 1 8,292 \ 
 exclusive of 1G,628 reported as Americans, and, as I 
 understand, sometimes erroneously, to avoid, perhaps, 
 the tax exacted from them on their entrance^. Be 
 that as it may, an accession from emigration of up- 
 wards of eighteen thousand individuals in less than a 
 year and three-quarters, and at one port only, and that 
 being a port at which the captains of vessels thus 
 employed purposely avoid landing their passengers, 
 may give us some idea as to the immense total which 
 emigration was annually adding to the American 
 population, up to the very date of the last census. 
 
 (12) But to this amount, at whatever it maybe 
 estimated, must be added a great proportion of the 
 annual emigration which, for reasons perfectly fami- 
 liar to the public, is directed in the first instance to 
 Canada, but which constantly passes over into the 
 territory of the United States. This, for some of the 
 last years of the period now considered, is stated as 
 having averaged 10,000 or 12,000. This account is 
 confirmed by the author last quoted, who, at a rather 
 early period of the year 1819, says, that more than 
 
 * Godwin, Inquiry, &c., p. 413. rica, vol. ii., p. 123. 
 
 ' Hodgson, Letters from North Ame- "^ Emigration Report, 3 Pt., p. 103. 
 
 2H2
 
 4GS EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 10,000 had already passed tlirougli Quebec ^ The 
 Emigrant Society (a charitable establishment, whose 
 very name indicates the prevalence of emigration) 
 reports, under date of the 11th Oct. 1819, according 
 to Mr. Godwin, that the number of emigrants arriving 
 at that port since the opening of the navigation for the 
 present season, amounts to 12,000". 
 
 (13) These, then, are a few facts regarding the 
 extent of the emigration to North America, at the 
 closing year of the period we have been considering ; 
 but they relate to one or two ports only, and compre- 
 hend, generally speaking, only very short periods. 
 Any general estimate which can be formed from them 
 must necessarily be vast in amount. It may not, 
 indeed, rise so high as the statement of Mr. Cobbett, 
 who says, that during the twelve months preceding the 
 14th of August of this year, " upwards of one hundred 
 and fifty thousand had landed^ ;" but it will shew that 
 it has probably a greater foundation in fact, than often 
 satisfies the mere political computist. At all events, 
 it is impossible to regard it, in any point of view 
 whatsoever, as " immaterial.'' It would be easy to ex- 
 tend the proof of continued emigration beyond the 
 date of the last census, and up to the present time, 
 but it is obviously unnecessary. The argument, as 
 far as arithmetic is concerned, closes at that period^. 
 
 (14) In reviewing this history of American emi- 
 gration from the period with which it commenced to 
 
 ' Hodgson, Letters from North Ame- was, in 1 824, 6,378 (we are informed, 
 
 rica, vol. i., p. 386. however, in another part of the same 
 
 2 Godwin, Inquiry, p. 411. Report, that 7,500 went from Ireland 
 
 a Ibid., p. 414. only that year, p. 110) ; in 1825, 9,461 ; 
 
 " For instance, we find by the official and in 1826, 10,531. — 3d Emigration 
 
 report on emigration, that in 1823, Report, p. 474. That " emigration is in- 
 
 10,300 voluntary emigrants left Ireland; " creasing, especially to New York and 
 
 3d Report, p. 110. That about 10,000 go " Philadelphia," p. 223. From the latter 
 
 annually to Canada ; p. 120. That the place, however, we have no direct report 
 
 number of British subjects who emigrated whatever, 
 to New York only, directly or indirectly,
 
 Chap. VI.] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS. 469 
 
 that of its termination, it would be obviously a most 
 imperfect method of arriving at the general amount, 
 to sum up the isolated numbers which at some par- 
 ticular date or occasion have happened to be recorded ; 
 even were our possession of such information less im- 
 perfect than it necessaiily is. It is true that we have 
 inserted notices of emigrations amounting to thou- 
 sands, tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thou- 
 sands ; but their total, I must repeat, falls far short of 
 those constant and unnoticed accessions which the 
 population of America has daily received. For in- 
 stance, it is said that the French emigrants who had 
 reached the United States amounted, in 1817, to 
 thirty thousand^; whereas I doubt whether we shall 
 find that the total of all the emigrations from France 
 which are recorded through the whole of the accounts 
 preceding that year amount to a thirtieth part of that 
 number. In the presence of these facts, were we to 
 call upon those who. have denied the material influ- 
 ence of emigration on the population of America to 
 fix upon its gross amount during only a century past, 
 it is quite impossible but that it must be one of such a 
 magnitude as to derange the whole of their calcula- 
 tions and deductions. They have, indeed, made ad- 
 missions that will be attended to hereafter, and which, 
 though far beneath the truth, are nevertheless quite 
 ample enough to produce the effect which they attri- 
 bute to procreation only. 
 
 (15) Before closing these imperfect collections on 
 the subject, I may remark that the extent and effects 
 of emigration have not been left to be recorded by the 
 historian only : they have been immortalized in the pa- 
 thetic strains of the poet of Ireland, and by an equally 
 distinguished genius of the North, whom I particu- 
 
 _ ' Monthly Mag., vol. Ixsxvii., p. 75,
 
 470 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II* 
 
 larise amongst multitudes, as being- conversant with the 
 scenes which they describe, and which, in their glow- 
 ing language, can never die. But the universal litera- 
 ture of the country, of every class and description, 
 during the whole period embraced, bears testimony to 
 the fact at issue. In every possible variety of phrase, 
 though with the utmost unanimity of meaning, they 
 speak of the spirit of emigration.^ the rage of emigra^ 
 tion ^, fashion of emigration ^, prodigiousness of emi^ 
 gration *, alarming emigration ^, contagion of emigra- 
 tion*', fever of emigration"^, epidemic fury of emi- 
 gration^, incessant stream of emigration^, torrent of 
 emigration ^°, vast tide of emigration flowing from all 
 parts of Europe to the United States of America ^^ : — 
 expressions which, to have any truth or meaning at 
 all, must imply a deportation to so vast an extent as 
 must affect the greater mass of inhabitants whence 
 it has proceeded, and most unquestionably in a still 
 higher deo-ree the smaller number to which it is added. 
 Both these circumstances, however, are denied : with 
 regard to the latter, it will be shewn, if further proof 
 be yet necessary, how erroneously ; as it regards the 
 former, it fully comports with the theory of popu- 
 lation that has to be developed, to believe that under 
 ordinary circumstances the vacancy would by a law of 
 Nature be ultimately supplied. I cannot, however, 
 but think that the pause, not to say retrogression, 
 which evidently occurred in the movements of the po- 
 pulation of this country, in the earlier part of the last 
 
 ^ Chalmers, Polit. Ann., p. 644, &c. ' Dr. Johnson, Tour to the Hebrides. 
 
 * Sir J. Sinclair, Scotland, vol. i., p. ® Ibid. 
 
 489; vol. X., p. 62—324, &c. ® Coxe, View of the United States, p, 
 
 3 Simond, Switzerland, vol. i., p. 272. 202. 
 
 * Monthlj' Magazine, vol. liii., p. 233. '" Holmes, Account of the United 
 Grece, Facts and Observations, p. 1. States, p. 124. 
 
 * Dupin, Commercial Power of Great " Wentworth, New South Wales, 
 Britain, vol. ii., p. 190. pref. 
 
 ^ Sinclair, Scotland, vol.xiii., p. 318.
 
 Chap.VL] ITS HISTORICAL PROOFS, 4/1 
 
 century, was mainly attributable to the too great 
 drains which the plantations, as well as other causes, 
 had made upon the inhabitants during- the preceding 
 one. I am aware that the anti-populationists assert 
 to the contrar}^, and conceive they prove their point, 
 when, denying that the excessive deportations from 
 Spain to her South American colonics have nearly de- 
 populated and ruined that country, they state that the 
 outports are still the most active and best peopled 
 parts of that monarchy. This, I think, is a most incon- 
 clusive argument ; were I draining a pool, the last 
 part of it which would be either dry or stagnant, 
 would be the sluice by which it was emptied. 
 
 (16) But to return. Where the population of the 
 places from whence this vast emigration has been 
 partly supplied, was in a situation which, accord- 
 ing to the true theory of human increase, would 
 prevent it from recovering its numbers, there we find 
 that it left those chasms which are still unsupplied : 
 an instance or two of which, as a not indirect proof of 
 the great extent to which emigration has proceeded, 
 shall close this branch of the argument. 
 
 (17) We have particularly noticed emigrations, 
 from time to time, from the Palatinate of Germany ; a 
 territory of small extent, and therefore well calculated 
 to exhibit the argument as Mr. Malthus sometimes 
 wishes to present it, namely, on a confined and limited 
 scale. Did these desertions cause any vacuums ? Hear 
 what Este says. He describes the causes which had 
 led to them, and adds, that " they have driven away 
 one half of the people into emigTation." Some years 
 since, the palatinate produced 500,000 people. They 
 are now computed at 200,000 or 240,000. In Man- 
 heim the decrease has been less, viz. from 25,000 to 
 22,000. These emigrations have been to Pennsyl-
 
 472 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. [Book II. 
 
 vania, where, from the influx of such strangers, every 
 sign and shop board is underwritten in German ^ : a 
 fact which Mr. Wanley confirms from personal ob- 
 servation ". Cologne, Este observes also, was equally 
 thinned by emigration^. Dr. Render, in his " Tour 
 in Germany," bears witness to the same facts, when 
 speaking of the almost incredible number of emigrants 
 thence *. For further information on the same sub- 
 ject, I must refer to " Furstenwarther's Deutscher in 
 Nord Amerika," written expressly on this subject, with 
 vs^hose authority I will conclude. 
 .- (18) Enough, I think, has been said to render the 
 remaining part of the argument on this point almost 
 superfluous: it was, however, written first; and though, 
 as now presented, it will be greatly abridged, still I 
 was perhaps too unwilling to sacrifice it altogether. 
 
 ^ Este, Journey ihroiigh Flanders, ^ Este, Journey, &c., p. 177. 
 Germany, &c., p. 338. ■* Dr. Render, Tour in Germany, vol. 
 
 '^ "Wanky, Journal, &c., p. 184, i., p. 176.
 
 473 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OF EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA, PROVED BY ITS 
 
 EFFECTS ON THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND 
 
 LANGUAGE OF THE COMMUNITY. 
 
 (1) We now proceed to prove, still more fully, the 
 vast and continued emigration from Europe to Ame- 
 rica, by its effects on the manners, habits, and struc- 
 ture of society, not only in those newer States which 
 it has created, but in those older provinces which 
 once constituted the colonies of England. Previously 
 to doing this, it may not be superfluous to present a 
 description of the original construction of American 
 population, taken from two or three of its own writers, 
 and those not amongst the least enthusiastic eulogists 
 of their country. 
 
 (2) " New England," says Bristed, " was settled 
 " altogether by Englishmen, excepting an Irish colony 
 " in Massachusetts, and a few Scottish and Irish set- 
 " tlements in New Hampshire. With these limitations, 
 " the New England population is, at this hour, 
 " entirely of English origin. The same source also 
 " supplies a great majority of the people of the mid- 
 " die, and a still larger proportion in the southern 
 " States. The Germans make about a fourth of the 
 " province of Pennsylvania, and a part of the inha- 
 " bitants of New York and New Jersey. They are, 
 " however, fast yielding their language, habits, and 
 " customs to the predominance of the English. The 
 " same may be said of the Dutch settled in New York,
 
 474 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 " New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. A few French Pro- 
 " testants fixed themselves at New Rochelle and Staten 
 " Island, in the State of New York, and at Charleston, 
 '' in South Carolina. The Irish emigrants are found 
 " principally in Pennsylvania and Maryland, and 
 " many are scattered over New York, New Jersey, 
 " Kentucky, and some other States. Those who are 
 " Catholics, from the middle and south of Ireland, 
 " compose the bulk of our day-labourers in our large 
 " cities." (And still how few and trifling were the 
 notices of any emigration whatever from any part of 
 Ireland, excepting the north !) " The Protestants from 
 " the north of Ireland generally become agriculturists 
 " in the country ; the Scotch, who are, for the most 
 " part, intelligent, industrious, good citizens, have 
 " settlements in New Hampshire, New York, New 
 " Jersey, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Some 
 " Swedes are found in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and 
 " Maryland ; and some Swiss have fixed their abode 
 " in Indiana. Some small Welsh settlements have 
 " been made in Pennsylvania and New York \" Coxe 
 says, " Our population has been derived from England, 
 '' Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Germany, the United 
 " Netherlands, Sweden, France, and a few from se- 
 " veral other countries ^." " The emigrants hither," 
 he adds, " have been, generally speaking, the enter- 
 " prising and their followers, or the oppressed subjects 
 " of unjust civil or religious rulers. Presbyterians, 
 " Congregationalists, Quakers, Baptists, and others, 
 " have fled from England ; Seceders and Episcopalians 
 " from Scotland ; Catholics and Presbyterians from 
 " Ireland; Hugonots from France; Protestants from 
 " the dominions of the Catholic princes of Germany, 
 
 ' Bristed, America and her Resources. ^ Coxe, View of the Uuited States, 
 
 p. 202.
 
 Chap. VII.] ITS EFFECTS ON THE COMMUNITY. 475 
 
 " and Catholics from those of the Protestant princes \" 
 In a word, he says that the United States have become 
 " the colony of all Europe'^" Beaujour gives a still more 
 comprehensive description of the population, which 
 he says, is " a mixture of all the people of the earth ^" 
 
 (3) Thus is it that all the countries of the world, 
 or, at least, of Christendom, have furnished their quota 
 to this great and incessant migration to the new con- 
 tinent ; the inhabitants of which, however. Weld says, 
 principally " consist of English, Irish, Scotch, Ger- 
 " man, French, and American-born citizens descended 
 " from people of these different nations, who are, 
 " of course, by far the most numerous class ^" 
 Doubtless : but what a proof is this of the general 
 position, the immensity of emigration, if the natives 
 of the country are still designated as a class ! 
 
 (4) Here, then, is the reason of the rapid increase 
 of American population. A nucleus, if I may so ex- 
 press myself, of every European nation, formed there 
 by the original structure of its society, each of which, 
 being perpetually augmented, not only by natural in- 
 crease, but by kindred accessions from their mother- 
 countries, accounts for a fact, which, indeed, was 
 never doubted, and which admits of no other rational 
 interpretation. Hence Dr. Morse observes, that the 
 population is rapidly increasing, not by natural popu- 
 lation only, but " by emigrations from Europe," and 
 that it is consequently " composed of people of all 
 " nations, languages, characters, and religions. The 
 " greatest part, however," he observes, " are descended 
 *' from the English, who, for the sake of distinction, 
 " are called Anglo-Americans^." But this distinction, 
 and the necessity for it, are, at once, the most decisive 
 
 ^ Coxe, View of the United States, States, p. 72. 
 p. 202. * Weld, Travels throiiL^h America, 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 506, p. 12. 
 
 3 Beaujoiir, Sketch of the United * Morse, Geog., p. 63.
 
 476 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book II. 
 
 evidence of the prevalence and effect of emigration. 
 In a word, the rapid growth of the population of 
 the United States constitutes of itself a decisive evi- 
 dence of these numerous accessions : it is caused, 
 as Coxe says, " by migrations to our country, and the 
 " non-existence of emigration from it^" 
 
 (5) The extent of emigration may therefore be 
 known by the rapidity of the increase in those States 
 to which it has been principally directed, and this in- 
 crease will be accompanied by corresponding effects 
 on the manners and habits of their population ; at 
 least, if the accessions are furnished in any consi- 
 derable degree from nations of foreign origin and dis- 
 similar habits. And, in this view of the question, 
 two observations are highly important : first, emigra- 
 tions from the mother -country, the British empire, 
 must, in this respect, pass unnoticed, as the manners, 
 habits, and language of those who compose them are 
 already assimilated to those established in the country 
 to which they proceed : second, such is the tendency 
 of society, when closely and permanently associated, 
 to settle speedily into a general uniformity in those 
 respects, that that emigration must be vast indeed, 
 which can dislocate the usages of the community, and 
 disturb the current of customs generally established. 
 But I will present this important consideration in 
 other language than my own, namely, that which will 
 add to the conclusion the authority of Dr. Morse. 
 He says, " It is natural for emigrants to a settlement 
 " to adopt the customs of the original inhabitants, 
 *' even though the emigrants should, in a length of 
 " time, become the most numerous^." Bearing these 
 observations in mind, let us take a short view of the 
 state of society in North America, when, I think, it 
 
 ' Coxe, View of the United States, ^ pr. Morse, Geog., p. 253. 
 p. 201.
 
 Chap. VII.] ITS EFFECTS ON THE COMMUNITY. 477. 
 
 will be seen that emig-ration lias, generally speaking, 
 produced a striking effect upon its character, and, 
 consequently, a still greater one upon its increase. 
 
 (6) And, first, the States of New England, having 
 ceased to be those to which emigrants mainly resort, 
 and, indeed, never having been those to w^hich settlers 
 not British, have repaired, retain, as we should ex 
 pect them to do under such circumstances, much of 
 their primitive character ^ But then, confirmatory 
 of the principle which we are advancing, their 
 growth has been, especially of late, proportionably, 
 and, indeed, exceedingly slow. New Hampshire 
 has, with the exception of Maine, taken the lead in 
 this increase, (the ratio of which, however, is rapidly 
 diminishing) ; but for the reason stated by Warden, 
 namely, " emigration from the neighbouring States, 
 " and from the different countries in Europe^." Re- 
 garding the latter district, the only one which exhibits 
 a great, but still a lessening, rate of increase, we are 
 informed, concerning the inhabitants, that " their 
 "manners are changed," partly from "■ the intermix- 
 "ture of emigrants of every description^" : an influx 
 which still continues to such an extent, as to render it 
 " difficult to draw any conclusions, from the increase 
 " of population, concerning the healthiness of the 
 " climated" 
 
 (7) Of all the old States of the American confede- 
 ration, Georgia is, at present, exhibiting the greatest 
 increase ; still, I must remark, that that increase is de- 
 cennially diminishing, especially since Dr. Morse 
 said, that it was conjectured that emigrations from 
 Europe and the northern States had more than tripled 
 
 ' See Dr. Dwit^ht's Travels, passim. " Ibid., vol. i., p.Sfil. 
 
 * Warden, Statistical Account of the * Ibid., vol. i., p. 360. 
 United States, vol. i., p. 383.
 
 478 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book II. 
 
 the inhabitants within the last six years \ Regarding 
 their character, therefore, he observes, that no ge- 
 neral description will apply. " Collected from dif- 
 " ferent parts of the world, as interest, necessity, or 
 " inclination led them, their manners must, of course, 
 " partake of all the varieties which distinguish the 
 " several states and kingdoms from whence they 
 " came. There is so little uniformity, that it is 
 " difficult to trace any governing principle among 
 "them 2." 
 
 (8) New York, which has also greatly abated in 
 the rapidity of its increase, is, however, multiplying 
 the most rapidly of any old State in the Union, next 
 to Georgia. It has, consequently, a population com- 
 posed of emigrants, and their descendants, from every 
 country in Europe^. Hence, as Dr. Morse observes, 
 " the manners of the people differ as well as their 
 language^." Dr. D wight, also, after describing the 
 inhabitants as consisting of New Englanders, Dutch, 
 Scotch, Irish, German, English, and French colonists, 
 and their progeny, says, "It is impossible to ascribe 
 " to these numerous classes, a common character ^" 
 But it is surely unnecessary to give proofs of the im- 
 mense emigrations which are perpetually proceeding 
 to this State of the Union. 
 
 (9) The same may be also observed respecting 
 Pennsylvania; its increase is, in like manner, dimi- 
 nishing, but is still great. Hence Warden says, "that 
 " the origin of the population is too recent to allow 
 ^' any thing like uniformity of manners and habits^." 
 It is of English, Irish, German, Scotch, Dutch, Swiss, 
 
 ' Morse, Geog. Lea's Geog., &c. of America, p. 39. , 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 450, . *Morse, Geog.,p. 251. 
 
 ^ Warden, Staiistical Account of the ^ Dr. Dwight, Travels, vol. iii., p. 509. 
 
 United States, vol. i.,-p. 500. See the * Warden, Statistical Account of the 
 
 whole paragraph. Also, Carey and United States, vol. ii., p. 97.
 
 Chap. VII.] ITS EFFECTS ON THE COMMUNITY. 479 
 
 Finlandish, and Danish extraction. "A proportionate 
 " assemblage, therefore, of the national prejudices, the 
 " manners, customs, religion, and political sentiments 
 " of all these," Dr. Morse observes, " will form the 
 " Pennsylvanian character \" The first emigrants 
 were about 2000 Nonconformists from London, Liver- 
 pool, and Bristol ; and their descendants generally 
 occupy the eastern counties. The Irish and their 
 offspring are found every where throughout the State. 
 The Germans also are much dispersed. The latter, 
 Morse reckons to compose one quarter, if not one 
 third, of the inhabitants of this great and populous 
 State ^. Warden computes them at above one third, 
 and, consequently, between 300,000 and 400,000 ^ I 
 do not mean to contend that the whole of that number 
 were actually born in Germany, though, doubtless, 
 many of them were, as, indeed, Morse asserts^; but it 
 is undeniably certain, that the addition they have 
 recently made to the population is attributable to 
 emigration. M. von Furstenwarther, alluding to the 
 multitudes of his countrymen in this part of the 
 Union, clearly refers to the late accessions only ; as he 
 says that, from the general odium they labour under, 
 the " children of the Germans are ashamed of their 
 " parentage, and in the third generation all traces of 
 " their country disappear^." We may judge, therefore, 
 of the number of native Germans in this province 
 alone, when under such circumstances ; and although 
 the official use of their language is interdicted, and 
 notwithstanding the poverty and ignorance^ of the 
 class which usually emigrates, out of the eighty-four 
 newspapers lately published in that province, nineteen 
 
 ' Morse, Geog., p. 419. ' Furstenwarther, Der Deutsche in N. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 419. Amerika. 
 
 ^ Warden, Stat. Ace. of U. States. *^ " The body of them want education." 
 
 * Morse, Geog., p. 419. Morse, Geog., p. 429.
 
 480 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 of tliem were in the German^; and it is said that they 
 have usually fifteen of the sixty-nine members who 
 compose the assembly ^. The Irish also are exceed- 
 ingly numerous in this state. But to continue the 
 proof of emigration to what is denominated by Dr. 
 Rush the outport of Europe^, is certainly superfluous. 
 (10) The increase of South Carolina, since emi- 
 gration has no longer proceeded to that state with so 
 great and perpetual an influx, has become so much re- 
 duced as to render it unnecessary to speak much con- 
 cerning it. Dr. Morse attributes it exclusively to 
 emigration, at least he mentions no other cause ^. Its 
 progress, however, was formerly far more rapid ; and 
 the history of its population during that period not 
 only explains that circumstance, but presents at the 
 same time a picture of a state of things which, with 
 very few alterations, might be alternately transferred 
 to almost every State in the Union. Dr. Ramsey, its 
 member in Congress, thus gives it : " The first settle- 
 " ment of the province was made in the year 1669, on 
 " the neck of land between the Ashley and Cooper 
 " rivers, by a few adventurers who embarked from Eno-- 
 " land in two vessels. The subsequent settlers were 
 " a medley of different nations, and composed of the 
 " most contradictory characters. From England the 
 " colony received both the friends of Parliament and 
 " the adherents of the Royal Family. The servants 
 " of the crown, from motives of policy, encouraged 
 " the emigration of the former, and grants of land 
 " were freely bestowed upon the latter, as a reward of 
 " their loyalty. A considerable number of French 
 " protestants, after the revocation of the Edict of 
 " Nantes, found an asylum in South Carolina, and be- 
 
 ' Carey and Lea, Geog. and Statist., ^ Dr. Rush, Maude. Phil. Trans., vol. 
 p. 1G8. iii., p. 183. 
 
 * Morse, Geog., p. 429. * Morse, Geog., p. 550.
 
 cc 
 
 cc 
 li 
 (( 
 cc 
 
 Chap. VII.] ITS EFFECTS ON THE COMxMUNITi'. 481 
 
 " came very useful inhabitants. Many of the Dutcli 
 " colonists, dissatisfied with the situation of New York 
 after the submission of that colony to the crown of 
 England, repaired thither, and contributed much by 
 " their industry to the cultivation of the province; 
 " The success that attended them induced more of 
 " their countrymen to follow their example. An Irish 
 " settlement was placed near Santee, between the 
 " year 1730 and 1740, to which was given the name 
 " of Williamsburg township. In the same period se- 
 " veral families of Switzers settled on the north-east 
 " side of the Savannah river, under the auspices of 
 their countryman, John Peter Pury. From this 
 gentleman the valley of Purysburg took its name. 
 From 1748 to 1755, great numbers of Palatines were 
 introduced ; they settled Orangeburg, Congaree, 
 " and Wateree. After the battle of Culloden a num- 
 " ber of the vanquished Highlanders were transported 
 " to South Carolina. But the most considerable 
 " era of population was after the peace of Paris in 
 *' 1763. Soon after that event, the assembly of the 
 " colony appropriated a large fund for bounties to 
 " foreign protestants, who should settle in the interior 
 " parts. In consequence of this encouragement many 
 " arrived from Europe, particularly from Ireland. 
 " Great numbers also migrated from Virginia, Penn- 
 " sylvania," (which was itself receiving immense acces- 
 sions of foreign inhabitants,) " and the other northern 
 provinces. From these various sources of popula- 
 " tion, settlements were made in ten years after the 
 " peace of Paris, one hundred and fifty miles west- 
 *' ward, beyond all that had taken place in the pre- 
 " ceding hundred years ^" Such has been the pro- 
 gress of popvdation in South Carolina ; and of pre- 
 
 ' Dr. Ramsay, Hist, Rev, of South Carolina, pp. 3, 4, 5. 
 Vol. I. 2 I 
 
 ((
 
 482 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book II. 
 
 cisely the same nature, however varied in circum- 
 stances, has been that of all the other states. 
 
 (11) North Carolina is inhabited, in its western 
 parts, chiefly by emigrants from Ireland ^ This state 
 also did exhibit a very rapid increase of population, 
 concerning which Dr. Morse has some speculations 
 which have completely, forestalled the notions of " the 
 philosophers of Europe on the same subject^." Time 
 has, however, so soon and so thoroughly refuted his 
 ideas, even while he was wording them, that further 
 observations are unnecessary. The population of 
 North Carolina, still possessing the almost unrivalled 
 advantages on which he dilates, instead of increasing 
 so as to double itself every fifteen years, would, with 
 all the extensive migrations to that province which he 
 himself records, take half a century for that purpose^. 
 
 (12) Respecting New Jersey, the decennial in- 
 crease of which had, at the last census, fallen to 
 thirteen per cent., it may be also asserted, that very 
 much of its former increase has been solely attribu- 
 table to emigration. Mr. Warden observes, that the 
 population being composed of Hollanders, Germans, 
 Scotch, Irish, and emigrants from the New England 
 States, or their descendants, has no uniform cha- 
 racter ^ The American geographer, in like manner, 
 says, that " many circumstances concur to make the 
 *' character, manners, and customs, various in dif- 
 " ferent parts of the State. The inhabitants," says 
 lie, " are a collection of Low Dutch, Germans, English, 
 *' Scotch, Irish, and New-Englanders, or their descend- 
 ^^ ants." I refer to the remainder of the passage for 
 the effect produced by this admixture in the numerous 
 peculiarities in manners, customs, character, religion, 
 
 ^ Warden, Statist. Account of the =* Ibid., p. 523. 
 United States, vol. ii., p. 373. ■* AYarden, Statistical Account of the 
 
 ^ Morse, Geog., pp. 523, 524. United States, vol. ii., p. 373,
 
 Chap. VII.] ITS EFFECTS ON THE COMMUNITY. 483 
 
 and even dress '. Mr. Malthus, having rivettcd our 
 attention to this State, as the one which doubled itself 
 in twenty-two years, by procreation only, and, con- 
 sequently, independent of emigration, one is curious 
 to learn a reason why, since these numerous foreign 
 accessions have been added, the population only ad- 
 vances, at present, after a rate that would not double 
 its numbers in half a century ? 
 
 (13) Virginia is, perhaps, latterly at least, less 
 indebted to emigration than most of the States in the 
 Union ; though there are colonies of Scotch, Irish, 
 and even French, in the province^: indeed, we are 
 assured, upon unquestionable authority, that the 
 frontier counties were principally settled by Irish pres- 
 byterians ^ ; and it is also said, that most of the com- 
 mercial men in the State were emigrants *. Still, how- 
 ever, recent emigration has probably contributed less 
 to the population than in most other parts of America ; 
 and the inhabitants, therefore, preserve, generally 
 speaking, their original character^. But, then, the 
 increase in their numbers is proportionably slow, and 
 also declining. At the present rate, they would not 
 double in less than fourscore years, which would de- 
 mand centuries of time before the population would be 
 sufficiently augmented to develop, in any degree, the 
 resources of the country. 
 
 (14) Maryland, too, exhibits but an inconsider- 
 able increase. But even that increase is far from being 
 attributable to " procreation only." On the contrary, 
 though it was first settled by Roman Catholics^, and 
 has since had large emigrations of that persuasion, at 
 present it abounds with all religious professions'^. 
 
 ' Morse, Geog., p. 412. * Morse, Geog., p. 498. 
 
 2 Warden, Statistical Account of the * Ibid. 
 
 United States, vol. ii.,p. 18G. ^ Chalmers, Polit. Annals, p. 207. 
 
 * Dr. Douglas, Summary, vol, ii., p. ^ Morse, Geog., p. 470. 
 380. 
 
 212
 
 484 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 With respect to character, therefore, to use the words 
 of Dr. Morse, as " the inhabitants are made up of 
 " various nations of many different religious senti- 
 " ments, few general observations would apply \" Ac- 
 cording to the present rate of increase, the inhabitants 
 would not double in one hundred years ; to whatever 
 cause, whether resolvable into the climate or state of 
 the country, so inadequate an increase is to be attri- 
 buted. 
 
 (15) Delaware, lastly, is actually stationary in its 
 numbers. I find, therefore, few accounts of emigra- 
 tions to that State ; and thouo-h I should certainlv attri- 
 bute this strange state of the population to numerous 
 migrations, I meet with few, indeed not any, notices 
 of this kind. Occupying, as it does, so large a pro- 
 portion, for its extent, of the coast of a great shipping 
 country, possessing also several manufactories ^ and, 
 above all, " a very fertile tract of country, so that 
 " scarcely any part of the Union can be selected more 
 " adapted to the different purposes of agriculture, or 
 " in which a greater variety of the most useful produc- 
 " tions can be conveniently and plentifully reared^;" 
 the difficulty of accounting for so stagnant a state of 
 population is great, and much more important to the 
 argument than speculations about the operation of the 
 checks in Nova Zembla or Kamtschatka *. After some 
 consideration of the subject, I am reluctantly com- 
 pelled to adopt the conclusion, that the climate of the 
 United States, or, at least, of the southern parts, is 
 not very favourable to population from " procreation 
 only," beyond a certain point, at least so far as the 
 European variety of human beings is concerned. But 
 I shall not unnecessarily encumber the argument with 
 
 ' Morse, Geog., p. 467. * Malthus, Essay on Population, b. i., 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 452. c. 9. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 450.
 
 Chap. VII.] ITS EFFECTS ON THE COMMUNITY. 485 
 
 tlie reasons for an opinion not essentially connected with 
 it, and concerning the correctness of which, time alone 
 can determine. 
 
 (IG) To return, therefore. Let us now advert to 
 another, and a still more striking proof of the preva- 
 lence of emigration which the new States and territo- 
 ries of the Union afford, and which only present the 
 very same facts, under different forms and proportions, 
 which the older settlements exhibited at their first 
 establishment ; namely, the early foundation and rapid 
 increase of colonies, to which a succession of emi- 
 grations, consisting of individuals, principally in the 
 prime of life, are perpetually repairing. In many of 
 the newer States and territories of America, the cano- 
 nical ratio of human increase is greatly outstripped ; 
 some of them doubling their original number many 
 times over in the first ten years, as, doubtless, the 
 first colonies did when the original settlers were pro- 
 ceeding to establish themselves in the country. 
 
 (17) In proceeding to consider the effects of emi- 
 gration in rapidly peopling these recently esteiblished 
 states, it is readily admitted, that part of that emigra- 
 tion consists of migrations from the older settlements 
 of the Union, otherwise the slow rate of increase in 
 some of the latter would be perfectly unaccountable. 
 But it has been seen that no inconsiderable part of 
 the population of most of the States, which have 
 sent forth these recruits, is itself the result of recent 
 foreign emigration. Still a very considerable propor- 
 tion of the great and rapid increase which has taken 
 place in these new provinces, is plainly attributa])le 
 to direct emigration from almost every part of Europe, 
 and it is to the latter fact the reader's attention is about 
 to be principally directed. 
 
 (18) Louisiana presents itself to our consideration,
 
 486 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book XL 
 
 as a first instance, tlie population in this State having 
 increased, in ten years, more than 600 per cent. This 
 increase, and all others of a similar nature, it is 
 obvious, can have been derived from emigration only, 
 had we no information whatever upon the subject ; but 
 Carey and Lea describe the State thus : " the popu- 
 " lation is principally confined to the settlements on 
 " the immediate banks of the Mississippi, above and 
 " below New Orleans. In the distance of more than 
 " 100 miles along this river, the banks present the 
 " appearance of a continued village. In the upper 
 " settlements, the inhabitants are principally Cana- 
 " dians ; in the middle, Germans ; and in the lower, 
 " French and Spaniards ^" Warden says the inha- 
 bitants are composed of men of every country in 
 Europe ^. 
 
 (19) Of Indiana, the increase in which, from 1810 
 to 1820, was upwards of 500 per cent., the same 
 authorities (Americans) inform us, that " a majority 
 " of the people are from Kentucky, Tennessee, Vir- 
 " ginia and the Carolinas ; the remainder are from 
 " every State in the Union, and from every country 
 " in Europe ^." 
 
 (20) The population of Illinois, though still small, 
 is next in the order of increase ; having added above 
 300 per cent, to its numbers, in the period before- 
 mentioned. This territory is principally peopled by 
 the French ^, to whom, however, numbers of emi- 
 grants have been added, both from England and the 
 United States ^. 
 
 (21) " The great increase in the population of 
 
 ^ Carey and Lea, Geog., &c. p. 281. ^ Carey and Lea, Geog., &c. p. 290. 
 Warden, Statistical Acct. of the United * Warden, Statistical Account of the 
 
 States, vol. ii., p. 531 . United States, vol. ii., pp. 57, 58. 
 
 ° Warden, Statistical Account of the ^ Ibid., vol. ii.,p. 59. 
 United States, vol. ii., p. 567.
 
 Chap. VII.] ITS EFFECTS ON THE COMMUNITY. 487 
 
 " Ohio," (avIucIi contain.s nearly 000,000 inliabitants, 
 and has added above 150 per cent, to its numbers in ten 
 years,) " has been partly owing to emigrations from 
 " the neighbouring States, and many from Europe ^" 
 Dr. Drake, in his interesting account of this State, 
 says, " there is no State in the Union which has not 
 '' enriched it with some of its most enterprising citi- 
 " zens ; nor a kingdom in the west of Europe, whose 
 " adventurous exiles are not comminoled with us. 
 " To Kentucky, and the States north of Virginia, — to 
 " England, Ireland, Germany, Scotland, France, and 
 " Holland, we are most indebted^." He speaks, 
 again, " of the constant influx of young men from 
 other countries^," and informs us, that there is an 
 institution established for the express purpose of 
 directing and assisting, in case of necessity, the 
 numerous emigrants who are constantly proceeding 
 to that State. There are two papers printed in Ger- 
 man for the convenience of settlers of that class, 
 though this is not the part of the Union to which 
 they most commonly resort ^. 
 
 (22) The two thinly populated districts of Ala- 
 bama and Mississippi seem to have been settled by 
 the French ^, some of whom it appears have had con- 
 siderable grants made to them, since this part of the 
 continent was ceded to the Republic ^. 
 
 (23) Of Missouri, the authors previously quoted 
 remark, that its original inhabitants were French and 
 Spaniards. There are few of the latter remaining; 
 but the former, they add, constitute a respectable pro- 
 portion of the population. The French language is 
 
 ' Carey and Lea, Geog. and Statist., ^ Von Furstenwarther, der Deutscho 
 p. 239. in Amerika. 
 
 '2 Dr. Drake, Natural and Statistical ^ Carey and Lea, Geog. of America, 
 View, &c., p. 257. p. 267, &c. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 249. ^ Warden, Statistical Account of the 
 
 United States, vol. iii., pp. 34, 37.
 
 488 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book II. 
 
 spoken in many of the settlements, almost exclu- 
 sively ^ In Arkansas, also, the inhabitants are mostly 
 French ". 
 
 (24) Tennessee, increased in the ten years so fre- 
 quently referred to, upwards of 60 per cent., (in the 
 previous ten it had increased 148 per cent.) " It 
 " has, therefore," as Warden remarks, " scarcely any 
 '' uniform character, its population consisting of emi- 
 " grants from the Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia, and 
 " the New England States, and from Europe^. 
 
 (25) Kentucky, whose population increased, from 
 1800 to 1810, nearly 84 per cent.; and from 1810 to 
 1820, nearly 39 per cent., a large accession, though 
 lessened by more than one half in ten years, owes its 
 rapid increase, also, to foreign accessions. Thus, 
 Imlay, when speaking of emigration from Europe 
 having long ceased to Virginia, says, " whereas, I 
 " have known upwards of 10,000 emigrants to arrive 
 " in the single state of Kentucky within one year, 
 " and from 4 to 1 0,000 ^ in several other years." 
 "The people," says Malte-Brun, " consist of emigrants 
 " from every State in the Union, and from every coun- 
 " try in Europe^." "Collected from different States, 
 " of different manners, customs, religions, and political 
 " sentiments, they have not been long enough toge- 
 " ther, to form an uniform national character^." In a 
 word, they are a recent association of strangers. 
 
 (2C) Such then is the effect emigration has had 
 upon the States of the American Union generally, 
 and especially upon those whose population has in- 
 creased the most rapidly ; in regard to manners, cus- 
 
 ' Carey and Lea, Geog., 8:c., of ■* Topog. Descrip. "West. Territory of 
 
 America, p. 305. North America. By Geo. Imlay, Capt. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 313. in the American Service, p. 84. 
 
 3 Warden, Statis. Acct. of the United * Malte-Bnin, Geog. l.lxxx., p. 199. 
 
 States, vol. ii., p. 351. * Morse, Geog., p. 509.
 
 Chap. VII.] ITS EFFECTS ON THE COMMUNITY. 489 
 
 toms, habits, religion, and even dress ; nay, I ought to 
 add, personal appearance of the people ; for, as War- 
 den observes, their physiognomy is as varied as their 
 origin is different, English, Irish, German, French, 
 Swiss, all retaining something of the first stamp, 
 which belongs to their native country ^ It is true 
 the American government has been long averse from 
 encourao-ino- distinct locations of the numerous bodies 
 of emigrants from different countries, with a view to 
 obviate as much as possible the political inconveniences 
 resulting from such associations ; still it has not been 
 able to succeed so fully, but that considerable masses 
 of the emigrants occasionally keep together, or, by a 
 sort of moral magnetism, are attracted to the districts 
 in which their countrymen have been previously 
 settled. Hence, in every description of that country, 
 we perpetually meet with accounts of different dis- 
 tricts being settled by emigrants from certain coun- 
 tries, and of towns also being of Irish ^, Scotch^, Ger- 
 man ^ French ^, Dutch ^, Swiss ", or Spanish ^ origin. 
 
 (27) The last allusion has reminded me of another 
 proof of the existence of a perpetual and vast emigra- 
 tion to the United States. Its accessions to the differ- 
 ent States have been distinctly shewn; but those to the 
 cities are still more conspicuous : and without vouch- 
 ing for the accuracy of the information, I may aver, 
 that I never met with an individual among the many 
 whom I have consulted as the most competent to an- 
 swer my inquiries on the subject who estimated them at 
 less than one third of the entire population of the latter. 
 I shall instance but a very few of these places. Warden 
 
 ' Warden, Statis.Acct. of the United 'Warden, Statis. Account, vol. i., 
 
 States, vol. iii., p. 475. p. 310. 
 
 » Ibid., vol. i., p. 38.3. 6 c^rey and Lea, Geog. and Statis., 
 
 3 Morse, Geoj,'., p. 286. p. 157. 
 
 * Carey and Lea, Geog. and Statis. ^ Ibid., p. 291. 
 
 of America, p. 166. s Ibid., p. 327.
 
 490 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book II. 
 
 says of the capital, Washington, so recently founded, 
 " nearly one half of the population is of Irish origin^ ;" 
 that the labouring class, particularly, is chiefly Irish, 
 many of whom have no acquaintance with the English 
 language ; that they have cut the canals, made and 
 repaired the streets, and executed most of the manual 
 labour of the city^. Charleston is said to be still more 
 indebted to foreigners for its population. Of Balti- 
 more, Dr. Morse says, the bulk of the inhabitants have 
 been recently collected from all quarters of the world ; 
 and adds, that they vary in their habits, manners, and 
 their religion, '' if they have any^." The inhabitants 
 of Albany are " collected from all parts of the northern 
 world ^" As to Philadelphia it is needless to speak 
 of the multitude of emigrants it has always contained ; 
 it has been increased to its present magnitude, as 
 Morse says, by " the constant and regular influx of 
 foreigners^." " The inhabitants,"' therefore, " con- 
 " sist," he informs us, " of emigrants from England, 
 " Ireland, Germany, and Scotland*^." New York, now 
 the largest city in the Union, is peopled " by all 
 " nations and religions'," and experiences a con- 
 " stant change of inhabitants by emigration from 
 " Europe^." It is curious to read Dr. D wight's classi- 
 fication of the inhabitants of this city, arranged, as 
 he intimates, according to tlieii' supposed numbers. 
 " 1. Emigrants from New England. 2. The original 
 " inhabitants, partly Dutch, partly English. 3. Emi- 
 " grants from other parts of the State. 4. Emigrants 
 " from Ireland. 5. Emigrants from New Jersey. 
 " 6. Emigrants from Scotland. 7. Emigrants from 
 '' Germany. 8. Emigrants from England. 9. Emi- 
 
 > Warden, Statistical Account of the ■* Ibid., p. 258. ? Ibid., p. 253. 
 
 United States, vol. iii., p. 192. = Ibid., p. 432. " Ibid., p. 257. 
 
 « Ibid., p. 192. 6 Ibid., p. 312. 
 ^ Morse, Geog., p. 468. _ . "
 
 Chap. VIL] ITS EFFECTS ON THE COMMUNITY. 491 
 
 '' grants from France. 10. Emigrants from Holland. 
 "11. Jews. To these," lie says, " are to be added a 
 " few Swedes, Danes, Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards, 
 " and West Indians. The children born of emio^rants 
 " are numerous. Among so many sorts of persons 
 *' you will easily believe it must be difficult, if not 
 " impossible, to find a common character \" The 
 other cities of America might all be brought forward 
 in this argument, especially those in the New States ; 
 but I shall mention only one more, and that the oldest 
 considerable city in the Union, and the capital of the 
 New England States, to which we are assured so often 
 no emigration is at present known to proceed ; I mean 
 Boston. Dr. Morse informs us, that one third of its 
 inhabitants are strangers and fugitive persons. 
 
 (28) I said I should only add the instance of 
 Boston ; but an account has just come under my 
 notice of another city which I will also mention, inas- 
 much as in its census the foreigners are discriminated, 
 the only case of the kind I have hitherto met with in 
 any district or town in the United States : it is the 
 city of Pittsburg, a place, that as far as I can learn, 
 has no claims whatever to the particular preference, 
 or even notice, of emigrants, more especially when 
 compared with the larger cities of the Union. It had, 
 in 1826, 10,515 inhabitants, of whom 2303 were 
 foreigners ^ ; at least half the whole number of the 
 adults. 
 
 (29) But to return to the general argument. Such 
 has been the vastness of this emigration, that even 
 when it has been generally distributed, they have, 
 in its several ramifications, carried, as we have seen, 
 diversity and confusion into the very elements of the 
 
 * Dr. Dwight, Trans., vol. iii., p.439. July, 1826.— See Bui. Univer., Vol. vili., 
 ^ New York Inquirer, 10 and 13 p. 54.
 
 492 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book II. 
 
 social system. Not only has it varied the charac- 
 ters, manners, customs, and religions of the commu- 
 nity, but it has created a dissonance in its very lan- 
 guage, (though that is the first thing in which human 
 beings, when closely associated, necessarily and 
 anxiously assimilate,) so that in large tracts of country 
 foreign languages are alone spoken or understood ^ 
 Happily for the American community, not only the 
 first, but the greatest accessions of inhabitants have 
 proceeded from these shores, and have consequently 
 carried their language with them, and permanently 
 established it. Still, as Coxe remarks, " the Ger- 
 '' man, the Dutch, and the French, are spoken by 
 " large bodies of the citizens^ " a fact which Morse 
 also mentions ; where he says, " intermingled with 
 " the Anglo-Americans are the Dutch, Scotch, Irish, 
 " French, German, Swedes, and Jews ; all of whom, 
 " except the Scotch and Irish, retain, in a greater or 
 " less degree, their native language, in which they 
 '' perform their public worship, and converse, and 
 " transact their business with each other^." But the 
 confusion of languages, which we are taught to believe 
 caused the dissolution of one of the greatest accocia- 
 tions in the ancient world, has not interrupted the 
 progress of this immense social structure in the new. 
 May the latter, as it did not originate in the impiety, 
 never share the fate of the prototype of all political 
 confusion, in its disunion and destruction ! 
 
 (30) Such then are the consequences of the recent 
 emigration which has poured from all parts of Europe 
 into the states and territories of the great American 
 republic. Effects so striking and universal prove the 
 existence of a cause, which, according to the reasoning 
 
 Hall, Travels in North America, ^ Coxe View of the United States, 
 456. p. 101 . 3 Morse, Geog., p. 68.
 
 Chap. VII.] ITS EFFECTS OX THE COMMUJCITY. 493 
 
 of Dr. Morse, already quoted^, must liave been vast 
 and continued indeed, to have been adequate to tlieir 
 production. " Tlie time is, indeed, anticipated," says 
 the same excellent writer, " when the language, man- 
 " ners, customs, and political and religious sentiments 
 " of this mixed mass of people who inhabit the United 
 " States shall have become so assimilated, as that all 
 " nominal distinctions shall be lost in the general and 
 " honourable name of American^." In the mean time, 
 this very prophecy amounts to a full and unequivocal 
 proof, that emigration has had a most material influence 
 on the character (and how much more so on the 
 numbers !) of the population of the United States. 
 
 ' See page 476. ^ Morse, Geog., p. G8.
 
 494 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OF EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : PROVED BY SUNDRY 
 STATISTICAL FACTS AND RECORDS. 
 
 (1) The preceding parts of our present inquiry have, 
 it is conceived, already established the fact of a vast 
 and continuous emigration to America, but still the 
 precise proportion of that emigration, compared with 
 the entire population, has, in great measure, eluded 
 our research. Of that proportion, however, it is ne- 
 cessary to the question to have as accurate an idea as 
 possible, and w^e must therefore pursue the subject, 
 though it is wearisome to persevere in calculating, 
 from a number of unconnected and incidental facts, 
 results which, by a certain and customary process, 
 might have been at once ascertained. Had the Ame- 
 rican legislature willed it, their four last censuses 
 might have included a column containing the number 
 of citizens natives of other countries ; that would have 
 settled the question, and it would have been, at least, 
 as easy a matter to have done so, as to have presented 
 us with the exact number of males between 16 and 18 
 years of age, the motive for doing which no scientific 
 man can possibly divine. The omission is now, how- 
 ever, irreparable ; so much nationality and spurious 
 patriotism would be mixed up with the inquiry, were 
 it now instituted, that however honest the intentions 
 of the supreme government might be, its subordinate 
 agents could no longer be fully depended upon. The 
 reason is obvious : " the Americans/' as a writer before
 
 'Chap. VIII.] STATISTICAL PROOFS. 495 
 
 quoted observes, " either from principle and convic- 
 " tion, or from national pride, have, or affect to have, 
 " throughout the Union, a great indiifercnce towards 
 " foreign emigration, and appear to think that, even 
 " without this aid, the population of the United States 
 " increases rapidly enough." But notwithstanding 
 all this professed indifference, like many others who 
 know the difference between an ostentatious avowal 
 of public principles and a constant adherence to a 
 more interested course of practice, they continue to 
 give greater facilities to naturalization than any 
 country in the world ; nay, even in the capital of 
 their empire, they place the foreign emigrant upon a 
 better footing than the native citizen ; Congress not 
 only " having wisely permitted foreigners, not citizens, 
 " to hold lands within the territory, which," says my 
 American authority, " must powerfully contribute to 
 " its population and improvement ; but having passed 
 " a law, whereby foreign tradesmen, artificers, and ma- 
 " nufacturers, having taken the oath of citizenship, are 
 " free, even from taxes, for five years ^" 
 
 (2) In the foregoing chapter, the existence and 
 extent of emi2:ration to the United States has been 
 shown by its striking effects upon the manners, cus- 
 toms, habits, religion, language, and even physiognomy 
 of the population. Were it necessary to continue this 
 description of proofs, I might appeal to the geogra- 
 phical etymology of the country, which will probably 
 bear witness to the same facts, to the remotest genera- 
 tions. That the topographical terms of the old world 
 are transmitted to the new is a fact, as it respects every 
 nation in Europe, but more especially England, whose 
 constant and paramount accessions would have been, 
 "in great measure, merged and lost in the population of 
 
 '■ Wardenj Statistical Account of the United States, vol. iii., p. 192.
 
 469 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book II. 
 
 the kindred country, had it not been for these acci- 
 dental memorials. " Thus," as Volney observes, " the 
 " geographical nomenclature of America abounds with 
 " names borrowed from Europe, because every settler, 
 " English, Scotch, or Irish, gives to his new abode 
 " the name of the place of his nativity ; and it may be 
 " said, in more respects than one, that the United 
 " States are a second edition of England, only upon a 
 " larger size." " This," he adds, " will be better seen 
 " a hundred years hence^" 
 
 (3) The above observations, however, do not convey 
 any very definite idea of the proportion of emigration 
 to the present population ; nor do the degrees in which 
 different European languages are said to prevail in 
 various parts of the Union, or the number of books 
 and newspapers that are published in each tongue ^. 
 Mr. Coxe, indeed, and others, have given us some 
 interesting calculations on these heads, but they lead 
 to no very certain conclusions ^ The same judicious 
 writer presents us, however, with facts of a somewhat 
 more tangible form ; when, repelling the accusation 
 against his countrymen generally, that they were 
 illiberal and jealous regarding the political influence 
 of the naturalized, but not native, citizens, he thus 
 replies to Lord Sheftield, who, it appears, had advanced 
 that charge. " In the legislature of this very State," 
 says he, " there were, at the time of his Lordship's 
 *' publication, no less than twenty-eight Irishmen, and 
 " the sons of Irishmen, though the whole body con- 
 " sisted but of sixty-nine members. And as some 
 " pains have been taken," he continues, " to excite 
 " the apprehensions of the Germans also, it may not 
 
 ' Volney, View of the United States, ^ Coxe, View of the United States. 
 p. 360. Furstenwarther, der Deutsche, Carey and Lea, Oeog., &c., p. 168. 
 &c. 3 (Joxe, Viewj &c.
 
 Chap. VIII.] STATISTICAL PROOFS. 497 
 
 " be improper to observe, that there have been gene- 
 " rally from fifteen to eighteen members of the le- 
 " gislative body who were natives of Germany \" So 
 that there were a great majority of such persons in 
 that important station, notwithstanding that there 
 were then, and still are, certain obstacles to be sur- 
 mounted before they are eligible. Tt has already 
 been mentioned, in reference to another State, that 
 even a century before, the French had become so nu- 
 merous as to have six representatives in its Assembly^. 
 Other calculations, of a similar kind, I have not met 
 with ; and in applying these instances to the question, 
 it must be recollected, that they seem to be invariably 
 made without reference to the English, who, it should 
 appear, are, in all such cases, regarded as Anglo- 
 Americans. 
 
 (4) In pursuing a little further this incidental 
 method of proof, not the less satisfactory because al- 
 ways necessarily impartial, I shall present a few other 
 simple facts, without attempting either to multiply or 
 arrano'e them. We have seen at how low an amount 
 emigration is at present attempted to be rated, and 
 that, as it respects the New England States in parti- 
 cular, it is strenuously denied that it has existed 
 at all for above a century and a half past ; still, the 
 very same spirit, national vanity, pardonable, per- 
 haps, if confined within reasonable limits, when its 
 object is to exalt the country and its character, can 
 overrate these emigrations as egregiously as it had 
 previously underrated them. Thus, in the most 
 thickly populated State of New England, and, indeed, 
 of the whole Union, Massachusetts, we are told, that 
 nineteen-twentieths of the prisoners are " foreigners^;" 
 
 ' Coxe, View, &c., p. 204. =* Warden, Statisficiil Account of the 
 
 2 Hist, of South Carolina, p. 111. United States, vol. i., p. 304. 
 
 Vol. I. 2 K
 
 498 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 and respecting the State of New York, tlie same autho- 
 rity informs us, that from 1797 to 1801, inclusive, 693 
 convicts entered the state prison, of whom 290, or 
 above two-fifths, were foreigners \ 
 
 (5) In the statistics of poverty also, as well as in 
 those of crime, we are favoured with the same classi- 
 fication. Thus Warden, who represents the paupers 
 in the United States as exceedingly few, adds, that a 
 large proportion of them are foreigners and worn-out 
 negroes^. This is hardly credible of a class which 
 consists generally of the enterprising and the indus- 
 trious, many in which carry competent capitals with 
 them, and settle as cultivators in almost every part of 
 the Union, But, as the philosopher of that country 
 observed long ago, there will be no nation existing in 
 which there will not be poverty^ ; and he said this in 
 reference to America, which, we know, is far from 
 being an exception to that universal rule 1 But, 
 whatever be the proportion of indigence in that coun- 
 try, if a large part of the white paupers are foreigners, 
 it clearly indicates the whole number of emigrants to 
 be proportionably great. 
 
 (6) Mr. Warden's representation is, however, a 
 pleasing mistake. We find Mr. Bristed asserting a 
 proportion of pauperism as existing in New York, 
 which we should deem immense in this country ^ ; and 
 Dr. Dwight gives us the rate of expense incurred by 
 its support, at a much less distressing period, namely, 
 in 1 8 1 1 , when it amounted, in New York only, notwith- 
 standing the cheapness of provisions and the plenty 
 of profitable employment, to 154,388 dollars 88 
 
 ^"Warden, Statistical Account of the ■* Ibid., p. 145. Dwight, Travels, 
 
 United States, vol. i., p. 515. vol. ii.,pp. 455, 456. 
 
 2 Ibid., vol. i.. Introduction, p. li. ^ D^yight^ Travels, vol. ii., p. 455. 
 
 3 Franklin, Works, vol. ii., p. 145.
 
 Chap, viir.] 
 
 STATISTICAL PROOFS, 
 
 499 
 
 cents. ^ ! This, however, is wide of our present 
 inquiry ; but the following- discrimination of the pau- 
 pers in the alms-house, on the 1st of April, 1813, is a 
 highly important document as it respects the present 
 argument. 
 
 "Paupers admitted into the House from the 1st of April, 1812, 
 to the 1st of April, 1813 .... 2,814 
 
 Discharged . . 1,316 
 
 Died ... 233 
 
 Total discharged and died . 
 
 1,549 
 
 Remaining in the House, April 1, 1813 1,265 
 
 Their places of Birth are 
 
 as follow : — 
 
 
 
 City of New York 
 
 624 . 
 
 State of Ditto 
 
 78 I 831 
 
 United States 
 
 
 129 
 
 England , 
 
 
 82^ 
 
 
 Scotland . 
 
 
 37 
 
 
 Ireland 
 
 
 246 
 
 
 Germany . 
 
 
 . 43 
 
 ■■ 434 
 
 France 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 Africa 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 West Indies 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 1265 
 
 But, of these 1265, we are informed that 545 were 
 children, of whom we may be certain very few were 
 born abroad : the adults were, therefore, most cer- 
 tainly, at least half of them foreigners ^. 
 
 (7) But, if these proofs, deduced from pauperism 
 and the population of large cities, be objected to, as 
 we are aware they will, let us turn to those which 
 property and possessions in the country parts furnish. 
 True it is, that the mere statistics of districts where, 
 perhaps, there is not a human being in a mile, would 
 be difficult to collect, and very meagre if we possessed 
 
 ' Bristed, America and its Resources, - Dwight, Travels in New England 
 p. 288. and New York, vol. ii., p. 455. 
 
 2K 2
 
 500 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 tliem ; but we can arrive at a safe conclusion by a very 
 unobjectionable process. The unsettled parts of 
 America consist, principally, of public lands, as they 
 are termed, which are constantly on sale. Of these, says 
 Coxe, six millions five hundred thousand acres have 
 been purchased hy foreigners within the last two years\ 
 (1793.) Let the reader refer to the total amount of 
 the sales since the establishment of the " land-office," 
 as given by Dr. Seybert^, and he will be able to 
 determine whether emigration is " immaterial " or 
 not. Since the opening of this office in 1800, to 1817, 
 the amount of the entire sales was 10,197,764 acres, 
 but how much of this has been purchased by European 
 capital, is not hinted. Perhaps, as the purchasers are 
 no longer distinguished, we shall be soon assured that 
 the chapmen are citizens by procreation only, which 
 will be just as true as those assertions which attribute 
 the increase in the population of all those districts 
 exclusively to that source. 
 
 (8) In still pvirsuing this method of incidental 
 proof, we may appeal to the record of fatal accidents ; 
 I mean such as, agreeably to the English practice, 
 come under the cognizance of the coroner, without 
 any possible objection being urged against the faii*- 
 ness of such a criterion. The rich and the poor are 
 equally liable to these fatal catastrophes ; and as to 
 that class of them which are self-perpetrated, the 
 former furnish, proportionably, far the largest number. 
 I accidentally took up a newspaper in which these 
 were inserted, and the following is a copy of the 
 account : — 
 
 " Coroners Office, New York, July 25, 1825. 
 " The list, specifying- names and cases, the Coroner was called 
 upon to examine since the 16th instant : — 
 
 ' Coxe, View, &c,, p. 153. « Seybert, Statistical Aunals, pp. 364, 368.
 
 Chap. VIII.] STATISTICAL PROOFS, 501 
 
 " 10 Natives, 
 24 Irish, 
 
 1 West Indian, 
 11 Enjrlish, 
 3 Scotch, 
 1 Itahan." 
 
 How miraculously favoured a race must the "natives" 
 be, supposing- that these and similar accounts, and 
 their confident opinion regarding the trifling number 
 of foreigners amongst them, should both be true ! 
 Lunacy alone would attempt to reconcile them. 
 
 (9) The records of mortality, wherever the facts at 
 issue are specified, exhibit the same result. Thus, 
 Avhen the yellow fever broke out in New York, we are 
 informed, that out of 800 persons who died, not more 
 than 150 were citizens of New York\ I see an ac- 
 count, given in the Literary Gazette, of the ravages 
 of the same disorder in Charleston. The mortality 
 among the negroes, it is said, was slight, (a fact pre- 
 viously well known,) while the French lost at the rate 
 of one, the Germans one and a half, the Dutch two, 
 the American three, and the English four per cent.^ 
 In the prevalence of other diseases, the same circum- 
 stance meets our notice : thus, the workmen employed 
 in draining the drowned lands of Orange County, in 
 the State of New York, in 1808 and 1809, were at- 
 tacked, about the middle of August, with a malignant 
 fever. They were chiefly Irish ^. But agues are the 
 " torment of the inhabitants of the alluvial regions in 
 " the western country, particularly of those who come 
 " from Europe ^" These facts convey a very adequate 
 idea of the great, but not indeed the precise proportion 
 of foreigners who are in America ; which could only 
 
 1 Warden, Statistical Account of the ' Warden, Statistical Account of the 
 United States, vol. i., p. 259. United States, vol. i., p. 209. 
 
 2 Lit. Gazette, March 4, 1826. * Ibid., p. 272.
 
 502 
 
 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 be completely obtained, as far as this method of proof 
 is concerned, by accurate bills of mortality, in which 
 the natives and emigrants should be distinguished. 
 These, however, do not at present exist : nearly a 
 century ago the distinction was made, and preserved 
 in the published accounts of one city, Philadelphia : 
 these, for ten years, which are all I have been able to 
 obtain, I subjoin. They will not only illustrate, by 
 figures, some of the facts already advanced in this 
 section, but will fully prove another important point ; 
 namely, that the account previously given, of emigra- 
 tion to America, even at that early period, is so far 
 from being overstated, as perhaps the reader might 
 have imagined, that it is evidently greatly underrated ; 
 as must always be the case where exaggeration is not 
 the real object. 
 
 Table 1 II. 
 
 Bills of Mortality in Philadelphia, in North America, 
 FROM THE Years 1738 to 1744 inclusive. 
 
 Yean. 
 
 Church of 
 England, 
 
 Swedish. 
 
 Presby- 
 terian, 
 
 Baptist, 
 
 Quakers. 
 
 Strangers. 
 
 Negroes. 
 
 1738 
 
 113 
 
 24 
 
 29 
 
 15 
 
 46 
 
 269 
 
 54 
 
 1739 
 
 109 
 
 16 
 
 18 
 
 7 
 
 56 
 
 97 
 
 47 
 
 1740 
 
 105 
 
 8 
 
 22 
 
 12 
 
 29 
 
 80 
 
 34 
 
 1741 
 
 165 
 
 30 
 
 41 
 
 20 
 
 120 
 
 300 
 
 69 
 
 1742 
 
 126 
 
 35 
 
 21 
 
 9 
 
 70 
 
 98 
 
 50 
 
 1743 
 
 117 
 
 No Account. 
 
 19 
 
 21 
 
 68 
 
 150 
 
 50 
 
 1744 
 
 123 
 
 16 
 
 29 
 
 14 
 
 81 
 
 100 
 
 47 
 
 
 858 
 
 129 
 
 179 
 
 98 
 
 470 
 
 1094 
 
 351 
 
 Gent. Mag., 1751, p. 533.
 
 Chap. VIII.] 
 
 STATISTICAL PROOFS, 
 
 503 
 
 Six years afterward, the divisions liad become 
 increased in number, and the bills for three years 
 were as follow. The first line, however, only gives 
 the burials for half the year 1750^, with the ex- 
 ception of those of the Church of England and the 
 negroes. 
 
 Table 2 III. 
 
 Bills of Mortality in Philadelphia, in North America, 
 FROM 1750 TO 1752 inclusive. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Church of 
 England. 
 
 Swedish 
 
 Presby- 
 terian. 
 
 Dutch 
 Luther- 
 ans. 
 
 Dutch 
 
 Calviii- 
 
 ists. 
 
 Baptists. 
 
 Quakers. 
 
 New- 
 Build- 
 ings- 
 
 Roman 
 Catho- 
 lics. 
 
 Strantjers. 
 Whites^. 
 
 Negroes. 
 
 1750 
 
 129 
 
 13 
 
 26 
 
 28 
 
 
 11 
 
 104 
 
 19 
 
 15 
 
 250 
 
 84 
 
 1751 
 
 Wanting. 
 
 27 
 
 48 
 
 56 
 
 40 
 
 28 
 
 107 
 
 30 
 
 21 
 
 319 
 
 ^^•a.u- 
 
 ing. 
 
 1752 
 
 Do. 
 
 20 
 
 28 
 
 26 
 
 31 
 
 9 
 
 53 
 
 30 
 
 16 
 
 286 
 
 iDo. 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 102 
 
 110 
 
 71 
 
 48 
 
 264 
 
 79 
 
 52 
 
 855 
 
 
 The last table, comprehending a period of two years 
 and a half, (or, as I suspect, two years only, the last 
 line being, I think, like the first, the account of six 
 months only,) shows the presence of an immense ma- 
 jority of foreigners already in that city; which was, no 
 doubt, in this respect a fair representation of the po- 
 pulation of the whole colony. The strangers, in the 
 document copied, are explained to be Dutch (Germans) 
 and other white people*; these, together with those 
 entered as Swedes and Dutch of different denomina- 
 tions, constitute a great majority of the whole ; inde- 
 pendently of the Presbyterians and Catholics, who 
 were probably Irish. A more unequivocal proof of 
 
 ^ Douglas, Summary, vol. ii., p. 324 . ^ Strangers, Dutch, and other white 
 2 Universal History, Mod, Pt., vol. people. 
 xli., pp. 81, 82. * Universal Hist., vol, xli., pp. 81, 82.
 
 504 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 the prevalence of emigration at that period, and of its 
 vast accumulation, could not possibly be adduced. Had 
 similar documents been continued to be published and 
 made general, no argument like the present would ever 
 have been started. It is wandering, perhaps unne- 
 cessarily, beyond the present subject, to observe that 
 these emigrants swelled the list of births as well as 
 burials ; thus I find the christenings among the Swedes 
 and Lutherans alone, during these three, or more pro- 
 bably two years, amounted to 470 ^ " Emigration 
 immaterial " ! 
 
 (10) I might add, that if "strangers and foreigners" 
 have contributed thus largely to the lists of mortality 
 in America, they have, on the other hand,' amply 
 shared in its boasted longevity. (I fear, a very un- 
 substantial boast !) Thus, one hardly meets with a list 
 of persons who have survived to a very advanced age 
 in that country, which the American writers are very 
 fond of giving, which is not made up in a great de- 
 gree (if the places of birth are specified) of natives of 
 other countries ^. 
 
 (11) But I hasten to close these incidental proofs 
 of the presence of an immense mass of foreign emi- 
 grants in America, which it is obvious might be 
 greatly multiplied by an appeal of a far more pleasing 
 character than any that has preceded it ; I allude to 
 the charity of the United States. I mean not that 
 liberal extension of the godlike principle of the poor- 
 law of England, by which, as Dr. Dwight boasts, (and 
 here is indeed just ground of glorying,) they not only 
 provide for the comfortable maintenance of their own 
 poor, but of poor strangers, in whatever country they 
 
 ' Universal History, vol. xli., p. 81. Dr. 'Williamson, Hist. North Carolina, 
 
 * Warden, Statistical Acct. of the see Warden, vol. ii. 375. Dr. Barton, 
 
 United States, vol. ii.. p. 357. Holmes, American Phil. Transact., vol. iii., pp. 
 
 Account of the United States, p. 161. 30—33.
 
 Cliap. VIII.J STATISTICAL PROOFS. 505 
 
 were born. No : I mtlier allude to those numerous 
 benevolent institutions, established for the special pur- 
 pose of succouring' the indigent and distressed of every 
 country, who may from whatever motive have taken 
 refuge in theirs. The names of these establishments 
 are various, but their object is uniform, and substan- 
 tiates the fact which has called them into existence. 
 But I must refer to Dr. Morse, Mr. Warden, Mr. 
 Mellish, and others, for their description ; for, to the 
 honour of the New World, they are too numerous to 
 be particularized in a work of this nature ^ There is 
 not a country upon earth where the first and distin- 
 guishing virtue of human beings, the peculiar badge 
 and brand (as Tertullian calls it) of Christianity, 
 Charity, is in more constant, warm, and unwearied ex- 
 ercise. And in speaking of such a people, whom it is 
 the glory of England to have planted, and for whom all 
 true Englishmen cherish fraternal feelings, if I have 
 called into question their notions of human prolificness, 
 which, however, they have in great measure imbibed 
 from " the philosophers of Europe," it is only that I 
 might defend the universal rights of human nature 
 and the institutions of God from a theory founded 
 upon their supposed increase. In all other respects, 
 and while the Americans are thus worthy of the fathers 
 that led them forth and planted them in the New 
 World, as it regards their principles and conduct, po- 
 litical and religious ; so far from wishing their dimi- 
 nution or decay, " May God make them an hundred 
 " times so many more as they be ! " 
 
 ^ There are in Philadelphia, besides fit societies for foreigners and their dc- 
 these associations for the relief of dis- scendants. Warden, vol. ii., p. 88. 
 tressed emigrants, cieven mutual bene-
 
 506 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OF EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA, PROVED FROM THE 
 
 CENSUSES OF THE UNITED STATES GENERALLY, AS 
 
 DIVIDED INTO SEXES AND AGES. 
 
 (1) Having in the preceding chapters proved, by a 
 variety of historical, as well as incidental, evidence, 
 the existence of emigration to America, to an extent 
 which must have had a very great, instead of an im- 
 material, effect upon the progress of population in 
 that country, I proceed to substantiate that conclu- 
 sion by a direct appeal to the censuses of the inhabi- 
 tants; which, though destitute of direct information 
 on the subject, will still yield to a careful examination 
 facts decisive of the question, which the commonest 
 capacity cannot mistake, or the most_^ subtle disputant 
 evade. 
 
 (2) In doing this, I shall construct no hypothesis 
 of my own, nor rely upon observations of a doubtfLd 
 or debatable nature ; but rest the argument upon the 
 established and universally recognized laws of Nature. 
 If the advocates of the geometric theory shall con- 
 tend that the population of America, on which their 
 theory is solely founded, exhibits a series of exceptions 
 to those laws, that confession would be to evade the 
 difficulty by surrendering their principle. 
 
 (3) I think it is unnecessary to prove what none 
 have ever doubted, namely, that whatever their num- 
 bers may be, a considerable majority of the emigrants 
 are of the male sex. The reason of the case confirms
 
 Chap. IX.] AGES AND SEXES IN THE CENSUSES. 507 
 
 the evidence of constantly recorded facts ' ; and, were 
 any found with confidence sufficient to deny both, the 
 censuses woukl not permit it to be done, without com- 
 pelling them, at the same time, to impute to the opera- 
 tions of Nature a series of irregularities of which she 
 is never guilty. 
 
 (4) My first proof, then, that the population of 
 America is very materially affected by emigration, 
 (and it is one which merits priority, both in regard to 
 its simplicity and certainty,) is founded upon the pro- 
 portion of the sexes as given in the censuses of that 
 country ; they being found to give, contrary to the 
 fact, as it respects all others, and also to the esta- 
 blished laws of mortality, a great plurality of males. 
 
 (5) The near equality in the numbers of the sexes 
 at birth, with that trifling excess of males, which, 
 however, soon disappears, in consequence of the more 
 favourable law of mortality, that prevails as an uni- 
 versal law of Nature as it respects the other sex ^, 
 continuing through every stage of life, so as to 
 constitute a majority of the existing population of 
 every community in the civilized world, with the 
 exception of that of the United States, females, is a 
 fact too universally known to need any proof, and 
 the subject will be resumed in another part ,of this 
 treatise. The sole reason of the United States being: 
 an exception, is Emigration, which is constantly com- 
 posed, as we have observed, of so much larger a pro- 
 
 ' Major Graunt, Observations, p. 66. - Dr. Price, Revers. Paj'm., vol. i., pp. 
 
 Dr. Franklin, Works, vol. ii., p. 156. 8, 81, 126, 360, 367; vol. ii.,8, 148, 14!>, 
 
 Dr. Price, Revers. Payts., vol. ii., pp. 267. Muret, Mem. Soc. Eion de Berne, 
 
 264, 333. Dr. Barton, American Phil. 1766, Part I. Susmilch, Gottliche 
 
 Transactions, vol. iii., p. 135, "More Ordnung, torn, ii., p. 317, &c. Wargen- 
 
 nien than women emigrate." Dr. Drake, tin, K. V., Ac. Handl., 1766. Nicarder, 
 
 Hist, of Cinn., quoted by Warden, K. V. Ac. Handl., 1801. 1 Qu. tab. Q. 
 
 vol. ii., p. 249. Dr. Seybert, Statistical Dr. Heysham, Hutchinson, Hi^t. of 
 
 Annals, p. 29. Bulletin Universel, vol. Cumb., vol. ii., pp. 667, 668. Miluo, 
 
 ii , p. 367. Encyc, Brit., Supplement, Amiuities, vol. ii., pp. 520, 530. 
 Art. Population.
 
 508 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 portion of males than females, as, in that one country, 
 to reverse the proportions which Nature has esta- 
 blished regarding all the rest. 
 
 (6) The censuses of every country in Christendom 
 which has yet produced any, might be here ap- 
 pealed to. I shall, however, only particularize those 
 of Sweden, as perhaps the most minutely accurate, in 
 most respects, of any that have hitherto been taken. 
 In the Swedish censuses of 1800 and 1805, which 
 now lie before me, the former gives a total of 1,532,849 
 males, and 1,649,283 females; the latter 1,599,487 
 males, and 1,721,160 females. It will be found, that 
 very similar proportions existed in the censuses of 
 1757, 1760, and 1763. Regarding the different divi- 
 sions of this country, in England there were, at the 
 last census, 5,483,679 males, and 5,777,758 females ; 
 in Scotland, 983,552 males, and 1,109,904 females ; 
 and, in Wales, 342,154 males, and 358,056 females. 
 The last census of the United States gives, on the 
 contrary, a vast majority to the male division of the 
 census, this being 3,995,053, and the female one 
 only 3,866,657. In the preceding censuses the same 
 striking fact presents itself, and even in a somewhat 
 larger disproportion. 
 
 (7) Before I proceed to calculate from these data 
 the many hundred thousands of male emigrants only 
 which must have been added to the American popu- 
 lation, to occasion such an effect, it may be well to 
 clear away, by a prolepsis, those objections which 
 may, by possibility, be urged against so important a 
 deduction, though they are of a nature v/hich are 
 almost sufficiently answered by being mentioned. 
 They are these : the sexes may possibly be born, in 
 different proportions, in America, compared with 
 other countries, so as to produce this unusual result ;
 
 Chap. IX.] AGES AND SEXES IN THE CENSUSES, 509 
 
 or, secondly, the relative laws of mortality, as it re- 
 spects the sexes, as observed every where else, may 
 be reversed in that country. These suppositions, I 
 repeat, are almost too ridiculous to deserve answering; 
 but the importance of the argument demands that it 
 shovdd be defended from objections, however futile. 
 
 (8) First, then, the sexes are not born in different 
 proportions, at least, in any degree that can at all 
 invalidate the general conclusion. In this and the 
 succeeding demonstrations, I shall generally refer to 
 the census of Wales, because I conceive the popula- 
 tion is there more agricultural and pastoral than in 
 any other part of Great Britain ; and again, because 
 the peculiarity of their language, and their attach- 
 ment to their native country, render the inhabitants, 
 generally speaking, more distinct, and less affected by 
 emigration in any sense of the word. Let us, there- 
 fore, compare the first division of the American cen- 
 sus, namely, that which gives the numbers of the 
 males and females, respectively, under ten years of 
 age, with tlie first two divisions of the census of 
 Wales, which, together, include the same term of 
 years ; the result must be perfectly conclusive, for it 
 is c|uite clear that no individual emigration under that 
 age can take place ; and as to those who emigrate in 
 families, it is as obviously true, that the sexes of the 
 children will be in the natural proportions. As, 
 therefore, 1,345,220 male children under ten years of 
 age in North America are to 1,280,550 females of the 
 same age and country, so are 99,940 males under ten 
 in Wales to 95,135 females. There are actually in 
 the summary 95,340. Or if we take the mean num- 
 bers of the last and preceding census of the United 
 States, the proportions will stand thus: as 1,185,249 
 jnales under ten, are to 1,130,988 females under ten, so
 
 510 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AJIERICA : [Book II. 
 
 are 99,940 to 95,364. Now, what is tlie difference in 
 the relative proportions of the sexes of that age in 
 America and Wales, according to this unexceptionable 
 mode of calculation ? — 24 only in the entire population 
 of the latter country ! 
 
 (9) I may observe, that these proportions prevail, 
 with those slight variations only which must perpe- 
 tually exist, and which do not at all affect the propo- 
 sition, throughout every part of the Union, and 
 equally in the old States as in the new, and in 
 classes of the community the most dissimilar in all 
 respects. 
 
 (10) As, therefore, the sexes are born in the gene- 
 rally established proportion to each other, the sole 
 remaining doubt which can affect the calculation 
 about to be made, is, whether the rate of mortality is 
 less favourable to females than to males in the United 
 States : a very different question to whether a more 
 unfavourable one, as it respects both sexes generally, 
 when compared with the healthy countries of the Old 
 World, does not prevail there ; a fact which, I fear, 
 must be conceded. Of this greater degree of morta- 
 lity the male life has, probably, more than its share, 
 and especially after the age of puberty, owing, per- 
 haps, among other things, to so free a use of spirituous 
 liquors, by the men, throughout the Union. But even 
 previously to that period the females have the advan- 
 tage. Availing myself of a table (No. LI., at the end 
 of the third book), in which the population is distri- 
 buted into annual divisions, and upon a plan not liable 
 to much objection, I hope, on the ground of incorrect- 
 ness, and to none whatever on that of intentional 
 miscalculation, I find that though, as before shown, 
 the sexes at birth, or rather in the first divisions of the 
 census, were in very exactly similar proportions in
 
 Chap. IX.] AGES AND SEXES IN THE CENSUSES. 511 
 
 botli countries, namely, 1,048 males to 1,000 females; 
 yet in the next section, namely, from 10 to 16, the 
 proportion of the males, which still remained the 
 same in Wales, had fallen, in the United States, to 
 1,012 to 1,000 females; exhibiting, therefore, thus 
 early, a conformity to an universal law, namely, the 
 smaller mortality of the female sex, noticed by every 
 writer on this subject \ which law, as will be shown 
 hereafter, answers one of the most important purposes 
 in the whole economy of nature. 
 
 (1 1) In the next division, therefore, the females have, 
 here as elsewhere, attained to a majority in number, 
 fully establishing the point at issue. It is, however, a 
 smaller one than is exhibited by any similar document, 
 including the same period, of any other country ; a 
 circumstance plainly attributable to the cause so often 
 adverted to, which begins to operate at about these 
 ages : I mean emigration ; without attending to which, 
 it would be impossible to reconcile the censuses of 
 America either to fact or philosophy. We can hardly 
 imagine that the law of mortality, which exists every 
 where else, and which has already shown itself in 
 operation here, should be suddenly reversed, and that 
 therefore, the females who had thus overbalanced the 
 males in number, should again, and in every remain- 
 ing division of the census, fall into a great and in- 
 creasing minority. 
 
 (12) On the fact of this single division only of the 
 census exhibiting a majority of females, the males 
 being more numerous in the two preceding divisions, 
 and again becoming so in the two succeeding and 
 final ones, (singular only to those who deny the effect 
 
 ^ Wargentln thus expresses this uni- " rates constantly from infancy to old 
 versa] rule ; "The smaller mortality of "age." — See Mr. Malthus, Essay on 
 "females is a natural law, wliich ope- Population, p. 215.
 
 512 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 of emigTation on American population,) Dr. Seybert 
 makes some extraordinary remarks, which, from the 
 feeling of piety they evince, I regret to be compelled 
 to treat as utterly unfounded, I had almost said, 
 ridiculous. " It is a fact," says he, " worthy of notice, 
 that during the two periods for which the discrimi- 
 nations have been made in our returns, viz. in 1800 
 and 1810," (and since he published a third, that 
 of 1820 conforms to the same fact,) " the free white 
 females, of 16 and under 2G years of age, were more 
 numerous than the males of the same ages. In 1800, 
 for every 100 males of the description aforesaid, 
 there were 102.18 females; in 1810, for every 100 
 of the males, of the ages specified, there were 102.56 
 females ^ Although, in the aggregate of the free 
 white popidation, there was, for every other period, 
 an excess of males, yet the females were more nu- 
 merous than the males at that time of life when 
 marriages usually take place in our country. In the 
 foreo'oinp- reo-ulation there is much to admire in the 
 
 o o o 
 
 wisdom of the Almighty ! The period of life when 
 the females exceeded the number of the males, is the 
 most important for the conservation of our species : 
 our existence and increase are then more effectually 
 secured by a moderate preponderance of the sex, 
 which is at all times the most delicate, and, from 
 peculiar circumstances, at that period the most 
 liable to casualties." He goes on to remark, (and it 
 confirms the whole of what I have been previously 
 proving,) that in the proportion in the births of the 
 sexes, " their enumerations accord with the experience 
 " of most other countries^." 
 
 ' In 1820 there were 101.18 ; a strik- counts in the tenninatioa of ch. vi. of 
 ing proof of the continued, and, indeed, this book, one should expect to find, 
 increased emigration, as, from the ac- - Seybert, Statist. Ann, of America, 
 
 pp. 44, 45.
 
 Chap. IX.] AGES AND SEXES IN THE CENSUSES. 513 
 
 (13) All this is passing strange: either the fable of 
 Tiresias must be realized in America, and an exchange 
 in the sexes of some hundreds of thousands of the popu- 
 lation have taken place ; or the law of mortality, as it re- 
 spects the females, must be reversed to a most afflicting 
 degree, which would ill accord with the commentary 
 put upon the fact by Dr. Seybert. There would be little 
 reason to point out to our admiration a particular law of 
 Nature, tending to secure the existence and increase of 
 the species, which should give to the prolific sex a nu- 
 merical superiority at the period when, he says, their 
 marriages usually take place ; only to reverse it when 
 those marriages had to yield their increase, and when 
 the continuation of maternal life is almost as essential 
 to the preservation, as it was to the production, of 
 infant existence. Little more need to be urged in 
 contradiction of the alleged rate of American prolific- 
 ness, were such a supposition true. The difficulty 
 would be to shew how such a population could keep 
 up its numbers. But the wonder does not cease here ; 
 we are to admire at this majority of females in the 
 period when " the sex is most liable to casualties ;" 
 seeing, as we do in the same document, that when that 
 " liability " has abated, the same sex instantly sinks 
 into the minority. Dr. Seybert, like many similar 
 writers, is desirous of attributing almost all the irregula- 
 rities he notices to migration, save this ; and here such 
 an explanation would be too preposterous, except 
 on the supposition before hinted at, that in America 
 a change of sex accompanies a change of situation. 
 Elsewhere, however, he explains the results he notices 
 as arising from " a combination of causes they do not 
 precisely understand ^" The fact under immediate 
 consideration is owing directly and solely to emigra- 
 
 ' Seybert, Statist, Ann. of America, p. 42. 
 Vol. I. 2 L
 
 514 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. [Book II. 
 
 tioii ; wliicli, with tlie law of Nature, whicli it is tlie 
 purpose of this work to unfold, will fully account for 
 the various anomalies, as he thinks them, in the pro- 
 gress of American population. 
 
 (14) Let us then pay some further attention to the 
 proportion of the sexes in this division of the Ame- 
 rican census ; as it is here beyond a doubt, that 
 individual emigration commences, consisting, as we 
 have before observed, of males, who constitute a great 
 majority of the entire number of such accessions. 
 Before the age of 16, those who proceed to America 
 proceed in families, and consequently with the usual 
 proportions of the sexes. Having already found that 
 the sexes are born in the usual proportions in Ame- 
 rica, as Dr. Seybert has also asserted, and seen, more- 
 over, that, up to this date, the mortality of the females, 
 compared with that of the males, was the reverse of 
 being in excess, we may, without difficulty, deduce 
 from the relative number of the sexes in this section, 
 the majority of the male sex, which exists in America, 
 between those two ages ; which majority will be that 
 of the male emigrants, which, it is very evident, as 
 will be insisted upon hereafter, is a far less amount 
 than the entire number. 
 
 (15) The whole number of males between 16 and 
 26, in the census of 1820, is 776,150, of the females 
 781,371 ; giving an excess of the latter of only 5221 
 individuals. By a comparison with the census of a part 
 of Great Britain, which in its first sections has exhi- 
 bited such a strikino' coincidence with the American 
 one, I mean Wales, instead of this majority of 5221, 
 there ought to be one amounting to 56,793. Thus, as 
 1827, the number of females between 16 and 26, in 
 every 20,000 of the population of Wales, (see Table 
 No. XLIX. at the end of the third Book,) are to 1 682, the
 
 Chap. IX.] AGES AND SEXES IN THE CENSUSES. 515 
 
 number of the males similarly calculated, so are 78 1,371, 
 the number of the females in America of the same age, 
 to 719,357, the proportionate number of the males of 
 a like class, according to the regular laws of Nature. 
 But the actual number found is 776,150, leaving the 
 large difference just given, which is evidently the 
 majority of the males in the whole number of emigrants 
 added to that section : but of the majority merely. 
 
 (16) In thus selecting the census of Wales in order 
 to prove the fact contended for, I have been guided 
 by the reasons already alleged ; had I, on the con- 
 trary, merely wished to obtain as high a result as pos- 
 sible, I should have taken, in preference, either of the 
 remaining divisions of Great Britain. That of Eng- 
 land, calculated in the same manner upon a table given 
 at the end of the third Book (No. XLVIII.) would 
 have afforded a difference of 82,375, instead of 56,793 ; 
 that of Scotland a still greater excess. 
 
 (17) But if these appeals to the census of Great 
 Britain should be objected to on various grounds, the 
 same facts may be still proved by the evidence of even 
 American statistics. The State of New Hampshire, 
 for instance, may be well instanced, as one of the most 
 flourishing in New England ; and instead of its 
 being recorded as a migrating one, (the only objection 
 to its being considered as affording decisive evidence 
 in the present inquiry,) I find that the increase which 
 it exhibits is stated to be " partly owing to emigration 
 " from the neighbouring states, and from different 
 " parts of Europe ^" It may be fairly inferred, there- 
 fore, that if the natural distribution of the population 
 be materially disturbed, it will be in a way prejudicial 
 instead of favourable to my argument. In New Hamp- 
 shire, then, there were in 1820, 22,703 females be- 
 
 ^ Warden, Statistical Account, &c., vol. i., p. 383. 
 
 2L2
 
 516 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. [Book II. 
 
 tween the ages of 16 and 26, and 24,806 males. As, 
 therefore, 24,806 : 22,703 : : 781,371 to 715,128, the 
 natural proportion of males in that division of the cen- 
 sus of the United States, according- to New Hampshire 
 Statistics ; which number falls short of the existing 
 one by 61,002 individuals ; being the amount, accord- 
 ing to this calculation, of the majority of males in the 
 whole number of emigrants which have been added to 
 that division of the census ^ 
 
 (18) I have examined this section of the American 
 census thus in detail, because it is evidently at the 
 period it embraces that the effect of emigration must 
 begin to appear. The remaining divisions exhibit the 
 same facts in a still more striking proportion ; but I 
 proceed to advert to its total results. 
 
 (19) There appears, by the enumeration of 1820, 
 to have been in the whole of the territory of the United 
 States, 3,866,657 free white females of all ages ; the 
 question is, what would have been the proportionate 
 number of males independently of emigration, and, 
 consequently, by procreation only, which is so fre- 
 quently asserted to be the sole natural cause of Ame- 
 rican increase ? If we determine this by the census of 
 Wales, then, as 366,951 is to 350,487, the respective 
 numbers of the males and females in that principality, 
 so is 3,866,657, the total number of the American free 
 white females in 1820, to 3,693,171, their proportion 
 of males. But 3,995,053 was the actual number : 
 being 301,882 in excess. England would give a still 
 higher proportion of males than Wales, and Scotland, 
 again, far higher than England. The proportion, ob- 
 tained from the whole of Great Britain, would be 
 thus: as 7,254,613 females is to 6,818,718 males, 
 
 ' All the New England States, in- jority. Thus, as 206,457 : 193,029 :; 
 eluding Virginia as the oldest State, 781,371 to 730,550. 
 would leave 45,600 only as that ma-
 
 Chap. IX.] AGES AND SEXP:S IN THE CENSUSES, 517 
 
 SO is 3,866,657 to 3,634,328, leaving an excess of 
 360,725 \ 
 
 (20) If it be objected tliat the census of no part 
 of this country ought to be considered as a satisfactory- 
 criterion, in as much as the enterprising habits of its 
 natives must disturb the due proportion of the sexes, 
 at least after the period of childhood, I am w^illing, with- 
 out thinking that the North Americans would yield us 
 this distinction, to resign the results obtained thus, and 
 to seek them by an appeal to the North American census 
 itself; to a part of it, I mean, which we are given to un- 
 derstand has been long uninfluenced by emigration. 
 Our attention has been particularly directed by the 
 advocates of the geometric theory to Rhode Island, 
 concerning the population of which they have given 
 us repeatedly that assurance. As 40,921 females, 
 therefore, in this state, are to 38,492 males, so would 
 be 3,866,657 females, the whole number in the United 
 States, to 3,637,204. There are, however, as before 
 observed, 3,995,053, an excess of 357,849. These 
 proportions, it will be observed, are very similar to 
 those of Great Britain. 
 
 (21) If we add to the census of Rhode Island, that 
 of the three other ancient States which constituted the 
 province of New England, namely, Massachusetts, 
 Connecticut, and New Hampshire, to one or more of 
 
 ' It must, in fairness, be stated, that number of citizens of the same descrip- 
 
 the amount of the column which Mr. tion, who cannot have been inckidud in 
 
 Rickman has inserted in his Summary the classification of the ages, and as 
 
 of the Population of Great Britain is there is no separate column which gives 
 
 not here included. But this can have no their amount, they are evidently omitted, 
 
 weight as a general objection, though it It would, therefore, have been an errone- 
 
 may indeed tend to somewhat diminish ous comparison had they been included 
 
 the result of the calculation. But when in the British calculation. The number, 
 
 it is considered that a great part of the were it in both instances accurately 
 
 additions are made up of " British ma- given, would not materially vary the 
 
 riners in registered vessels," and that calculation, 
 the Americans have also an immense
 
 518 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. [Book II. 
 
 which emigrants are known to repair, notwithstanding 
 many assurances to the contrary, and where we must 
 therefore expect to find the proportion under considera- 
 tion diminished ; these are the results : As 565,586 
 females are to 540,663 males, the sum of the sexes 
 respectively in New England, so are 3,866,657 to 
 3,678,589, leaving, in the latter amount, a deficiency 
 of 316,464 males, compared with the really existing 
 number in the United States ; jbeing very near, but 
 somewhat exceeding, the difference obtained from the 
 calculation founded upon the census of Wales, as the 
 majority only of males in the whole number of emi- 
 grants existing in 1820 in the United States. 
 
 (22) These various amounts, none of them so small 
 as 300,000 males, involving, as it is now beginning to 
 be seen, much larger ones, have a far greater influence 
 on the progress of population, than their mere num- 
 bers would seem to imply, as will be fully shewn 
 hereafter, and are so fatal to the pretended demon- 
 stration of the geometric theory, as derived from the 
 growth of American population from procreation only, 
 that they will, doubtless, be attempted to be evaded 
 by an appeal to some peculiarity in regard to the situ- 
 ation, climate, character, health, peace, or prosperity 
 of America ; and thus, by the very common and con- 
 venient mode of attempting, by a long and bewilder- 
 ing train of conjectures and explanations, rising occa- 
 sionally into confident assertions, will it be attempted 
 to confuse, and, finally, to get rid of, the most direct 
 demonstration. In this instance, however, the method 
 will be unavailing. In the same climate and country, 
 a proof of precisely the same nature, and liable to no 
 imaginable objection, has long existed. 
 
 (23) There is a class of society in America,
 
 Chap, rx.] AGES AND SEXES IN THE CENSUSES. 519 
 
 wliicli Europe cannot furnish or recruit, and wliich 
 certainly will not diminish itself by emigration else- 
 where. The individuals who compose it are perfectly 
 distinct from the rest of the population ; from the 
 whites, on the one hand, for their colour bewrayeth 
 them, and from the slaves, for they are free. What- 
 ever be their condition, (and I trust it is as free and as 
 happy as it may be expected to be in such a country,) 
 the sexes equally share it ; at all events, it is impos- 
 sible that any circumstances incident to their situation 
 can alter their relative proportions. They are derived, 
 either from an intercourse between white and coloured, 
 or black parents, or from those that have, from time 
 to time, been emancipated, and from the offspring of 
 such. These are now become a numerous body; and 
 to meet the only possible objection to the argument 
 which I shall derive from their census, it must be ob- 
 served, that as in the slave-holding States the male 
 slaves constitute a decided majority of that unfortunate 
 class, (another proof of the existence of emigration of 
 another and a most affecting kind,) consequently, so 
 far as the free-coloured population is recruited from 
 them, it is clear that the males must have an undue 
 tendency to preponderate in numbers. I appeal, 
 therefore, with confidence, to the proportions of the 
 sexes in this class of human beings, placed in the very 
 situation concerning which we are arguing, kept per- 
 fectly distinct, and, it need not be added, subject to 
 the same laws of Nature, especially in regard to the 
 conservation of the species, which its great Author has 
 immutably established. 
 
 (24) The census of the free-coloured population 
 of the United States is given in the census of 1 820, 
 as follows :
 
 520 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. [Book 11. 
 
 Males. Females. 
 
 Under 14 . . . . 47,659 45,898 
 
 14 to 26 . . 24,048 28,800 
 
 26—45 . . 23,450 27,181 
 
 45 and upwards 17,613 18,881 
 
 112,770 120,760 Total. .233,530 
 
 This is the first discriminated census which has been 
 given of that class in America, and it is only less to 
 be regretted that it is not constructed upon the same 
 plan as that of the whites, than that the censuses of 
 the latter are regulated on so unscientific a plan, as 
 though they were actually meant to baffle all inquiries 
 respecting the population of the country. Enough, 
 however, is done to shew that the numbers are con- 
 sistent with the established proportions of Nature, 
 and, consequently, that we may avail ourselves of 
 the general results. 
 
 (25) First, the sexes are born in the usual pro- 
 portions, as far as can be determined by the number 
 of each in the first division. Thus I find, in the tables 
 previously referred to, the number of the males under 
 14 in ever)^ 20,000 of the population of England to 
 be 3748, in Wales 3817 ; of the females of the same 
 age in each country respectively, 3641 and 3632; 
 the mean number of the former being 3782, of the 
 latter, 3632. These proportions agree with the above 
 census as follows; as 3632 : 3782 : : 45,898 to 
 47,793 instead of 47,659, the actual number; a result 
 as satisfactory as though it had been precisely coin- 
 cident. But we need not go out of the United States 
 to arrive at this conclusion. We may very safely com- 
 pare the proportion of the sexes of the white popu- 
 lation under 16, to that of the coloured under 14, as, 
 though the actual number must vary in consequence 
 of the difference, the proportion of the sexes cannot;
 
 Chap. IX.] AGES AND SEXES IN THE CENSUSES. 521 
 
 or at least very slightly, if at all. As then 1,885,898, 
 the number of the females in the United States under 
 16, is to 1,957,755, that of the males of the same age, 
 so is 45,898, the number of free coloured females under 
 14, to 47,646. But the real number is 47,659; a 
 difference of 13 only! Proving, indeed, that as it 
 regards the laws of Nature, " God is no respecter 
 of persons." It might easily be shewn, also, that 
 in this class the facts universally observed else- 
 where, namely, the greater longevity of the females 
 than of the males, is equally apparent; but this is 
 perfectly unnecessary : it may, however, be satisfactory 
 to know, that the proportions of the sexes in the 
 entire census on which the argument, as it relates to 
 this class, will be founded, are conformable to those 
 which have been observed to exist elsewhere. In 
 proof of this I shall refer to the censuses of Sweden, 
 as a country whose population is, perhaps, as little 
 affected by external circumstances, as any with whose 
 statistics we are hitherto made acquainted. 
 
 (26) In the last Swedish census in which the sexes 
 are discriminated, at least the last of which I am in 
 possession, that of 1805, the males are 1,599,487; 
 the females 1,721,160. As therefore 1,721,160 : 
 1,599,487 :: 120,760 (the free coloured females of 
 the United States) to 112,223: there are 112,770 
 free coloured males, a difference, therefore, of only 
 547 in 233,530 souls. The preceding census, that of 
 1800, gives the proportions as follows: As 1,649,283 
 females are to 1,532,849 males, so are 120,760 
 females to 112,235 males. The agreement is again 
 striking, and the difference too little to discuss, other- 
 wise it might be attributed, perhaps, to a somewhat 
 greater proportion of males from recent manumissions; 
 but, however that may be, it will have been observed,
 
 522 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. [Book II. 
 
 that tlie Swedish censuses exhibit a still greater ex- 
 cess of females than does that of the free coloured 
 population of America. 
 
 (27) I am inclined, therefore, to rely more upon 
 the results of a calculation founded upon the census 
 of this class than upon any of the preceding ones, 
 seeing that it appertains to the very country whose 
 statistics we are discussing, and is corroborated by 
 two several censuses of a kingdom many thousand 
 miles distant, and containing some millions of inha- 
 bitants, and where these facts have been long sup- 
 posed to be collected and published with the greatest 
 care and precision. If, therefore, we may infer that 
 the proportion in the sexes of the free white popu- 
 lation of America does not naturally differ from that 
 of the free coloured population, (and to suppose that 
 it could do so materially is really preposterous,) then 
 the majority of male emigrants existing in the United 
 States is still greater than we have hitherto estimated 
 it : for, as 120,760 free coloured females are to 
 112,770 free coloured males, so are the 3,866,657 
 free white females in the United States to 3,610,822 
 males: whereas there are found 384,231 more than 
 that number. Whence came this excess? Are we to an- 
 swer this query in conformity with recorded facts, with 
 universal observation, and with the laws of Nature, 
 or in favour of a theory which denies all these authori- 
 ties, and pronounces emigration to be immaterial ? 
 
 (28) Having arrived at this stage of the compu- 
 tation, a still more important part of the inquiry 
 awaits us. We have obtained, by a variety of calcu- 
 lations, the majority of males in the emigrants in the 
 United States ; our next endeavour must be to ascer- 
 tain, as nearly as we can, the proportion this majority 
 bears to the whole number.
 
 Chap. IX.] AGES AND SEXES IN THE CENSUSES. 623 
 
 (29) It is undeniably true, tliat emigrants princi- 
 pally consist of " young men in the prime of life/' but 
 it is equally so that they are not entirely of that cle-^ 
 scription, nor yet of that sex. Many married men 
 proceed to America and take with them their wives 
 and families, in which latter case, the sexes are, 
 on the whole, in their just proportions. Some, though 
 probably few, unmarried females may accompany 
 others in one capacity or other. If in these emigra- 
 tions the sexes, on the whole, had been nearly ba- 
 lanced, they could have produced none of the effects 
 we have been proving to exist in America. Uni- 
 versal observation, however, and recorded facts, 
 equally contradict this supposition. The question 
 then is ; in what proportion do the males exceed the 
 females in these constant deportations? If we can 
 arrive with any tolerable degree of accuracy at this 
 fact, having already detected the amount of that 
 excess in its effects on the population of America, 
 we may form a calculation as to the entire amount of 
 the emigrants now existing in the United States. 
 
 (30) After much and particular inquiry, I had 
 formed a kind of list, by which it appeared, that in 
 every twenty emigrants, there might be (children in- 
 cluded) six females, the excess of the males would 
 therefore be, eight in that number. This, however, I 
 omit, always preferring to take my documents, in any 
 case of dispute, from those whose deductions I am 
 opposing. I copy, therefore, the following account, 
 apparently official, and bearing the stamp of probabi- 
 lity, from the article on Population in the Supplement 
 to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, understood to be writ- 
 ten by Mr. Malthus, and at all events referred to by 
 him as authority. " It appears, by an account in the 
 ^' National Calendar of the United States, for the
 
 524 
 
 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II- 
 
 " year 1821, that of the 7001 persons who had ar- 
 " rived in America, from the 30th of September, 1819, 
 "to the 30th of September, 1820, 1959 only were 
 "■ females, and the rest, 5042, males." These num- 
 bers, therefore, give a majority of 3083 males in the 
 whole number, 7001 ^ If these proportions, then, 
 are fair and usual, (and they are evidently presented 
 to us as such, in the scientific work quoted,) an 
 excess in a body of emigrants of 3083 males, implies 
 7001 as its total amount. 
 
 (31) The following table, then, exhibits computa- 
 tions as to the entire number of emigrants in the United 
 States, calculated on the above principle, according 
 to the actual excess of males existing in the United 
 States, as compared with the proportions of the sexes 
 in the different countries and districts specified. 
 
 Table IV. 
 
 Shewing the number "of Emigrants existing in the United 
 States, calculated on a comparison of the Census of 1820, 
 
 WITH those of the DIFFERENT COUNTRIES SPECIFIED. 
 
 Countries and 
 Districts, 
 
 Kxcess of Males in 
 the United States, 
 compared -with the 
 proportion in those 
 countries. 
 
 Total Number of 
 Einigrants calcu- 
 lated on that 
 excess. 
 
 Wales . . . 
 
 New England . 
 
 Rhode Island . 
 
 Great Britain . 
 
 Free Coloured! 
 Americans J 
 
 301,882 
 316,464 
 357,849 
 360,7-25 
 
 3S4,-231 
 
 685,526 
 718,634 
 812,618 
 819,149 
 
 872,527 
 
 ' I find a similar account for the year 
 1823, in the Bulletin Universel, where 
 it is said that in that year 8170 persons 
 had arrived as passengers in the United 
 States, whereof 5243 were men, 1034 
 women, and 1SS9, those whose sex was 
 not designated, probably, therefore, 
 
 children, and if so, certainly about equal 
 in ninuher as to their sexes. These re- 
 sults, then, do not much vary from those 
 quoted from the Encyclopaedia, and are 
 rather gratifying, as so far confimiing 
 the facts contained in that account. — 
 Bull, Uuivers.
 
 Chap. IX.] AGES AND SEXES IN THE CENSUSES. 525 
 
 (32) Sucli are tlie results of the foregoing- calcu- 
 lations, reo'ardinof the number of emiorants existino- in 
 America, which, though founded upon the laws of 
 Nature, instead of theory, and supported by facts 
 instead of hypothesis, I ofier to the reader's conside- 
 ration, without giving an opinion as to whether any 
 or all of them err in deficiency or in excess, or to what 
 degree they may possibly do so. Conversations and 
 correspondence I have had upon the subject of the 
 probable proportion of the emigrants of all nations in 
 the United States, compared with the whole popula- 
 tion, which have led me to form a strong opinion on 
 the subject ; as they have been held with those of 
 both countries, well competent to judge: and to 
 colloquial authority, I might, perhaps, as properly 
 appeal, as Mr. Malthus frequently does, in favour 
 of his theory; but I object to resting any part of my 
 argument upon private information. I must, there- 
 fore, submit the preceding calculations as so many 
 approximations to the precise truth, founded, it is 
 hoped, upon no unfair basis. Whether the history 
 and effects of emigration, as already given, will admit 
 of a smaller accession, others may determine ; a far less 
 numerous one would suffice for my argument, which 
 will ultimately prove how much the increase of any 
 community must be accelerated by even a relatively 
 small but constant accession of adscititious numbers. 
 I shall, however, first confirm the general deductions 
 of this chapter, by a further examination of the Ame- 
 rican censuses, upon an entirely different principle.
 
 526 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OF EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA, PROVED BY THE LAW 
 
 OF MORTALITY, AS APPLIED TO THE NUMBERS IN 
 
 SUCCESSIVE CENSUSES. 
 
 (1) It is greatly to be regretted, in every point of 
 view, that the American legislature has prescribed a 
 different mode of taking the censuses of that country, 
 in respect of its divisions into ages, than had pre- 
 viously prevailed, wherever that discrimination had 
 been made. The Swedish censuses, under the di- 
 rection of Wargentin, had, long ago, attained to a de- 
 gree of correctness, which, it is to be feared, those of 
 no other country have since equalled ; in these the 
 term of human life was distributed into sections, each 
 comprising an equal number of years, though some of 
 the first periods were also still more minutely divided 
 for particular purposes. This arrangement rendered 
 it perfectly easy to trace every class through suc- 
 ceeding censuses taken at periods equally distant, and 
 to deduce from thence the effect of advancing age, 
 or, in other words, the law of mortality at every period 
 of life, together with many other interesting results. 
 The American census, on the contrary, is divided into 
 such arbitrary and unequal terms, that the sections in 
 the preceding and succeeding ones have not the least 
 relation to each other. Whatever were the motives 
 for such a deviation from the obvious and established 
 mode, those of science are completely frustrated by it. 
 The argument I am now pursuing would have been
 
 Chap. X.] THE LAW OF MORTALITY. 527 
 
 rendered wholly unnecessary, had the regular method 
 prevailed, as the numbers of the same sections, " pro- 
 gressing" through successive censuses, would have 
 manifested the perpetual influence of emigration. 
 The argument, however, still remains, and may be 
 advanced through a somewhat more difficult and cir- 
 cuitous path ; and the validity of the preceding obser- 
 vations will be better estimated as we pursue it. 
 
 (2) Taking the last census of 1820, there is not 
 in this, any more than the others, any one section 
 which we can trace from the preceding ones. We 
 will, however, attempt to overcome this difficulty ; and 
 first, as it respects the concluding one, namely, the free 
 white population of forty-five years of age and upwards : 
 the total amount is 957,353. The simple question 
 here arises, whether, out of the population of America, 
 forty-five years before, namely, in 1775, that number 
 of persons could have survived. Impossible ! what, 
 then, has swelled the number to such an amount ? 
 Emigration, not " procreation, only." For this once, 
 we are rid of this eternal proviso, as none could so 
 antedate procreation, as to add to this class, after the 
 first period mentioned, a single individual. 
 
 (3) In order to determine the probable number in 
 this division, which has been added during the interim 
 by emigration, it will be necessary to fix upon the 
 number of white inhabitants in America, in 1775; 
 and, by applying the law of mortality to this number, 
 the remainder, compared with the amount in the last 
 division of the census of 1820, will determine the 
 question. 
 
 (4) The total number of inhabitants in the United 
 States, in 1782, Mr. Malthus says, were 2,389,300 ^ ; 
 which statement Mr. Coxe confirms, and says, it was 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 339.
 
 528 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. [Book II. 
 
 made tlie ground of congressional assessment \ In 
 1780, Mr. Warden informs us, that the amount was 
 2,051,000". But from these numbers must be de- 
 ducted the black population, unless we are to 
 admit, as miraculous, a metamorphosis in colour, as 
 we must in sex, in order to get rid of emigration. 
 These amounted, at about this period, to above half 
 a million. Perhaps, however, we may rate the white 
 population, at this time, somewhat higher than these 
 statements would admit us to do. The best accounts, 
 as Coxe says, (concurring in this matter with Lord 
 Sheffield,) make it 1,700,000 ^ 
 
 (5) But in order to obviate any cavil which may be 
 raised, whether concerning the exactness of this state- 
 ment, or the rate of mortality which will be applied 
 to it, I will, at once, transfer this entire amount several 
 .years backward ; thereby reserving a sufficient num- 
 ber to answer all objections which might be urged 
 against the computation, on whatever grounds. Let, 
 then, 1,700,000 be the white population of America 
 in 1775 ; how many of these would be now in exist- 
 ence, and comprised, of course, in the division of the 
 censuses which give the population of forty-five years 
 old and upwards, in the whole of the United States ? 
 
 (6) In determining this question, I avail myself of 
 a table constructed by Mr. Milne, upon the basis of 
 the Swedish censuses, and in which the mortality is 
 calculated on the hypothesis of a stationary population, 
 which is a most necessary consideration in this in- 
 stance ; and I do this, not because it best answers the 
 end of ultimately exhibiting the largest surplus of 
 numbers attributable solely to emigration, for, in this 
 
 ^ Finch Coxe, View of the United United States, vol. iii., p. 229. 
 States, p. 200. 3 Coxe, View of the United States, p. 
 
 2 Warden, Statistical Account of the 200.
 
 Chap. X.] THE LAW OF MORTALITY. 529 
 
 point of view, those of Susmilcli, Dr. Price, and 
 others, would suit better ; but because the censuses of 
 Sweden have ah-eady been confidently appealed to 
 for the purpose of exemplifying-, and indeed " demon- 
 strating-," the geometric theory. " The expectation of 
 life" may appear lower, especially at birth, in Sweden, 
 than in some other European countries ; but I am of 
 opinion, that this is owing, in no inconsiderable de- 
 gree, to the superior exactness with which the Swedish 
 registers, especially regarding infants, have been long 
 kept; while, on the other hand, the palpable negli- 
 gence of many other similar documents in this parti- 
 cular has raised that " expectation " elsewhere to a 
 height which amounts to a palpable absurdity. 
 
 (5) But in transferring the rate of mortality of 
 Sweden to America, I am ao-ain makino- an unneces- 
 sary surrender of part of my argument. The latter 
 country is, compared with Europe, indisputably un- 
 healthy. All the statements, documents, and tables, 
 I have yet seen, confirm this fact. Even the most 
 confident assertor of American increase, Mr. Malthus, 
 acknowledges that " the climate of the United States 
 is not particularly healthy ^" A very accurate ob- 
 server, especially on these subjects. Dr. Douglas, in 
 his remarks on the personal constitution of the people 
 born in British America, written in the earlier half of 
 the last century, notices, indeed, their precocity, com- 
 pared with the inhabitants of the mother-country, but 
 he adds, "their longevity falls much shorter";" and 
 Mr. Warden acknowledges, that the country is not 
 now so healthy as formerly ; in a word, that " diseases 
 " are much more frequent^" " At present," says 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, vol. pp. 3-17. 348. 
 ii., p. 483. -^ Warden, Statistical Account of the 
 
 ^ Dr. Douglas, Summary, vol. ii., United States, vol. i., p. 301. 
 
 Vol. L . 2 M
 
 530 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. [Book II. 
 
 another writer, " it must be confessed, that the country 
 " is unhealthy. Even in the eastern States life is 
 " not so long as it is in Europe. In the middle and 
 " western States, it is still shorter. In the southern 
 " ones, it is again less\" But it is neither a gratify- 
 ing, nor, I think, necessary task, to multiply proofs of 
 this fact, it will be early enough to do so when it is 
 doubted^. 
 
 (6) But in allowing 1,700,000 white inhabitants 
 to have existed in the British colonies in 1775, it must 
 not be forgotten that many scores, if not some hun- 
 dreds of thousands of that number were emigrants to 
 commence with : this will not be deemed an exagge- 
 ration, if the accounts of the astonishing extent of 
 emigration, both from Scotland and Ireland, as well 
 as from Germany and elsewhere, for some years pre- 
 vious to this period, given in a preceding chapter, 
 are recollected. This observation made, I will pro- 
 ceed to the calculation. 
 
 (7) To allow, then, 1,700,000 to have been the 
 population of the American colonies in 1775, how 
 many would have survived 45 years afterward, and 
 consequently would have been numbered in the 
 census of the United States, of 1820, as being 45 years 
 of age and upwards, independently of foreign acces- 
 sions, according to the rate of mortality existing in 
 Sweden ? Turning to Mr. Milne's fourth table, I 
 find, that 722,300 individuals, of both sexes, and all 
 ages, would, 45 years afterwards, be reduced to 
 198,274 ; according to this, the 1,700,000 inhabitants 
 of the United States, in 1775, the survivors of whom 
 
 1 Holmes, Account of the United Hist. Carolina, vol. ii., pp. 293, 294. 
 
 States, p. 160. Fearon, Sketches, p. 10. Morse, Geog. 
 
 - See Beaujoiir, United States. Pro- p. 310. Present State of Great Britain 
 
 fessor Kalm, Travels in North America, and North America, p. 193, &c. 
 vol. i., pp. 103, 104 ; vol. ii., p. 189.
 
 Chap.X.] THE LAW OF MORTALITY. 531 
 
 would form the section of 45 years of ao-e and up- 
 wards, in 1820, would be reduced to 466,G5G. But 
 the number in that section of the census amounts to 
 957,853. The difference is 491,197 ; the number of 
 emigrants, according to this metliod of computation, 
 that existed in America, of the age of 45 years and 
 upwards, in 1820. 
 
 (8) But, as far as the proof derived from tlie 
 Swedish censuses is concerned, we have a more satis- 
 factory method of arriving at the number sought, 
 than that derived from any table whatever, however 
 elaborately or correctly constructed ; indeed, one, 
 against which, I think, human ingenuity will find it 
 hard to fabricate an objection. We have a census of 
 Sweden, in the year 1760, at which period the total 
 number of the inhabitants amounted to 2,367,598. 
 It happens, fortunately for the argument, that just 45 
 years afterwards the census of 1805 was taken; and, 
 like the former one, divided into sections of five years 
 each throughout. It is clear, therefore, that the sur- 
 vivors of the former period will be found classed in 
 the latter census, in the sections of 45 years of age 
 and upwards, which must, of necessity, comprise the 
 whole number : that number is 720,678. Admitting 
 the correctness of the data, (and the first census was 
 constructed under the superintendence of Wargentin, 
 and the latter, of Nicander,) nothing can be surer 
 than the result, which is a matter of fact, and not of 
 calculation. Applying, then, the actual rate of mor- 
 tality of Sweden to that of America, at nearly the 
 same period, and this is the result ; as 2,367,598 : 
 720,678 : : 1,700,000 : 517,466. We find, however, 
 the number in the last section of the American census, 
 containing the inhabitants of 45 years and upwards, 
 exceeds by 440,387 that sum ; an excess attributable 
 to emigration only. , 
 
 2M2
 
 532 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. [Book II. 
 
 (9) The tables of Siismilcli and others would 
 give a still larger excess ; to these, however, I shall 
 not appeal : on the contrary, I will mention a method 
 of calculation which would considerably diminish 
 either of the above results. The population of the 
 United States contains a larger proportion in the earlier 
 sections, than that of Sweden ; were the mortality, 
 therefore, equal in both countries at the same ages, a 
 larger proportion of the whole number would survive 
 to a later period in the former, than in the latter 
 country. I have classed the presumed population of 
 America, in 1775, according to the manner in which 
 the ages are at present distributed, and applied the 
 same tables of Mr. Milne's to each, and I subjoin the 
 calculation in a note ^ ; though I should object to 
 the result so obtained, as expressing the total amount 
 of the emigrants in the concluding division of the last 
 census, in as much as a great number of the 1,700,000. 
 as before observed, were certainly themselves emi- 
 grants, to say nothing of the antedating of that number, 
 or of the too favourable rate of mortality applied to it. 
 
 (10) But the census of 1790 may be applied in the 
 same manner ; and, as aifording a precise date, and 
 being the result of actual enumeration, is not liable to 
 objections which may be possibly urged against the 
 preceding computation. There were, at that period, 
 in the United States, 3,093,111 inhabitants of all 
 ages. In 1820, the survivors of these would, of 
 
 1775. 1820. 
 
 ^ Under 10 ... 567,792 
 10 to 16 . . 263,352 
 16 to 26 . . 336,795 
 26 to 45 . . 324,937 
 45 and upwards 207,124 
 
 1,700,000 
 
 45 to 55 . . 
 
 329,654 
 
 55 to 61 . . 
 
 144,709 
 
 61 to 71 . . 
 
 141,482 
 
 71 to 90 . . 
 
 44,565 
 
 90 and upwards 
 
 465 
 
 
 660,875 
 
 Difference. 
 
 .296,978 
 
 Total.. 957,853
 
 Chap. X.] THE LAW OF MORTALITY. 533 
 
 course, be 30, and upwards. The census of that year 
 gives us, in its last two divisions, the number at 26 
 and upwards, which is 2,460,536. Referring- to 
 Table LI. at the end of the Third Book, in which the 
 American population, as classed at that time in ages, 
 is distributed into annual proportions, calculated, like 
 the others, on a radix of 20,000, (and which was con- 
 structed before the present calculation was thought 
 of,) I find that a deduction of nearly 17.122 percent.^ 
 from that number, will leave the proportion at 30 and 
 upwards, which is the amount we want. Tlie num- 
 ber, thus reduced, will be 2,039,246. The table of 
 Mr. Milne, before referred to, gives the diminution in 
 both sexes occurring in that interval, as the difference 
 between the numbers 722,300, and 346,631. These 
 proportions would give 1,484,380, as the survivors in 
 1820, of the population of 1790, being those, of 
 course, 30 years old and upwards. But there are, as 
 we have seen, 2,039,246 of that class. Admitting 
 this computation to be accurate, there were, there- 
 fore, in the United States, 554,866 emigrants of 30 
 years old and upwards ; besides those of a younger 
 age, and those also who had emigrated before 1790 
 and who still survived. 
 
 (11) I had made other calculations, in reference to 
 the different divisions of the successive censuses of 
 America, which led to conclusions of a similar nature ; 
 but, as I place little reliance, I confess, on this 
 branch of the argument, I have omitted them. The 
 transference of the rate of mortality in Sweden to 
 America is fatal to the correctness of any pretended 
 demonstrations founded upon such an assumption. The 
 rate of mortality in the latter country is reckoned, even 
 
 ' Were the same calculation founded Y.) it would give a difference of 12.75. 
 upon the Swedish table, (Milne's No.
 
 534 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. [Book II. 
 
 by Mr. Warden, who is the least scrupulous calculator 
 that probably ever existed, when he thinks the charac- 
 ter of his country is at stake, at 1 annual death in 
 every 40 inhabitants ; whereas, it appears by the last 
 census of Sweden, that in that country it is only 1 in 
 48, a difference, of course, of one-fifth, even were the 
 former statement true. This difference in the rate of 
 mortality, together with the superior fecundity of 
 American marriages, (a fact which I not only admit, 
 but for which it will be found I contend, as one of the 
 proofs of the true principle of population;) and the 
 perpetual accessions to the existing inhabitants of the 
 country, by constant emigrations, all contribute in 
 their several degrees, and especially the last, to that 
 peculiarity in the distribution of the American censuses, 
 in respect to the relative proportions of the population 
 at different ages, which cannot have escaped the notice 
 of tlrose who have given the slightest attention to the 
 subject. This also, as affording another unequivocal 
 proof of the magnitude and extent of emigration, will 
 be briefly discussed.
 
 535 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OF EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA, PROVED BY ITS EFFECTS 
 ON THE RELATIVE NUMBERS OF THE DIFFERENT SEXES 
 AND AGES, IN THE CENSUSES OF THE VARIOUS STATES. 
 
 (1) The relative proportions wliicli the numbers in 
 the different divisions in the American censuses ex- 
 hibit, prove also the existence of a vast and incessant 
 emigration to that country. The super-proportion in 
 the numbers of the former or younger divisions of the 
 census, to the later or older ones, is so great, when com- 
 pared with the same section in the censuses of this or of. 
 any other European country, and when examined at the 
 distance of a single generation only from each other, 
 (excluding, therefore, from the comparison, the effect 
 of any second or geometric increase,) as totally to nega- 
 tive the idea, that any supposable difference in the rela- 
 tive number of marriages, or their possible prolilicness, 
 could have occasioned it. I am aware that Mr. Milne 
 has professed to demonstrate from these relative 
 numbers in the censuses, that America increases inde- 
 pendently of emigration, and consequently by pro- 
 creation only, so as to double in geometric progres- 
 sion every twenty-five years ; and I had paid some 
 considerable attention to the proofs he advances, with 
 a view to their refutation ; but having, in a subse- 
 quent part of this treatise, shown, beyond, I think, 
 the possibility of a doubt, that the demonstration in- 
 volves a series of palpable impossibilities, it is unne- 
 cessary any further to refute the hypothesis on which
 
 536 
 
 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 "they are founded ; I, therefore, suppress what I had 
 written in relation to it. But these striking variations 
 in the American censuses, compared with the Euro- 
 pean ones, still remain, and have to be accounted for. 
 I proceed to shew that they constitute an additional 
 proof of the existence and great extent of emigration ; 
 not meaning, however, to contend that a greater 
 degree both of prolificness and of mortality contributes, 
 but in a slighter proportion, to the same effect. But 
 let us first present the differences in question. They 
 are, comparing the English, Welsh, and American cen- 
 suses together, as follows : 
 
 Table V. 
 
 Shewing the Proportion of the Ntmbers of each Sex, at the 
 Age specified, in every 20,000 of the Population ofEngland, 
 "Wales, and the United States, computed on the Censuses op 
 those Countries in 1820. 
 
 Ages. 
 
 ENGL.\ND. 
 
 WALES. 
 
 UNITED STATES. 
 
 ■J. 
 
 2819 
 
 Females. 
 
 
 a- 
 
 L ^ 
 
 981 
 
 •r. 
 
 '■ft 
 
 H 
 
 l2 
 
 * -r. 
 
 ■A 
 
 93 
 
 3257 
 
 3 
 
 o 
 
 — a, 
 X "^ 
 
 under 10 
 
 2770 
 
 5589 
 
 2855 
 
 2723 
 
 5573 
 
 953 
 
 3422 
 
 6679 
 
 952 
 
 10 to U 
 
 1351 
 
 1286 
 
 2637 
 
 952 
 
 1395 
 
 1330 
 
 2725 
 
 953 
 
 1558 
 
 1539 
 
 3097 
 
 987 
 
 16 to 26 
 
 1087 
 
 1900 
 
 3.587 
 
 1126 
 
 1682 
 
 1827 
 
 3509 
 
 1086 
 
 1975 
 
 1988 
 
 3963 
 
 1006 
 
 26 to 45 
 
 2131 
 
 2379 
 
 4510 
 
 1201 
 
 2330 
 
 2271 
 
 4302 
 
 1118 
 
 1951 
 
 1874 
 
 3825 
 
 960 
 
 4.-) and 1 
 upwards/ 
 
 1790 
 
 1881 
 
 3677 
 
 1048 
 
 1811 
 
 2075 
 
 3886 
 
 11-15 
 
 1259 
 
 1177 
 
 2436 
 
 935 
 
 Totals , 
 
 9784 
 
 10,216 
 
 20,000 
 
 1044 
 
 1 
 
 9773 
 
 10,227 
 
 •20,000 
 
 10.35 
 
 10,165 
 
 9835 
 
 20,000 
 
 968 
 
 To exhibit the same comparison in the same coun- 
 try, I will add,
 
 Chap. XI.] PROPORTIONS OF THE SEXES AND AGES. 
 
 537 
 
 Table VI. 
 
 Shewing the Proportionate Numbers of each Sex, at the Ages 
 
 SPECIFIED, IN every 20,000 OF THE FrEE COLOURED AND FrEE 
 
 White Population of the United States. 
 
 Ages 
 
 Free Coloured Population. 
 
 Free White Population. 
 
 'a 
 
 B 
 
 o 
 
 ^2 
 
 s 
 
 "3 
 
 e 
 
 o 
 
 S i 
 
 11 
 
 under 14 
 
 14 to 26 
 
 26 to 45 
 
 45 and 1 
 upwards J 
 
 4082 
 2060 
 2008 
 
 1508 
 
 3^31 
 2406 
 
 2328 
 
 1617 
 
 8013 
 4526 
 4336 
 
 3125 
 
 963 
 1197 
 1159 
 
 1072 
 
 4492 
 2463 
 1951 
 
 1259 
 
 4310 
 2474 
 1874 
 
 1177 
 
 8802 
 4937 
 3825 
 
 2436 
 
 959 
 
 1003 
 
 900 
 
 935 
 
 Totals . 
 
 9658 
 
 10,342 
 
 20,000 
 
 1070 
 
 10,165 
 
 9835 
 
 20,000 
 
 967 
 
 (2) It is unnecessary to particularize the great dif- 
 ference the preceding tables exhibit; it is sufficiently 
 apparent that the numbers in the more advanced 
 periods of life are, in the American census, beyond all 
 due proportion, smaller than those of corresponding 
 ages in the European ones ; or even than in that of 
 the free coloured population, where the rate of mor- 
 tality is at least as great, and that of prolificness 
 hardly any smaller, if we may judge any thing as to 
 that fact, from comparing the first and second divi- 
 sions together : the children under 14, compared 
 with the persons between 14 and 26, being, in the 
 free white population, as 178, and in the free coloured, 
 as 177, to every hundred. In the succeeding divi- 
 sions, (those of more advanced ages,) the deficiencies 
 in the census of the United States are most conspi- 
 cuous, compared even with the free coloured popula-
 
 538 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. [Book II. 
 
 tion of the same country, mucli more with that of 
 Europe; and these deficiencies are attributable in 
 great measure to emigration, and constitute a proof 
 of it. 
 
 (3) It appears, at first sight, that the afflux of a 
 considerable number of emigrants in the prime of life, 
 to any country, would have the effect of increasing the 
 relative number of the inhabitants, at the particular age 
 at which they emigrated, and of the succeeding stages 
 of life to which they should survive ; but a little conside- 
 ration will dissipate this error, and shew, that directly 
 the contrary is the effect, at least as it regards the 
 older divisions of the census. It is true, the classes 
 under consideration would be numerically increased 
 by the amount of such accessions, but the relative pro- 
 portion of those in the more advanced periods of life, 
 calculated on the entire number of the population, 
 would be diminished ; and this is the point at issue. 
 It is one, moreover, to which the reader's attention is 
 more particularly directed ; as, in its consequences, it 
 forms another most important branch of the argument 
 hereafter to be considered. It is unnecessary to 
 repeat, that emigrants, generally speaking, are com- 
 posed of individuals in the prime of life, usually single 
 young men, who, as Franklin says, " marry and settle 
 in their adopted country." Dr. Seybert has pointed 
 our attention to the fact of a surplus of females at 
 the marrying period, in the United States, and we 
 need no authority to inform us, that people in the 
 prime of life, and especially in America, marry, or that 
 marriages are prolific. Nay, if they are already 
 married, and take their families with them, the argu- 
 ment is not in the least impaired, so long as it is ad- 
 mitted, that the great mass of those who change their 
 country are little beyond the meridian of existence.
 
 Chap. XI.] PROPORTIONS OF THE SEXES AND AGES. 539 
 
 Emigration, therefore, adds to the prolific, and conse- 
 quently to the juvenile classes also ; but it does not 
 increase the effete ones, if I may so term those who 
 are no longer prolific. But to state the argument 
 more familiarly. Very few grandfathers or grand- 
 mothers, it is presumed, emigrate ; nor, comparatively 
 speaking, many fathers and mothers ; though the 
 latter circumstance would little affect the question, as, 
 in that case, they would remove with their children. 
 Emigrants, nevertheless, are not Melchizedeks; they 
 have had parents, and, considering their average age, 
 many have still surviving ones. All their fathers and 
 mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, who have 
 not accompanied them, but who still live in the coun- 
 tries from whence they come, are evidently wanting 
 in the latter divisions of the American censuses, and 
 to those divisions, their entire number must be added, 
 before it be possible to deduce from them the rate of 
 human increase from " procreation only." After 
 these emigrants shall have themselves become ad- 
 vanced in life, so as to be numbered among the ter- 
 minating divisions of the census, it is clear, that their 
 natural proportion of descendants would be found in 
 the younger divisions, and consequently, the order 
 and proportion of the generations would then be 
 entire. But, in the mean time, it is quite plain that 
 an accession of emigrants at the prime of life, or 
 about that period, must of necessity diminish the re- 
 lative numbers of all beyond that stage of existence. 
 Hence the deficiencies in the terminating divisions of 
 the American censuses, instead of affording any de- 
 monstration of the rate of increase prevailing there, 
 are in full proof of the existence of emigration, and 
 the degree in which they occur indicates the magni- 
 tude of these accessions.
 
 640 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. [Book II. 
 
 (4) Hitherto, I conceive nothing- can be clearer 
 than the preceding reasoning, but I shall proceed to 
 substantiate the argument by irrefragable evidence ; 
 and that not derived from different and distant coun- 
 tries, which might be the means, perhaps, of afford- 
 ing some ground for cavil, but from the census of 
 the United States, and not selecting from thence, 
 such proofs only as would serve my purpose, to the 
 rejection of others, which might not be so tract- 
 able ; but taking the whole of the facts it comprises, 
 and as they naturally present themselves. First, I 
 shall examine these proportions, as it regards those 
 original States, which it is asserted, emigration has 
 long ceased to replenish. Second, those which have 
 been long settled : to which, however, emigrants are 
 known still to repair, though not in so large a propor- 
 tion, as to those which will form the third class ; 
 namely, those States and territories which have been 
 recently peopled, and by emigration ; and I shall add 
 a single striking instance in exemplification of the 
 proof now advanced. I shall give a column in 
 which the proportion of the sexes will also be calcu- 
 lated, and another whence to deduce the rate of 
 increase ; both which will still further confirm the 
 general argument, and manifest its coherency through- 
 out. The first division will consist of the early New 
 England States ; the second, of the remainder of the 
 original colonies ; the third, of the ncAv states and 
 territories ; and the fourth will give the proportions 
 sought, in the instance of the recently established and 
 rapidly increasing province of Indiana. In this classi- 
 fication of the States of the great North American 
 confederation, it is obvious that no partial selection, 
 so as to serve the principle at issue, could possibly be 
 made. The evidence of history, and the declarations
 
 Chap. XL] PROPORTIONS OF THE SEXES AND AGES. 541 
 
 of all American writers who have alluded to the sub- 
 ject, some of whom have not altogether overlooked the 
 important facts about to be submitted to the reader, 
 prescribed the division of the States adopted in the 
 ensuing" table, the result of which, decisive, it is be- 
 lieved, of the general argument, are derived from the 
 last census of the United States, and I will only pre- 
 mise that similar facts miuht have been deduced from 
 all the preceding ones.
 
 542 
 
 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. [Book II, 
 
 Table 
 
 Shewing the Existence and Extent of Emigration to the'^' 
 Numbers of the Sexes and their Ages, in the Censuses^ 
 
 New England 
 Slates. 
 
 Massachusetts . . . . 
 Rhode Island . . . . 
 
 Connecticut 
 
 New Hampshire . . 
 
 totals. 
 
 Old States 
 
 Vermont 
 
 Mahie 
 
 New York .... 
 New Jersey . . . 
 Pennsylvania . . 
 
 Delaware 
 
 Maryland 
 
 Virginia 
 
 North Carolina. 
 South Carolina. 
 Georgia 
 
 totals. 
 
 New States, ^-r. 
 
 Kentucky 
 
 Tennessee 
 
 Ohio 
 
 Alabama 
 
 Illinois 
 
 Mississippi 
 
 Arkansas 
 
 Missouri 
 
 Louisiana 
 
 Michigan 
 
 } 
 
 Columbia (City of 
 AV'nshington 
 
 totals. 
 
 Indiana 29,629 
 
 Under 10. 
 
 70,993 
 11,330 
 36,848 
 35,466 
 
 154.837 
 
 35,708 
 49,217 
 
 222,608 
 42,055 
 
 175,381 
 
 9,071 
 
 41,511 
 
 103,963 
 75,488 
 42,658 
 35,444 
 
 833,104 
 
 83 
 67, 
 
 111, 
 
 17, 
 
 10, 
 
 8, 
 
 2, 
 
 10, 
 
 11, 
 
 1, 
 
 3, 
 
 050 
 746 
 6S3 
 103 
 554 
 104 
 420 
 677 
 817 
 220 
 276 
 
 327,6.50 
 
 FREE WHITE MALES. 
 
 10 to 16. 
 
 38,573 
 
 5,860 
 20,682 
 19,672 
 
 84,787 
 
 19,241 
 24,528 
 104,297 
 19,970 
 77,050 
 4.448 
 18,952 
 45,762 
 32,912 
 18,258 
 14,743 
 
 380,161 
 
 36,004 
 
 28,497 
 
 45,858 
 
 6,281 
 
 4,227 
 
 3,266 
 
 985 
 
 4,256 
 
 4,710 
 
 559 
 
 1,540 
 
 136,133 
 
 11,454 
 
 16 to 26. 
 
 49,506 
 
 7,596 
 
 25,831 
 
 22,703 
 
 105,636 
 
 24,137 
 28,530 
 
 132,753 
 24,639 
 
 102,550 
 5,516 
 26,404 
 58,863 
 39,527 
 23,984 
 19,483 
 
 486,386 
 
 41,328 
 31,028 
 57,008 
 9,336 
 6,224 
 4,560 
 1,427 
 6,537 
 8,747 
 1,334 
 2,171 
 
 169,700 
 
 14,428 
 
 26 to 45. 
 
 54,414 
 
 7,618 
 
 25,632 
 
 22,956 
 
 110,620 
 
 22,035 
 
 27,742 
 138,634 
 24,418 
 97,144 
 5,607 
 27,916 
 57,898 
 36,264 
 22,115 
 17,874 
 
 477,647 
 
 38,178 
 
 27,349 
 
 54,432 
 
 9,055 
 
 5,755 
 
 5,110 
 
 1,453 
 
 6,622 
 
 11,236 
 
 1,661 
 
 2,893 
 
 163,744 
 
 45 and upw. 
 
 14,072 
 
 38,668 
 
 5,888 
 
 21,814 
 
 18,413 
 
 84,783 
 
 16,189 
 19,178 
 81,259 
 18,537 
 64,493 
 3,263 
 16,960 
 38,245 
 25,453 
 13,919 
 10,860 
 
 308,356 
 
 25,136 
 
 18,780 
 
 31,626 
 
 4,064 
 
 2,641 
 
 2,296 
 
 686 
 
 2,909 
 
 4,822 
 
 609 
 
 1,291 
 
 94,860 
 
 7,066 
 
 Total. 
 
 u 
 
 252,15^ Ii9 
 
 38,49-; l" 
 
 130,80135 
 
 119,21(1^ 
 
 540,66^50 
 
 117,31(5' 
 149,19; 1(1 
 679,55: 16 
 129,615 39 
 516,61{66 
 
 27,90! 
 131,74^3!) 
 
 304,73 'f 
 209,64' if! 
 120,93' 39 
 
 98,40' 33 
 
 >,485,65 
 
 16, 
 
 223,69( 't'l 
 173,40(53 
 
 300,60' 
 45,831 
 29,40 
 23,281 
 
 6,97 
 31,00 
 41, .33 
 
 5,38 
 11,17 
 
 892,08 I 
 
 76,64 I 
 
 95.
 
 
 Chap. : 
 
 ^I.] PROPORTIONS OF THE SEXES 
 
 AND AGES. 54.^ 
 
 > 
 » 
 
 VII. 
 
 
 
 NiTED States of America, from 
 
 ITS Effects os the relative 
 
 ? THOSE States and Territories where 
 
 IT PREVAILS. 
 
 FREE WHITE FEMALES. 
 
 Total of 
 
 Total of 
 
 Fern. 1 
 to 1 
 
 fnder 10. 
 
 10 to le. 
 
 IG (0 26. 
 
 26 to 45. 
 
 45 and upw 
 
 46,171 
 
 Total. 
 
 in 1821. 
 
 both Sexes ;^Qpo 
 '" 1*^^1- Males. 
 
 39,260 
 
 38,308 
 
 52,805 
 
 57,721 
 
 264,265 
 
 516,419 
 
 465,303 1048 
 
 10,917 
 
 5,769 
 
 8,407 
 
 8,671 
 
 7,157 
 
 40,921 
 
 79,413 
 
 73,214 1063 
 
 J5,289 
 
 19,833 
 
 27,205 
 
 29,069 
 
 24,978 
 
 136,374 
 
 267,181 
 
 255,179 
 
 1042 
 
 M,599 
 
 18,899 
 
 24,806 
 
 25,797 
 
 19,925 
 
 124,026 
 
 243,236 
 
 213,490 
 
 1040 
 
 )0,065 
 
 82,809 
 
 113,223 
 
 121,258 
 
 98,231 
 
 565,586 
 
 1,106,249 
 
 1,007,186 
 
 1046 
 
 }5,327 
 
 18,577 
 
 24,713 
 
 23,683 
 
 15,236 
 
 117,-536 
 
 234,846 
 
 217,145 
 
 1002 
 
 16,565 
 
 23,982 
 
 30,823 
 
 28,248 
 
 18,527 
 
 148,145 
 
 297,340 
 
 227,736 
 
 993 
 
 16,513 
 
 101,904 
 
 132,492 
 
 129,899 
 
 72,385 
 
 653,193 
 
 1,332,744 
 
 918,699 
 
 961 
 
 J9,921 
 
 19,504 
 
 25,637 
 
 24,693 
 
 18,035 
 
 127,790 
 
 257,409 
 
 226,868 
 
 986 
 
 56,710 
 
 78,425 
 
 101,404 
 
 94,345 
 
 59,592 
 
 500,476 
 
 1,017,094 
 
 786,804 
 
 969 
 
 8,657 
 
 4,311 
 
 5,573 
 
 5,537 
 
 3,299 
 
 27,377 
 
 55,282 
 
 55,361 
 
 981 
 
 59,454 
 
 19,578 
 
 27,293 
 
 26,347 
 
 15,807 
 
 128,479 
 
 260,222 
 
 235,117 
 
 975 
 
 )8,485 
 
 45,766 
 
 62,411 
 
 55,995 
 
 35,686 
 
 298,343 
 
 603,074 551,534 
 
 979 
 
 r0,998 
 
 33,101 
 
 42,253 
 
 38,069 
 
 25,135 
 
 209,556 
 
 419,200| 376,410 
 
 999 
 
 59,891 
 
 18,741 
 
 23,662 
 
 20,939 
 
 13,273 
 
 116,506 
 
 237,440 213,196 
 
 963 
 
 53,177 
 
 14,937 
 
 18,642 
 
 15,365 
 
 9,041 
 
 91,162 
 
 189,566 
 
 145,414 
 
 926 
 973 
 
 )5,698 
 
 378,826 
 
 494,903 
 
 463,120 
 
 286,016 
 
 2,418,563 
 
 4,904,217 
 
 3,954,284 
 
 r7,641 
 
 35,120 
 
 41,905 
 
 35,483 
 
 20,799 
 
 210,948 
 
 434,644 
 
 324,237 
 
 943 
 
 )3,419 
 
 27,770 
 
 31,569 
 
 27,931 
 
 15,638 
 
 166,327 
 
 339,727 
 
 215,875 
 
 9.59 
 
 )6,036 
 
 44,106 
 
 53,337 
 
 48,797 
 
 23,689 
 
 275,965 
 
 576,572 
 
 228,861 
 
 911 
 
 L5,810 
 
 6,289 
 
 7,993 
 
 6,625 
 
 2,895 
 
 39,612 
 
 85,451 
 
 nil. 
 
 864 
 
 9,558 
 
 4,018 
 
 4,842 
 
 4,166 
 
 1,803 
 
 24,387 
 
 53,788 
 
 11,501 
 
 829 
 
 7,220 
 
 3,176 
 
 3,791 
 
 3,107 
 
 1,596 
 
 18,890 
 
 42,176 
 
 25,024 
 
 811 
 
 2,142 
 
 900 
 
 1,179 
 
 934 
 
 426 
 
 5,581 
 
 12,552 
 
 nil. 
 
 800 
 
 9,766 
 
 3,978 
 
 5,076 
 
 4,265 
 
 1,902 
 
 24,987 
 
 55,988 
 
 nil. 
 
 806 
 
 [1,062 
 
 5,484 
 
 6,708 
 
 5,695 
 
 3,102 
 
 32,051 
 
 73,383 
 
 17,227 
 
 775 
 
 1,130 
 
 525 
 
 692 
 
 595 
 
 266 
 
 3,208 
 
 8,591 
 
 4,598 
 
 596 
 
 3,319 
 
 1,640 
 
 2,518 
 
 2,615 
 
 1,351 
 
 11,443 
 
 22,614 
 
 16,079 
 
 1024 
 912 
 
 )7,103 
 
 133,006 
 
 159,610 
 13,635 
 
 140,213 
 12,009 
 
 73,467 
 5,074 
 
 813,399 
 
 1,705,486 
 
 843,402 
 
 !7,684 
 
 10,707 
 
 69,109 
 
 145,758 
 
 23,890 
 
 901 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 544 
 
 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA. 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 (5) The above table gives tlie following- propor- 
 tions, calculated on a radix of 20,000, as previously 
 explained. 
 
 Classes op 
 States. 
 
 MALES, 
 
 FEMALES. 
 
 V;Tnf Under 
 in Cent. ,,, 
 
 inlOYis. '"• 
 
 10 
 to 
 16. 
 
 11) 
 to 
 26. 
 
 "26 
 to 
 45. 
 
 4S& 
 up- 
 was. 
 
 Under 
 10. 
 
 lU 
 to 
 16. 
 
 16 
 to 
 26. 
 
 26 
 to 
 
 45. 
 
 45 & 
 up- 
 wds. 
 
 Females 
 to lOUO 
 Males. 
 
 Four original ^ 
 New England > 
 States ' 
 
 Eleven remain- 1 
 ing old I 
 States ) 
 
 Eleven new "j 
 States and > 
 Territories . . ' 
 
 Indiana 
 
 9.83 
 
 21 ^ 
 102/^ 
 
 510^0 
 
 2800 
 3397 
 3843 
 4066 
 
 1533 
 1550 
 1597 
 1572 
 
 1909 
 1984 
 1990 
 1979 
 
 2000 
 1948 
 1920 
 1931 
 
 1533 
 
 1257 
 
 1112 
 
 9G9 
 
 2713 
 3245 
 3602 
 3798 
 
 1497 
 1545 
 1560 
 1469 
 
 2047 
 2018 
 1871 
 1871 
 
 2192 
 1889 
 1644 
 1648 
 
 1776 
 
 1167 
 
 861 
 
 697 
 
 1046 
 973 
 912 
 901 
 
 (6) Nothing can be more conclusive as to the 
 general argument than the above results. Where 
 emigration has, in great measure ceased, the in- 
 crease is small, the numbers at the different ages 
 (considering the inferior healthiness of America com- 
 pared with England,) appear in their natural propor- 
 tions, and the number of the sexes respectively is to 
 each, similar to what prevails in Europe. In those 
 states to which emigration still continues to be di- 
 rected, though to a less extent than in the new states 
 and territories, there the increase is greater than in 
 the New England ones, and indeed exceeds what na- 
 ture would admit: it amounted to above 21 per cent. 
 in the ten years preceding the last census. In the di- 
 vision of the sexes, the males have the preponderance, 
 and the aged classes begin to exhibit a great defi- 
 ciency in their relative numbers, plainly indicating the 
 presence of the great disturbing cause, — emigration. 
 In the eleven new states and territories, where the 
 increase, in ten years, was above one hundred per
 
 Chap. XI.] PROPORTIONS OF THE SEXES AND AGES. 545 
 
 cent., consequently rendering it unnecessary to bring- 
 any proofs that their present population, any more 
 than their recent foundation, has been owing almo.st 
 exclusively to emigration, there we find the class of 
 both sexes above forty-five, little more than one-fourth 
 of the number contained in that under ten years of age; 
 whereas, in the four first-mentioned old States, the 
 same proportion was more than double, namely, three- 
 fifths. The female sex, again, has, in those States a 
 lessening proportion compared with the males. Lastly, 
 in Indiana, which has above quintupled its numbers 
 in ten years, there the children under ten are nearly 
 five times the number of the adults of forty-five and 
 upwards, being above three times the proportion that 
 exists in England. The females are still relatively 
 fewer, being only as 901 to 1000 males. Indeed, in 
 some of the yet more recent territories, the same 
 proportion is as little as nearly one-half and three- 
 fourths only of females to males. 
 
 (7) Such, then, are the effects which reason 
 taught us to expect, and which facts fully confirm, 
 produced by emigration upon the population of the 
 United States, as evidenced by the censuses, and 
 which, operating on so great a mass of inhabitants, 
 must be vast indeed to have produced results so 
 striking. The deduction is as clear as the facts are 
 undeniably true ; and both contradict any hypothesis 
 founded upon the supposition, that America doubles 
 its people by procreation only. To build a demonstra- 
 tion on such a basis, is to impute to Nature a series of 
 irregularities on the most extended scale of her opera- 
 tions, of which she is never guilty, even in the mi- 
 nutest and most trivial of her works. 
 
 (8) It is, I conceive, unnecessary to reinforce the 
 preceding proofs; I cannot, however, refrain from 
 
 Vol. I. 2N
 
 546 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book II. 
 
 shewing-, that the very same effects result from a 
 similar cause in our own island. In those districts to 
 which numerous accessions of inhabitants continually 
 repair, the discriminated census of the country ex- 
 hibits (as it must of necessity do) a deficiency in the 
 relative number of the inhabitants at the later periods 
 of life, and for the reasons previously stated. Thus, 
 adverting to the table in the fifteenth page of the 
 introductory remarks prefixed to the last census, and 
 taking the counties as alphabetically arranged, I find 
 Leicestershire and Lancashire placed together ; the 
 latter, compared with the former county, having a 
 vastly greater number of distant accessions added to 
 its population. On examining the census, as divided 
 into ages, 1 find, however, the town of Manchester is 
 omitted, and, consequently, in such a comparison, 
 the argument loses one of its chief supports. Never- 
 theless, in every 20,000 of the inhabitants, there are, 
 in Lancashire, 6063 under ten years of age, in Leices- 
 tershire 5512; but, adverting to the proportions of 
 the class at fifty years old and upwards, the former 
 gives 2239 only, the latter 2903. Lancashire in- 
 creased, during the ten years preceding the last census, 
 25 per cent. ; Leicestershire 15 only. It is quite 
 clear, that the increase in the former county, any 
 more than that in America, was not from procreation 
 only. 
 
 (9) But to take a last illustration from one and the 
 same county. The censuses of the Hundred of Lons- 
 dale, north of the Sands, and of the Hundred of Sal- 
 ford, exclusive of Manchester, present these facts when 
 similarly compared. The Hundred of Salford in- 
 creased, with great rapidity, up to 1820; and, it is 
 needless to add, by constant migrations, from the agri- 
 cultural parts of the country, and of both sexes ; for
 
 Chap. XI.] PROPORTIONS OF THE SEXES AND AGES. 547 
 
 in this last respect the analogy, for obvious reasons, 
 fails. In this Hundred there are, in every 20,000 of 
 the population, 6063 children under ten years of age, 
 and 1984 individuals of fifty and upwards ; whereas, 
 in the Hundred of Lonsdale, north of the Sands, there 
 are only 5649 of the former age, but the number in 
 the latter division amounts to 3147. Precisely the 
 same facts will appear in the census of any country or 
 district where the population is partly adventitious ; 
 and they will be regulated, as to their extent, by the 
 number of such accessions. It is true, that an hypo- 
 thesis might be formed, in order to prove that the 
 population of the emporium of the cotton manufacture 
 proceeded from procreation only, but it would not only 
 contradict all experience, but the other facts contained 
 likewise in the census of the two several hundreds; 
 for, in that of Lonsdale, north of the Sands, notwith- 
 standing its slower increase, the mortality is smaller, 
 and the prolificness greater, than in the Hundred of 
 Salford. Such an hypothesis, however, would be 
 quite as conclusive as the one which, in spite of facts 
 as universally known, and as undeniably proved, 
 attributes the increase of the population of America to 
 the like source only. But, it is hoped that such an 
 attempt will no longer be persisted in ; nor needs the 
 present argument be pursued. The supposed proofs 
 of the geometric theory of human increase, as founded 
 on the American censuses, have not only negatived 
 all such suppositions, but have fully demonstrated 
 the existence and prevalence of emigration as one of 
 the most powerful and efficient of the causes which 
 have distributed the numbers, in the divisions of those 
 documents, in a manner so diflerent from what prevails 
 in all other countries where the population advances 
 by natural generation only. 
 
 2N2
 
 548 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OF EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : PROVED BY THE 
 BILLS OF MORTALITY OF THAT COUNTRY. 
 
 (1) I SHALL conclude these proofs, founded on the 
 documents America itself furnishes, of the extent of 
 emigration, by an appetd to the bills of mortality, 
 which have, from time to time, been published there. 
 These present to us certain facts of the most uniform 
 and striking- character, which place the theorists who 
 deduce, from the increase of the population there, their 
 geometric ratio, in a dilemma whence, I conceive, 
 there is no escape ; namely, either that the mortality 
 in that country, at the prime of life, or, in other words, 
 at the prolific period of existence, is far greater than in 
 any other in the civilized world, or, otherwise, that it 
 is increased at that particular period by a large and 
 perpetual accession of foreign emigration. These 
 conclusions are equally fatal to their entire argument. 
 I hope, for the sake of suffering humanity, the former 
 cannot be adopted as the true one ; in proceeding 
 to shew that the latter ought to be received, this ap- 
 peal to the registers of the mortality must necessarily 
 give the discussion a gloomy character : it will, how- 
 ever, serve to strengthen the whole argument, as the 
 last shades which the painter throws in, give truth 
 and effect to a faithful likeness. 
 
 (2) The fact on which this branch of the argu- 
 ment is founded shall be stated in the words of Dr. 
 Price, He says, " the period of life at which settlers
 
 Chap. XII.] BILLS OF MORTALITY. 549 
 
 ^' remove, will appear in tlie bills by an increase in 
 " the number of deaths at that period f he adds also, 
 ^' and beyond it\" If he means, by " beyond it," the 
 more advanced ages, he has so far mistaken the effect 
 of emigration, as has been already shewn in the last 
 chapter; but from what he afterwards says, I think 
 he uses the word "beyond" in an opposite sense^. 
 Dr. Black is more precise, and perfectly accurate ; 
 speaking of these accessions to the capital, he says, 
 " one reason for the great surge in the London bills of 
 " mortality, from 20 to 40, is, that within that inter- 
 " val of life, the majority of new settlers, or recruits, 
 " arrive, and consequently augment the burials of the 
 " metropolis, from 20 to 40, beyond their natural 
 " proportion^." He does not go onto say and "be- 
 yond" that period, in as much as he saw that such 
 accessions must have had a contrary effect, because 
 the "new settlers" at the ages mentioned, formed a 
 part of the prolific class, and must have had, at least, 
 their full proportion of children, who would, of course, 
 yield an equal quota of mortality to their bills, whereas 
 the parents of the new settlers not removing with 
 them, but dying elsewhere, would not be included 
 therein. Hence at the period of life during which 
 emigration prevails, (the law of mortality remaining 
 the same,) the bills will exhibit an increase in the 
 deaths, proportioned to its extent ; after that term, a 
 corresponding diminution. I will merely add, that 
 Dr. Price says, and I think justly, that there will 
 appear, under such circumstances, a small relative 
 proportion of deaths at the period of life immediately 
 preceding that at which this emigration commences; 
 which he mentions that he had invariably remarked in 
 
 ' Price, Revers. Paj'ments, vol. i, - Ihid., p. 337. 
 p. 330, 3 Black, Med. Analysis, p. 21.
 
 550 
 
 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 all the registers lie had seen, and that the same fact 
 was observed in those of Breslaw, by Dr. Halley ; who, 
 not sufficiently attending to the cause, supposed it to 
 be a mistake ^ 
 
 (3) The following are two of the tables given by 
 Mr. Barton, in his paper published in the American 
 Philosophical Transactions, vol. iii., p. 36, &c. 
 
 Table VIII. 
 
 From Dr. Bauton, exhibiting the differences in the decrease 
 
 OF LIFE generally, ACCORDING TO BuFFON ; AND ALSO IN THE 
 
 TOWN OF Northampton, and country parish of Holy Cross, 
 IN England ; and the town of Salem in Massachusetts, 
 North America, calculated on 1000 inhabitants. 
 
 Periods of Life. 
 
 General De- 
 crease .iircord 
 ing toBuffon. 
 
 Northampton, 
 Gt. Britain. 
 
 Holy Cross 
 Parish, Do. 
 
 Salem, South 
 of Massachu- 
 setts, North 
 America. 
 
 Between birth 1 
 & 5 years old J 
 
 460 
 
 456 
 
 341 
 
 445 
 
 5 and 10 
 
 50 
 
 48 
 
 70 
 
 50 
 
 10 — 20 
 
 40 
 
 48 
 
 44 
 
 35 
 
 20 30 
 
 58 
 
 69 
 
 59 
 
 128* 
 
 30 — 40 
 
 69 
 
 61 
 
 60 
 
 90* 
 
 40 — 50 
 
 71 
 
 71 
 
 73 
 
 83 
 
 50 — 60 
 
 72 
 
 70 
 
 80 
 
 40 
 
 60 — 70 
 
 79 
 
 70 
 
 102 
 
 35 
 
 70 — 80 
 
 73 
 
 67 
 
 81 
 
 68 
 
 80 & upwards 
 
 24 
 
 36 
 
 83 
 
 < 
 
 Price, Revers. Payments, vol. i., p. 331,
 
 Ghap. XII.] 
 
 BILLS OF MORTALITY. 
 
 551 
 
 (4) The above table is quite conclusive. Others, 
 however, will be added, so as to bring down the com- 
 parison to the present time ; and, of course, since the 
 general improvement in health, and especially since 
 the introduction of vaccination has taken place. Dr. 
 Seybert gives the bills of mortality for the year 1814, 
 for Baltimore, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, 
 thus : 
 
 Table IX. 
 
 Exhibiting the Bills of Mortality of the Cities of Baltimore, 
 Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, for the Year 1814; 
 the totals of which are proportioned to 1000. 
 
 Ages. 
 
 Baltimore. 
 
 Boston. 
 
 New 
 York. 
 
 Philadel- 
 phia. 
 
 712 
 
 Total. 
 
 Proportion 
 
 to 
 1000 Deaths. 
 
 Under 5 
 
 434 
 
 290 
 
 639 
 
 2075 
 
 373 
 
 5—10 
 
 41 
 
 28 
 
 91 
 
 53 
 
 213 
 
 38 
 
 10 — 20 
 
 76 
 
 35 
 
 94 
 
 72 
 
 277 
 
 50 
 
 20 — 30 
 
 179 
 
 114 
 
 280 
 
 154 
 
 727 
 
 130 
 
 30 — 40 
 
 167 
 
 87 
 
 245 
 
 239 
 
 738 
 
 133 
 
 40 50 
 
 115 
 
 56 
 
 218 
 
 175 
 
 564 
 
 101 
 
 50 — 60 
 
 49 
 
 33 
 
 133 
 
 132 
 
 347 
 
 63 
 
 60 ~ 70 
 
 29 
 
 25 
 
 91 
 
 106 
 
 251 
 
 45 
 
 70 — - 80 
 
 35 
 
 27 
 
 84 
 
 78 
 
 224 
 
 40 
 
 80 -- 90 
 
 25 
 
 21 
 
 35 
 
 42 
 
 123 
 
 22 
 
 90 — 100 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 18 
 
 23 
 
 4 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 Totals. 
 
 1152 
 
 717 
 
 1914 
 
 1783 
 
 5566 
 
 1000 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 552 
 
 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 (5) The National Calendar for 1822 gives for five 
 of the cities of the United States, the following : 
 
 Table X. 
 
 Shewing the Bills of Mortality of the Cities of Boston, New 
 York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston, for 1821. 
 
 Ages. 
 
 Boston. 
 
 New 
 York. 
 
 Philadel- 
 phia. 
 
 Balti- 
 more. 
 
 Charles- 
 ton. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Proportion 
 to 1000. 
 
 Under 1 
 
 246 
 
 867 
 
 835 
 
 488 
 
 1721 
 
 2608 
 
 253 
 
 1 — 2. 
 
 94 
 
 361 
 
 307 
 
 116 
 
 63 
 
 941 
 
 91 
 
 2—5 
 
 62 
 
 254 
 
 241 
 
 48 
 
 43 
 
 648 
 
 63 
 
 5 — 10 
 
 27 
 
 125 
 
 130 
 
 77 
 
 25 
 
 384 
 
 37 
 
 10 — 20 
 
 57 
 
 176 
 
 175 
 
 113 
 
 49 
 
 570 
 
 55 
 
 20 — 30 
 
 131 
 
 418 
 
 443 
 
 177 
 
 99 
 
 1268 
 
 123 
 
 30 40 
 
 99 
 
 409 
 
 396 
 
 210 
 
 129 
 
 1243 
 
 120 
 
 40 50 
 
 94 
 
 359 
 
 313 
 
 133 
 
 80 
 
 979 
 
 95 
 
 50 — GO 
 
 69 
 
 224 
 
 202 
 
 107 
 
 75 
 
 677 
 
 65 
 
 60 — 70 
 
 43 
 
 156 
 
 152 
 
 62 
 
 38 
 
 451 
 
 44 
 
 70 — SO 
 
 40 
 
 101 
 
 96 
 
 35 
 
 28 
 
 300 
 
 29 
 
 80 — 90 
 
 25 
 
 46 
 
 61 
 
 47 
 
 18 
 
 197 
 
 19 
 
 90 —100 
 
 4 
 
 17 
 
 18 
 
 9 
 
 5 
 
 53 
 
 5 
 
 100 110 
 
 ■ • 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 9 
 
 1 
 
 110 120 
 
 • • 
 
 . 
 
 2 
 
 98 2 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 
 Unknown 
 
 112 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 991 
 
 3515 
 
 3374 
 
 1625 
 
 827 
 
 10,332 
 
 1000 
 
 ' The first four sums for Charleston 
 are given together in the calendar 
 (1 to 10; 303). I have proportioned 
 this amount according to the rest of the 
 same ages. 
 
 * This, though regularly inserted, is, 
 to say the least of it; a gross mis- 
 
 take, and I have accordingly rejected it. 
 It is to be regretted that such palpable 
 errors should receive the sanction of be- 
 ing inserted in pulilic documents. 
 
 3 This number I have, of course, 
 omitted in the calculations.
 
 Chap. XII.] 
 
 BILLS OF MORTALITY. 
 
 553 
 
 (G) I sliall add another Tabic, and regarding the 
 same cities, but bringing- down tlic information to a 
 later period, and given on the authority of resident 
 physicians, Drs. Miles and Russ. 
 
 Table XI. 
 
 Shewing the Mortality in the Cities of New York, Philadel- 
 phia, Baltimore, and Boston, during a period of Seven Years, 
 ENDING January 1, 1827, with the Totals proportioned to 1000. 
 
 Ages. 
 
 New 
 York. 
 
 rhilnrl,.!. 
 jiliia. 
 
 Balti- 
 more. 
 
 Eoston. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Deaths 
 to 1000. 
 
 Under 1 
 
 5190 
 
 5438 
 
 2464 
 
 1322 
 
 14,414 
 
 201 
 
 1 — 2 
 
 2568 
 
 2180 
 
 967 
 
 884 
 
 6589 
 
 92 
 
 2—5 
 
 2003 
 
 1907 
 
 938 
 
 531 
 
 5379 
 
 75 
 
 5 10 
 
 946 
 
 1020 
 
 553 
 
 282 
 
 2801 
 
 39 
 
 10 — 20 
 
 1261 
 
 1296 
 
 897 
 
 369 
 
 3913 
 
 55 
 
 20 — 30 
 
 3573 
 
 3079 
 
 1350 
 
 960 
 
 8962 
 
 125 
 
 30 _ 40 
 
 3617 
 
 3186 
 
 1654 
 
 920 
 
 9387 
 
 131 
 
 40 — 50 
 
 2932 
 
 2635 
 
 1275 
 
 778 
 
 7620 
 
 107 
 
 50 60 
 
 1847 
 
 1842 
 
 836 
 
 525 
 
 5050 
 
 70 
 
 60 — 70 
 
 1209 
 
 1335 
 
 559 
 
 362 
 
 3465 
 
 48 
 
 70 — 80 
 
 795 
 
 894 
 
 371 
 
 305 
 
 2365 
 
 32 
 
 80 — 90 
 
 421 
 
 515 
 
 244 
 
 158 
 
 1338 
 
 19 
 
 90 100 
 
 96 
 
 157 
 
 61 
 
 28 
 
 342 
 
 5 
 
 100 —no 
 
 19 
 
 25 
 
 20 
 
 1 
 
 65 
 
 1 
 
 no 120 
 
 • • 
 
 4 
 
 
 

 
 554 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book II. 
 
 (7) I shall now proceed to exhibit the great dif- 
 ference which exists in the rate of mortality, com- 
 paring' the bills of the capital of this empire with the 
 foregoing towns of the United States, at about similar 
 periods ; by which it will be seen how greatly the 
 latter must be affected by emigration. The compari- 
 son, however, will present the proof in question, less 
 forcibly than almost any others that might have been 
 instituted, in as much as the immense magnitude and 
 populousness of London undoubtedly increases its 
 mortality ; and moreover, there is a considerable effect 
 produced upon its comparative intensity at the period 
 in question, (the prime of life,) by the numbers of 
 settlers who are constantly resorting thither, as well as 
 to the American cities, though in a far less degree. 
 These circumstances will diminish the difference which 
 would otherwise have been still more striking ; it re- 
 mains, however, sufficiently great, fully to substantiate 
 the present argument. I shall add a column in which 
 the bills of mortality in the city of Carlisle, from 1774 
 to 1787, are similarly calculated, noticing also, that, 
 even in the latter instance, the proof is deprived of 
 much of its force, because the period referred to pre- 
 ceded the discovery of vaccination, and the late great 
 improvement in general health and longevity.
 
 Chap. XII.] 
 
 BILLS OF MORTALITY. 
 
 555 
 
 Table XII. 
 
 Shewing comparatively the Mortality in Carlisle, from 1774 
 TO 1787, OF London in 1811 and 1822, and of the principal 
 Cities in North America in 1814., 1821, and Seven Years 
 PREVIOUS to 1827. 
 
 Ages. 
 
 Carlisle. 
 
 1774-17!i7. 
 
 London. 
 
 1814. 
 
 London. 
 
 ia-2± 
 
 AmericHii 
 
 cities 
 Table IX. 
 
 American 
 
 eilie.-.. 
 Table X. 
 
 American 
 
 ciiies. 
 fable XI 
 
 Under 10 
 
 489 
 
 441 
 
 378 
 
 411 
 
 444 
 
 407 
 
 10 — 20 
 
 43 
 
 32 
 
 34 
 
 50 
 
 55 
 
 55 
 
 20 — 30 
 
 r 52 
 
 64 
 
 73 
 
 |130 
 
 123 
 
 125 
 
 30 — 40 
 
 \ 49 
 
 84 
 
 98 
 
 133 
 
 120 
 
 131 
 
 40 50 
 
 64 
 
 98 
 
 107 
 
 101 
 
 95 
 
 107 
 
 50 — 60 
 
 56 
 
 91 
 
 101 
 
 63 
 
 65 
 
 70 
 
 60 — 70 
 
 94 
 
 88 
 
 87 
 
 45 
 
 44 
 
 48 
 
 70 — 80 
 
 83 
 
 67 
 
 71 
 
 40 
 
 29 
 
 32 
 
 80 — 90 
 
 53 
 
 29 
 
 42 
 
 22 
 
 19 
 
 19 
 
 90 —100 
 
 15 
 
 4 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 100 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 1000 
 
 1000 
 
 1000 
 
 1000 
 
 1000 
 
 1000 
 
 (8) The foregoing tables fully prove, according to 
 the authorities previously quoted, and, indeed, con- 
 formably to the reason of the case, that a vast influx 
 of emigrants is added to the American population be- 
 tw^een the ages of 20 and 40. There can be little 
 doubt but that, if we could institute a fair comparison, 
 it would be found that the deaths under 10 years of 
 age would be about equal, and in the next ten years 
 not very different; whereas, those between 20 and 
 30, the period of life at which emigration generally
 
 550 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 commences, and is very great in its amount, the mor- 
 tality is actually twice as great ; and in the next ten 
 years, during which it is certain that emigration con- 
 tinues to be very prevalent, the deaths are still nearly 
 double those in Europe. On the contrary, in the ad- 
 vanced stages of life, between 60 and 70, for instance, 
 the deaths in America, similarly compared, are not 
 half so numerous, and their proportion still continues 
 to diminish to the end of the term of human life. 
 
 (9) There is only one other cause, as before ob- 
 served, to which these striking differences can be 
 attributed, and that is the supposition of an adequate 
 variation in the law of mortality. But to produce 
 this effect, it must be great to a degree afflicting 
 to contemplate. It would imply that, in America, 
 after the period of infancy, which still continues to 
 make so great a demand on existence, the human 
 race has to enter immediately upon another ordeal 
 full as fatal to the remainder, namely, the prime of 
 life ; or, in other words, the very season of prolific- 
 ness ; in passing through which it would appear half 
 that survive to it, perish. The very idea is per- 
 fectly irreconcileable with any increase whatever, 
 much less the geometrical one, so often insisted upon. 
 Humanity itself, therefore, prompts us to adopt the 
 other conclusion, and to attribute these results to a 
 cause which has been already abundantly proved to 
 be in existence, and in full operation in America, 
 namely, Emigration. 
 
 (10) I do not mean, however, to contend that there 
 are not other reasons for the peculiarities these Ameri- 
 can bills present to us when contrasted with those of 
 England ; among which a smaller degree of general 
 longevit}^, in the former than in the latter country, 
 must certainly be included. To this I have already
 
 Chap. XII.] 
 
 BILLS OF MORTALITY. 
 
 5.57 
 
 alluded, and shall but slig-litly touch upon it at pre- 
 sent : it is nevertheless too important to other parts of 
 the argument to be entirely forgotten. I shall there- 
 tore give the expectation of life at some of its periods 
 in various parts of Europe and in America, premising 
 that the latter has been calculated since the great im- 
 provement in the term of existence has taken place, 
 the former previously to it ; a consideration of the 
 highest importance to the comparison. 
 
 Table XIII. 
 
 Shewing the Expectation of Life in sundry Parts of Europe, 
 AND IN America, at the Ages specified. 
 
 Ages. 
 
 Sweden. 
 
 France. 
 
 Select Class 
 in France. 
 
 ^loutpelier. 
 
 America. 
 
 
 
 35.40 
 
 28.7G 
 
 . • 
 
 25.36 
 
 • • 
 
 1 
 
 42.95 
 
 36.33 
 
 ■ « 
 
 33.15 
 
 28.43 
 
 20 
 
 3S.02 
 
 34.26 
 
 38.56 
 
 37.97 
 
 28.82 
 
 40 
 
 24.56 
 
 22.89 
 
 24.40 
 
 25.75 
 
 20.29 
 
 60 
 
 12.63 
 
 11.95 
 
 11.96 
 
 14.43 
 
 13.13 
 
 80 
 
 4.28 
 
 4.60 
 
 3.82 
 
 5.67 
 
 6.46
 
 558 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 OF EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : ITS EFFECT ON THE 
 GENERAL INCREASE OF THE POPULATION. 
 
 (1) A MOST important view of the subject of emi- 
 gration to America still remains to be taken, that is, 
 its effect, in proportion to its extent, upon the increase 
 of population there ; one, which I conceive has been 
 more completely misunderstood, or otherwise misre- 
 presented, than any thing connected with the whole 
 inquiry. This consideration is, therefore, reserved for 
 the concluding part of the present argument. Some 
 of the preceding calculations may possibly be inaccu- 
 rate, some of the statements overcharged ; or, if both 
 should be substantially true, it is not the less unlikely 
 that they should be disputed and contradicted. But 
 the fact which remains to be shewn, is of a nature not 
 very capable of being disproved or evaded ; it is self- 
 evident as soon as announced ; and, applied to the 
 very lowest of the admissions regarding the extent of 
 emigration, it is fatal to the theory of those, who, pro- 
 nouncing it to be immaterial, deduce from American 
 increase, the geometric theory of human duplication. 
 The fact to which I advert is this : the great body 
 of emigrants consists of a class, whose increase must, 
 of necessity, be far greater, and more rapid, than 
 that of an equal number of individuals taken fairly 
 and promiscuously from the entire population of a 
 country. 
 
 (2) But before entering upon this subject, I will
 
 Chap. XIII.J ITS EFFECT ON THE GENERAL INCREASE. 559 
 
 advert for a moment to the manner in which the 
 theorists with whom I am contending, manage to 
 evade the consequences of emigration. Fixing upon 
 a certain number of inhabitants, at an early period 
 of colonization, they commence and continue their 
 doublings thence, wholly losing sight of all those 
 large accessions to the original number which have 
 been made, and even at an early period, by these sub- 
 sequent emigrations. It must, however, be evident, 
 even according to their own views, that all these stood, 
 in reference to the principle of population, in the po- 
 sition of original settlers, excepting just so far as the 
 years of the latter, being irf advance, would give them 
 the advantage ; in all other respects, indeed, the later 
 ones were in circumstances far more favourable to 
 human increase. A proportionate part of the amount 
 to which the whole population has multiplied is, 
 therefore, evidently attributable to these successive 
 additions. This fact, it is presumed, will not be con- 
 troverted, though I am not aware that it has been 
 ever brought forward. 
 
 (3) Emigration, however, begins to be acknow- 
 ledged, when it is supposed that it can be represented 
 as no longer material to the increase of the population. 
 But its consequences are then as dexterously evaded, 
 as though its existence had continued to be over- 
 looked. The very same reasoners who calculate with 
 such confidence and precision, that in America, the 
 population, generally considered, multiplies in a geo- 
 metric ratio; argue, regarding emigrants, as though 
 these added to their numbers in arithmetical pro- 
 gression only : or, what amounts to nearly the same 
 thing, they present to us the increase of these acces- 
 sions in such short terms, as to make it out to be, as
 
 560 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book II. 
 
 they are anxious to represent it, " immaterial." The 
 fallacy of such a method is evident to the computist 
 as soon as it is mentioned ; it is hoped that it can 
 hardly be less so to the less practised inquirer. For 
 example, the sinking fund of this country, had it not 
 been sacrilegiously broken in upon, would, ere long, 
 have annihilated the national incumbrances, though the 
 additional interest upon its annual accession of capital 
 might have been pronounced by similar arguers, 
 " immaterial." Or, to illustrate the deception still 
 more familiarly ; the sophism is as glaring, indeed it 
 is quite the same, as though, in comparing the accu- 
 mulation from two sums at usage, one should be cal- 
 culated on the principle of compound, and the other 
 on that of simple interest. But I will put the case 
 in the very terms in which it is expressed by the 
 principal advocate of the geometric theory, as founded 
 upon American increase. 
 
 (4) "From a return to Congress in 1782," says 
 Mr. Malthus, " the population appeared to be 
 " 2,389,000, and in the census of 1790, 4,000,000: 
 " increase in 9 years 1,610,700: from which deduct 
 " 10,000 per annum for European settlers, which will 
 " be 90,000 ; and allow for their increase at 5 per cent. 
 " for 4^ years, which w^ill be 20,500, the remaining 
 " increase during these nine years, from procreation 
 " only, will be 1,500,450, which is very nearly 7 per 
 " cent., and consequently the period of doubling at 
 " this rate, would be less than 16 years." He goes on 
 to say " that the period of doubling has, in particular 
 " districts, been actually shorter, often less than even 
 " 15 years \" 
 
 (5) As the presumed fact on which these calcula- 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay ou Population; p. 339, note.
 
 Chap. XIII] ITS EFFECT ON GENERAL INCREASE. O^l 
 
 tions are founded, is, as Dr. Seybert has liimself de 
 clared, utterly fallacious \ and as it will be shewn 
 hereafter, that the periods of doubling pretended to be 
 deduced from them, and far more extended ones, are 
 impossibilities, involving a series of suppositions of 
 the most absurd nature, the passage would not have 
 been noticed, only that it affords an example of the 
 method by which this class of reasoners satisfy them- 
 selves and many others, respecting the effects of emi- 
 gration. The principle of the above calculation is not, 
 indeed, very clear, but what is meant is sufficiently 
 apparent, namely, that emigrants multiply not only in 
 a much slower ratio than natives, but that even that 
 increase, be it whatever it may, is to be estimated by 
 calculating it on short terms only, to the rejection of 
 the effect, present and future, which all previous ac- 
 cessions are producing, and will still continue to pro- 
 duce upon the general increase. Such a method of 
 computation contrives almost to lose sight even of the 
 arithmetical additions which emigrations make to the 
 community to which they are added : it entirely gets 
 rid of their "geometrical ratio" of increase. Truth is 
 indeed reversed in the whole of these suppositions, and 
 in no case so glaringly, as when it is assumed, that the 
 natural multiplication of a body of emigrants is less 
 than that of an equal number of the entire population. 
 The contrary of this is evidently the fact. But these 
 delusions continue to be persisted in, as the following- 
 quotations from the same pen, taken from a scientific 
 work recently published, will testify. 
 
 (6) "Although," says the article upon population, 
 in the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
 " we can hardly err in defect, if we allow 10,000 a 
 " year for the average increase from emigration, 
 
 ' Dr. Seybert, Statist. Annals of the U. States, pp. 20 and 27. 
 Vol. I. 2 O
 
 562 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book II. 
 
 ' during tlie 25 years, from 1795 to 1820; and ap- 
 ' plying this number to the slowest period of increase 
 ' when the rate was such as to double the population 
 ' in 23 years and seven months, it may be easily cal- 
 ' culated that, in the additional year and five months, 
 ' a population of 5,862,000 would have increased to 
 ' an amount much more than sufficient to cover an 
 ' annual emigration of 10,000 persons icith the increase 
 ^ from them at the same rate." 
 
 " Such an increase from them, however, would not 
 ' ta/ce place. It appears from an account in the Na- 
 ' tional Calendar of the United States, for the year 
 ' 1821, that of the 7001 persons who had arrived in 
 'America, from the 30th of September, 1819, to the 
 '30th September, 1820 ^ 1959 only were females, 
 ' and the rest, 5042, were males ; a proportion 
 ' which, if it approaches towards representing the 
 ' average, must very greatly reduce the number from 
 ' which any increase ought to be calculated." The 
 writer, notwithstanding, in proceeding, allows with great 
 shew of candour, " to all these emigrants an increase 
 " during the whole period, at the fullest rate, which 
 " he afterwards fixes at three per cent., a rate which 
 " would double a population in less than 24 years ^." 
 
 (7) As the above extract from the laboured 
 article in question is supposed to embody the modern 
 theory of population, it is necessary to notice its posi- 
 tions somewhat at large; when it will be seen, that a 
 greater mass of absurdities has been rarely compressed 
 in a like space. In what it denies, and what it ad- 
 mits, it not only equally controverts matter of fact, but 
 entirely subverts the system it defends. The prolific- 
 ness assigned with an air of liberality to emigrants, 
 
 ' For proof of the incorrectness of ~ Encjc. Brit. Supplement, vol. vi., 
 this statement, see conclusion of Chap. ii. 310, Art. Population. 
 III. of this Book.
 
 hap. XIII.] ITS EFFECT ON GENERAL INCREASE. 563 
 
 consisting-, as the great mass of tliem unquestionably 
 do, of the reproductive class of society, transferred to 
 the same class throughout the country and the world, 
 would doom the human race to speedy decay and ex- 
 tinction ; but, given to the entire community, would 
 multiply mankind into unsustainable numbers, a posi- 
 tion, indeed, sought to be demonstrated by the article 
 in question ; but the admission made in this very para- 
 graph will, on due examination, be found to subvert 
 the supposition altogether. But, of all the mistakes 
 in the whole statement, the conceiving that, because 
 a great majority of emigrants are males, they would 
 add to the general prolificness less than had they 
 been of the other sex, is the most ludicrous, as well as 
 erroneous. We shall attend to each of the foregoing 
 points, though as shortly as possible, because the 
 subject will be partially resumed in a part of the 
 present work more particularly appropriated to the 
 detection of the numerical errors involved in the prin- 
 ciple of population now controverted ; when it will be 
 shewn, that the accession of a comparatively small 
 number of individuals has an effect upon the general 
 increase hardly supposable by those who have not 
 attended to the subject. 
 
 (8) It is obviously true, in the first place, that 
 the period at which emigration takes place is, in a 
 great plurality of cases, that of the prime of life. 
 None become " settlers,"' to use the word which, of 
 itself, almost amounts to a proof of the fact, in ad- 
 vanced age ; and as to the few children that leave 
 with entire families, they have survived the first great 
 peril of existence, infancy, and are, therefore, more 
 likely to live to the reproductive age, and are, indeed, 
 nearer entering upon it than had an equal number 
 been taken promiscuously from the general community. 
 
 202
 
 564 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 But, to recur to tlie main fact, nothing is more certain, 
 than that emigration is ahiiost universally supplied by 
 " single persons in the beginning of mature life ^ ; " 
 nor, secondly, that such persons, as Dr. Franklin long 
 ago asserted, " marry and raise families"." 
 
 (9) Nor is this all. It is not more true, that emi- 
 grants, generally speaking, consist of individuals in 
 the prime of life, than that " they are the most active 
 and vigorous " of that age, as Dr. Seybert describes 
 them to be. They are, as it respects the principle at 
 issue, a select class, even compared vv^ith that of their 
 own age generally considered. Their very object in 
 leaving their native countries is to settle in life, a 
 phrase that needs no explanation; and they do so. No 
 equal number of human beings, therefore, have ever 
 given so large or rapid an increase to a community as 
 " settlers " have invariably done. 
 
 (10) But, to identify them merely with the general 
 class to which, in point of age, they belong, or, in 
 other words, with the prolific portion of the community, 
 and to calculate the effect of their addition to a ofeneral 
 population accordingly : — Dr. Price has computed that 
 " the prolific part of the community may very well be 
 a fourth of the whole number ; " a proportion which, 
 from his own subsequent remarks, it is quite clear he 
 exaggerated. Allowing, however, his supposition to 
 stand, it may be very safely transferred to the emi- 
 grant body, in as much as so great a majority of these 
 remove at the early stages of the prolific period, as 
 to fully counterbalance any instances which may occur 
 amongst them of some who have not yet attained to, or 
 who have even survived it ; and what, then, is the state 
 
 'Price, Revers. Payments, vol. i., p, ^ Price, Revers. Payments, vol. i., p. 
 332. 279. } > > i 
 
 * Franklin, Works, vol. ii., p. 157.
 
 Chap. XIII.] ITS EFFECT ON GENERAL INCREASE. 5G5 
 
 of the question, in reference to their effect upon human 
 increase ? Why this ; if tliey are only equally prolific 
 with others of the same period of life, they are still 
 four times as much so as an entire population generally 
 considered. Our ten thousand emigrants, therefore, 
 produce as great an effect on the general increase, as 
 far as procreation is concerned, (" procreation only,") 
 as would an annual accession of forty tliousand indi- 
 viduals, consisting of a just proportion of all ages and 
 of both sexes. 
 
 (11) But, on the contrary, to contend that the 
 prolific portion of society, separately considered, who, 
 it is evident, have to replace not merely their own 
 numbers, but those of every other class of the com- 
 munity, only increase in the same proportion as does 
 the entire population, is an error which has but to be 
 pointed out to be instantly detected. Allowing that 
 it were possible for a country to increase its popula- 
 tion at the rate of three per cent, per annum, (which 
 I deny,) still to say that the prolific class, by which 
 this augmentation can alone be accomplished, shall 
 only multiply in that ratio, is a contradiction in terms; 
 they must increase at the rate of twelve per cent., 
 in as much as the remaining three-fourths do not 
 multiply at all. An annual increment of three per 
 cent, on the prolific part of the population would 
 speedily consign the whole to destruction. The repro- 
 ductive class of society, never, in any coiuitry, multi- 
 plied so slowly, or, in other words, decayed so rapidly, 
 as this would imply : the entire population never 
 augmented so greatly. The error in question, it is 
 conceived, is already sufficiently confuted ; it may, 
 however, be detected and exposed in a more familiar 
 way, and by a simple question, which may be pro- 
 pounded to those who argue so strenuously in favour of
 
 566 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 the geometric ratio. Do these conceive, while they 
 are contending- that an entire population multiplies as 
 they assert, that individuals, in the very first of their 
 prime, as emig;rants generally are, wait a quarter of a 
 century before they are the means of adding a single 
 additional individual each to the community? or, to 
 speak more plainly, that in a country where it is said 
 " bachelors are unknown," that the most active and 
 vigorous " portion of the community have not a 
 " child each, in less" (to adopt their own term) " than 
 " twenty-three years and seven months?" If so, emi- 
 gration is indeed immaterial. But, the idea is ab- 
 surd ; and yet it is this important mistake which lies 
 at the foundation of all the miscalculations that have 
 gone forth respecting the effect of emigration on the 
 population of the United States. 
 
 (12) But the most curious discovery in the pas- 
 sage quoted from the Encyclopaedia is that which 
 announces that, because a great majority of emigrants 
 are males, even this general rate of increase is to be 
 denied to them. This idea also proceeds from entire 
 misconception. Directly the contrary is again the 
 undoubted truth. This great majority of males im- 
 plies, of necessity, unmarried males, and these, we 
 know, as well from the dictates of reason and common 
 sense, as from universal observation, are young men 
 in the prime of life. Now, instead of these not 
 causing, according to their numbers, an increase equal 
 to others of the like age in their adopted country, 
 they in effect do so in a two-fold degree. Nothing 
 can gainsay this conclusion, unless it could be 
 proved that American females refuse to ally them- 
 selves with European males ; or, secondly, that there 
 is a paucity of the former at the nubile age in Ame. 
 rica; a fact which the census contradicts, as Dr. Sey-
 
 Chap. XIII.] ITS EFFECT ON GENERAL INCREASE. 56/ 
 
 bert has particularly noticed. While, therefore, no 
 native American is deprived of a wife by the accession 
 of these young men, every one of the latter who mar- 
 ries there adds a wedding- to the married class of the 
 country ; whereas, if the emigrants went forth in 
 equal numbers of both sexes, and were already or 
 subsequently paired amongst themselves, it would 
 obviously demand two to give such an addition. It 
 needs no further observations to shew, that to every 
 such emigrant, under these circumstances, a double 
 degree of individual prolificness is plainly attribut- 
 able. This fact also, which is too plain to be denied, 
 must enter into the calculation, as to the effect on po- 
 pulation of an annual emigration of 10,000 individuals 
 to America ; nor is it one which has been overlooked 
 by even American writers themselves. They have 
 not only remarked that by these accessions the whole 
 reproductive power of the country is called forth, but 
 that it is developed, in consequence, at the earliest 
 possible period ; " the constant influx of young men, 
 " emigrating from other countries, leading," as they 
 observe, " to early marriage ^ :" indeed, one of not 
 the least judicious of their authorities on the subject. 
 Dr. Seybert, who is deservedly complimented in the 
 very article I am examining, notices particularly, 
 " that the inhabitants of those states have increased 
 " the most rapidly in which there is the greatest pro- 
 " portion of males 'V and he goes so far as to conceive 
 that the population of the country at large, physically 
 speaking, has derived advantage from these constant 
 admixtures ^. 
 
 (13) But it is unnecessary to expose the gross 
 
 1 Dr. Drake, quoted by Warden, Sta- ^ pr. Seybert, Statist, Annals, p. 47. 
 tistical Account of the United States, ^ Ibid., p. 52. 
 vol. u., p. 249.
 
 5G8 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 error of this encyclopsedist any further. The suppo- 
 sition that such individuals as constitute the vast 
 proportion of emigrants M^oukl increase no faster 
 than a w^hole community consisting of all ages and 
 conditions, including therefore a majority of children, 
 far from the period of prolificness, and many of them 
 destined never to attain to it ; of the aged, who have 
 long survived that term, to say nothing of that portion 
 of helplessness, disease, and sickness which flesh is 
 heir to, and which, alas ! every community contains, 
 is one of the most singular assertions ever hazarded. 
 But the supposition that it would take twenty-three 
 years and seven months, on the average, before one of 
 these would be able to double, is, however, less 
 strange than that, should the individual happen to be 
 a male, (which, as before noticed, is, in a great ma- 
 jority of instances, the case,) it would demand a still 
 longer period to accomplish that event. Such rea- 
 soners would have us to believe that it is the acces- 
 sion of c|ueen bees alone which adds prolificness to 
 the American hive, of the perpetual swarmings of 
 which they speak so confidently. 
 
 (14) To apply the preceding facts to the construc- 
 tion of a simple computation : and to use the propor- 
 tion of the sexes of the emigrants given to us in the 
 paragraph already quoted in the way of a formula. 
 Admitting, then, without however crediting the state- 
 ment, that 10,000 emigrants were the limit of emi- 
 gration at the period to which Mr. Malthus first 
 adverts; in which number the majority of unmarried 
 males (and more than the mere majority must, of 
 course, be in that condition,) would be 4404 ; it may 
 be left to the reader to determine how many of these 
 would marry : and it must be recollected that, as these 
 accessions are represented as stationary in number,
 
 Chap.XIir.] ITS EFFECT ON GENERAL INCREASE. 569 
 
 the results would be, on the average, annually equal. 
 Let him then determine how many of the remainder, 
 of whieh 2798 are males, and the same number females, 
 would likewise marry in America ; how many of them 
 may be already married, but still in the prolific class; 
 and also how many in the number may be chikh-en 
 on their advance to this state. No calculation at which 
 he can reasonably arrive will give him the number of 
 weddings caused by an accession of 10,000 individuals, 
 including that proportion of remaining prolificness 
 which those already married would give to the married 
 class, at so small a sum as 5000. 
 
 (15) The next inquiry is, how many weddings 
 were probably contracted by the natives of America at 
 the period referred to. Admitting the white popula- 
 tion to have then amounted to 2,000,000, what pro- 
 portion of that number would be annually married ? 
 
 (16) In making this computation, the suppositions of 
 Mr. Malthus, Dr. Franklin, and Mr. Warden, must be 
 thrown completely aside, for reasons which will be ad- 
 vanced hereafter : their proportions of 1 marriage in 
 60, 1 in 50, and 1 in 30 of the inhabitants, being, as 
 will then be shewn, palpable impossibilities, any of 
 them involving this necessary consequence, that more 
 marry in America than are born \ Were we to allow 
 that 1 marriage in every 100 of the entire population 
 takes place, we should exaggerate. No statistical 
 documents I have yet seen, even regarding the cities 
 of America, (and marriages are invariably more nume- 
 rous the more crowded the population, as will be fully 
 proved hereafter,) would warrant such a high pro- 
 portion. Admitting it,, however, to have prevailed 
 throughout the Union, then there would have been 
 20,000 annual marriages in the United States, at the 
 
 ' See Book III., chap. VI.
 
 570 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 period in question, to which, according to the preced- 
 ing-computation, one fourth more, or 5000, would be 
 added, as the effect of emigration. And it will be 
 fully seen in the course of this work that no less an 
 accession could have reconciled the fact of American 
 increase to the physical laws of our nature. 
 
 (17) But the effect of such an accession would be 
 still greater than it might be supposed to be from the 
 mere relative addition it makes to the number of the 
 marriages. This fact will be more fully demonstrated 
 hereafter ; in the mean time I will select, in proof of it, 
 only one calculation from many that I had constructed, 
 conceiving that even this is, in a great measure, super- 
 seded by a clearer method of computing the effect of 
 emigration as given in the succeeding Book of this 
 Treatise. The assumed proportions, that of the mar- 
 riages, 1 in 108^; that of their annual prolificness, 
 4.38 births each ^ (implying a higher degree of indivi- 
 dual prolificness); and, lastly, of the deaths, one half 
 the number of the births ^, are founded on data given 
 
 ' Thus, in the town of Portsmouth, Phil. Soc, vol. iii., p. 30. 
 
 U.S., the weddings were in 1808 and The average for the towns of Ports- 
 
 J809, 125; the population in 1810, mouth, (U.S.), Salem, and Hingham, 
 
 6934 ; the former to the latter were Massachusetts, will be 1 marriage in 
 
 therefore not quite 1 in 110 annually every 108 of the entire number of the 
 
 calculated on the inhabitants a year or inhabitants ; which will be adopted in 
 
 two afterward. the ensuing calculation. 
 
 In the town of Salem, which it was '^ In the town of Salem there were, in 
 
 said contained in 1782 about 9000 in- 1781 and 1782, 385 births, illegitimates 
 
 habitants, the marriages were, in 1781, included, and 154 marriages, or 4.53 to 
 
 70, and in 1782, 84, averaging, there- each. Brissot, Travels in the U. States, 
 
 fore, nearly 1 in 117 annually. Brissot, In the town of Portsmouth, during 
 
 Travels in the United States, pp. 362, 8 years, from 1804 to 1811 inclusive, 
 
 363,364. there were 514 marriages and 2197 
 
 In Philadelphia, the proportion, as re- births, giving a proportion of 4.27 of the 
 
 jportedin 1818, was still smaller. latter to one of the former. 
 
 According to Dr. Barton, however. In Hingham, as given by Mr. Barton, 
 
 the marriages were, in the parish of the same proportion was for 54 years as 
 
 Hingham, 1 in less than a hundred; 4.32 to 1. 
 
 viz. above 1 in 97 ; calculated on a pe- The mean proportion of the three 
 riod of 54 years, and including, of places is 4.38 to 1. 
 course, the weddings of emigrants. But ^ The proportion given by Mr. Bar- 
 as he only guesses at the population ton, Mr. Warden, vol. iii., p. 231, and 
 during this period, his computation is Baron Humboldt, 
 unsatisfactory. Transactions, American
 
 Chap. XIII.] ITS EFFECT ON GENERAL INCREASE. 571 
 
 in the notes ; and they will be shewn to be more fa- 
 vourable to the increase of population than the general 
 laws of Nature warrant. 
 
 (18) The following table exhibits the increase of a 
 population, the movements of which should be thus 
 regulated, amounting to 108.00 individuals; and, 
 therefore, starting with one marriage, 4.38 births, and 
 2.19 deaths.
 
 572- 
 
 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : 
 
 [Book 11. 
 
 Table XIV. 
 
 Shewing the increase of a community in which the Mar- 
 riages ARE AS 1 IN 108 Individuals, the Births 4.38 to each 
 Marriage, and the Deaths half the number of the Births. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Inhabitants. 
 
 Marriages. 
 
 Births. 
 
 Deaths. 
 
 Increase. 
 
 Total. 
 
 1 
 
 108.00 
 
 1.00 
 
 4,38 
 
 2,19 
 
 2.19 
 
 110,19 
 
 2 
 
 110.19 
 
 1,02 
 
 4,46 
 
 2.23 
 
 2.23 
 
 112.42 
 
 3 
 
 112.42 
 
 1.04 
 
 4,55 
 
 2.27 
 
 2.27 
 
 114.70 
 
 4 
 
 114,70 
 
 1.06 
 
 4,65 
 
 2,32 
 
 2.33 
 
 117,03 
 
 5 
 
 117.03 
 
 1.08 
 
 4,73 
 
 2.36 
 
 2.37 
 
 119,40 
 
 6 
 
 119.40 
 
 1.11 
 
 4.86 
 
 2.43 
 
 2.43 
 
 121,83 
 
 7 
 
 121.83 
 
 1.13 
 
 4.95 
 
 2.48 
 
 2.47 
 
 124,30 
 
 8 
 
 124.30 
 
 1,15 
 
 5.03 
 
 2.51 
 
 2.52 
 
 126.82 
 
 9 
 
 126,82 
 
 1,17 
 
 5.12 
 
 2,56 
 
 2.56 
 
 129.38 
 
 10 
 
 129.38 
 
 1,20 
 
 5,25 
 
 2,63 
 
 2.62 
 
 132.00 
 
 11 
 12 
 
 132.00 
 
 1.22 
 
 5,34 
 
 2.67 
 
 2.67 
 
 134.67 
 
 134.67 
 
 1.25 
 
 5.48 
 
 2.74 
 
 2,74 
 
 137.41 
 
 13 
 
 137.41 
 
 1.27 
 
 5,56 
 
 2.78 
 
 2,78 
 
 140.19 
 
 14 
 
 140.19 
 
 1.30 
 
 5.69 
 
 2.84 
 
 2.85 
 
 143,04 
 
 15 
 
 143.04 
 
 1,32 
 
 5,78 
 
 2,89 
 
 2,89 
 
 145.93 
 
 16 
 
 145.93 
 
 1 . 35 
 
 5.91 
 
 2,95 
 
 2,96 
 
 148.89 
 
 17 
 
 148.89 
 
 1.38 
 
 6.04 
 
 3.02 
 
 3,02 
 
 151.91 
 
 18 
 
 151.91 
 
 1.40 
 
 6.13 
 
 3,06 
 
 3.07 
 
 154.98 
 
 19 
 
 154.98 
 
 1.43 
 
 6,26 
 
 3.13 
 
 3.13 
 
 158.11 
 
 20 
 
 158.11 
 
 1.46 
 
 6.39 
 
 3.19 
 
 3.19 
 
 161.30 
 
 21 
 
 161.30 
 
 1.49 
 
 6.52 
 
 3,26 
 
 3,26 
 
 164.56 
 
 22 
 
 164.56 
 
 1.52 
 
 6.65 
 
 3.32 
 
 3.33 
 
 167.89 
 
 23 
 
 167.89 
 
 1.55 
 
 6.78 
 
 3.39 
 
 3,39 
 
 171.28 
 
 24 
 
 171.28 
 
 1.59 
 
 6.96 
 
 3.48 
 
 3,48 
 
 174.76 
 
 25 
 
 174.76 
 
 1.62 
 
 7.09 
 
 3,54 
 
 3.55 
 
 178.31 
 
 26 
 
 178.31 
 
 1.65 
 
 7,22 
 
 3,61 
 
 3.61 
 
 181.92 
 
 27 
 
 181.92 
 
 1.68 
 
 7.36 
 
 3.68 
 
 3.68 
 
 185.60 
 
 28 
 
 185.60 
 
 1.72 
 
 7,53 
 
 3,76 
 
 3.77 
 
 189.37 
 
 29 
 
 189.37 
 
 1.75 
 
 7.66 
 
 3.83 
 
 3.83 
 
 193.20 
 
 30 
 
 193.20 
 
 1,79 
 
 7,84 
 
 3.92 
 
 3.92 
 
 197.12 
 
 31 
 
 197.12 
 
 1.82 
 
 7.97 
 
 3.98 
 
 3.99 
 
 201.11 
 
 32 
 
 201,11 
 
 1.86 
 
 8.14 
 
 4.07 
 
 4.07 
 
 205.18 
 
 33 
 
 205.18 
 
 1.90 
 
 8,32 
 
 4.16 
 
 4.16 
 
 209.34 
 
 34 
 
 209.34 
 
 1.94 
 
 8,49 
 
 4.24 
 
 4.25 
 
 213.59 
 
 35 
 
 213.59 
 
 1.98 
 
 8,67 
 
 4.33 
 
 4,34 
 
 217.93
 
 Chap. XIII.] ITS EFFECT ON GENERAL INCREASE. 573 
 
 (19) The preceding- table miglit have been calcu- 
 lated with more mathematical exactness by another 
 method, but it would not have exemplified the progTess 
 of population thus increased, so familiarly ; it is, how- 
 ever, quite accurate enough for the purpose of shew- 
 ing that it would take a period of nearly 35 years to 
 double a population, in which the marriages are as 1 
 in 108, the births double the number of deaths, and 
 4.38 to each marriage. In this table, it will be per- 
 ceived, that the births are to the population as 1 in 
 every 24.65, and the deaths 1 in 49.3 ; whereas 
 Warden himself estimates the deaths in the United 
 States at 1 in 40 ; and though he conceives the births 
 to be twice as numerous, all the facts we are in pos- 
 session of contradict him. In the places before re- 
 ferred to in the notes, the births give, in no instance, 
 so great a proportion. In a statistical account of the 
 State of New York, I find them amounting to 1 in 
 26.77. It is needless to say how much all the pro- 
 portions in the table exceed those which prevail in 
 Europe'. 
 
 (20) The following table exhibits the effect which 
 a stationary number of emigrants would have upon 
 the increase of population, commencing with so low a 
 proportion as a two hundredth part of the native 
 inhabitants ; supposing that only f| of that proportion 
 directly caused a marriage each, and that the remain- 
 der were composed of a promiscuous number of both 
 sexes, and of all ages. 
 
 1 " Depuis le 40* degre de latitude et la Suede, la proportion des deces est 
 
 jusqii'au 05'^, c'est-u-dire, sur luie ligne de 1 sur 40.3 ; 
 
 qui s'etend de Lisboune Ti Stockholm, en Celle des naissances, de 1 sur 30.1 ; 
 embrassant une eteiidue de mille lieues Celle des mariages, de 1 sur 123.3, 
 environ, et sur une population de C5 Et la fecondite de 4 eiifans par 
 
 millions d'individus, qui habitent le Por- niariage." — Benoiston de Chateauneufj 
 
 tugal, le royaume de Naples, de France, Bui. Univers. Geog. et Statistique, vol 
 
 I'Augleterre, la Prusse, le Daneniark, vi., p. 1G9.
 
 574 
 
 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA 
 
 [Book II, 
 
 Table XV. 
 
 Exhibiting the Effect of Emigration on the Increase of 
 
 Population. 
 
 
 3 
 
 a 
 
 si 
 
 Promiscuous 
 Population. 
 
 MaiTiape.s in 
 that Number. 
 
 be -"^ 
 .2 So 
 
 22 
 
 to 
 
 0) 
 
 2 
 
 122 
 
 « 
 
 534 
 
 Q 
 
 267 
 
 a; 
 u 
 a 
 
 £ 
 Q 
 
 267 
 
 Proportion of 
 Emigration. 
 
 Total, 
 
 including 
 
 Increase and 
 
 Kmigration. 
 
 
 
 108.00 
 
 32 
 
 108.32 
 
 100 
 
 sho 
 
 111.21 
 
 1 
 
 111.21 
 
 32 
 
 111.53 
 
 103 
 
 22 
 
 125 
 
 548 
 
 274 
 
 274 
 
 ■sfrs" 
 
 114.49 
 
 2 
 
 114.49 
 
 32 
 
 114.81 
 
 106 
 
 22 
 
 128 
 
 561 
 
 280 
 
 281 
 
 2 1-2- 
 
 117.84 
 
 3 
 
 117.84 
 
 32 
 
 118.16 
 
 109 
 
 22 
 
 131 
 
 574 
 
 287 
 
 287 
 
 l^rs 
 
 121.25 
 
 4 
 
 121.25 
 
 32 
 
 121.57 
 
 112 
 
 22 
 
 134 
 
 587 
 
 293 
 
 294 
 
 sii 
 
 124.73 
 
 5 
 
 124.73 
 
 32 
 
 125.05 
 
 116 
 
 22 
 
 138 
 
 604 
 
 302 
 
 302 
 
 230 
 
 128.29 
 
 6 
 
 128.29 
 
 32 
 
 128.61 
 
 119 
 
 22 
 
 141 
 
 618 
 
 309 
 
 309 
 
 2^ 
 
 131.92 
 
 7 
 
 131.92 
 
 32 
 
 132.24 
 
 122 
 
 22 
 
 144 
 
 631 
 
 316 
 
 315 
 
 244 
 
 135.61 
 
 8 
 
 135.61 
 
 32 
 
 135.93 
 
 126 
 
 22 
 
 148 
 
 648 
 
 324 
 
 324 
 
 2iT 
 
 139.38 
 
 9 
 
 139.38 
 
 32 
 
 139.70 
 
 130 
 
 22 
 
 152 
 
 666 
 
 333 
 
 333 
 
 258 
 
 143.25 
 
 10 
 
 143.25 
 
 32 
 
 143.67 
 
 133 
 
 22 
 
 155 
 
 679 
 
 339 
 
 840 
 
 ^h 
 
 147.19 
 
 11 
 
 147.19 
 
 32 
 
 147.51 
 
 137 
 
 22 
 
 159 
 
 696 
 
 348 
 
 348 
 
 2 72 
 
 151.21 
 
 12 
 
 151.21 
 
 32 
 
 151.53 
 
 140 
 
 22 
 
 162 
 
 710 
 
 355 
 
 355 
 
 2 80 
 
 155.30 
 
 13 
 
 155.30 
 
 32 
 
 155.62 
 
 144 
 
 22 
 
 166 
 
 727 
 
 363 
 
 364 
 
 ■As 
 
 159.48 
 
 14 
 
 159.48 
 
 32 
 
 159.80 
 
 148 
 
 22 
 
 170 
 
 745 
 
 372 
 
 373 
 
 2ir5 
 
 163 75 
 
 15 
 
 163.75 
 
 32 
 
 164.07 
 
 152 
 
 22 
 
 174 
 
 762 
 
 381 
 
 381 
 
 303 
 
 168.10 
 
 16 
 
 168.10 
 
 32 
 
 168.42 
 
 156 
 
 22 
 
 178 
 
 780 
 
 390 
 
 390 
 
 ■^ 
 
 172.54 
 
 17 
 
 172.54 
 
 32 
 
 172.86 
 
 160 
 
 22 
 
 182 
 
 797 
 
 399 
 
 398 
 
 A^ 
 
 177.06 
 
 18 
 
 177.06 
 
 32 
 
 177.38 
 
 164 
 
 22 
 
 186 
 
 815 
 
 407 
 
 408 
 
 3 2B 
 
 181.68 
 
 19 
 
 181.68 
 
 32 
 
 182.00 
 
 169 
 
 22 
 
 191 
 
 836 
 
 418 
 
 418 
 
 1 
 337 
 
 186.40 
 
 20 
 
 186.40 
 
 32 
 
 186.72 
 
 173 
 
 22 
 
 195 
 
 854 
 
 427 
 
 427 
 
 345 
 
 191.21 
 
 21 
 
 191.21 
 
 32 
 
 191.53 
 
 177 
 
 22 
 
 199 
 
 872 
 
 436 
 
 436 
 
 ■JST 
 
 196.11 
 
 22 
 
 196.11 
 
 32 
 
 196.43 
 
 182 
 
 22 
 
 204 
 
 894 
 
 447 
 
 447 
 
 Tsir 
 
 201.12 
 
 23 
 
 201.12 
 
 32 
 
 201.44 
 
 187 
 
 22 
 
 209 
 
 915 
 
 457 
 
 458 
 
 ■3-f2 
 
 206.34 
 
 24 
 
 206 . 34 
 
 32 
 
 206.66 
 
 191 
 
 22 
 
 213 
 
 933 
 
 467 
 
 466 
 
 382 
 
 211.54 
 
 25 
 
 211.54 
 
 32 
 
 211.86 
 
 196 
 
 22 
 
 218 
 
 955 
 
 478 
 
 477 
 
 39 1 
 
 216.85 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4^0-
 
 Chap. XIII.] ITS EFFECT ON GENERAL INCREASE. 575 
 
 (2]) Thus is the assertion, that emigration is im- 
 material to the increase of the population in America, 
 disposed of, when divested of the false facts and rea- 
 sonings by which it has been accompanied, and re- 
 duced to a mere arithmetical calculation. The for- 
 mer of the two preceding tables shews that a com- 
 munity, placed under the circumstances predicated, 
 more favourable to increase, perhaps, than any in ex- 
 istence, independently of foreign accessions, would 
 not double its numbers in less than five-and-thirty 
 years ; the latter, which continues the very same 
 computations, shews that an annual addition of little 
 more, on the average, than a three-hundredth part, 
 would double, thus replenished, in five-and-twenty 
 years. I may repeat, that the amount thus added is 
 the precise proportion dictated by Mr. Malthus ; and 
 when it is recollected, that of the 10,000 emigrants 
 who are said to remove to America annually, it is also 
 agreed by him, in a passage quoted in this chapter, 
 that above 7000 would be males, in assigning to the 
 entire number little more than four thousand marriages, 
 it will not be thought that I can have erred on the 
 side of excess. My opinion is, that these proportions 
 give too small an increase to the population as the 
 effect of emigration, exemplified in the latter of the 
 two preceding tables ; and that, in the former one, 
 the period of doubling, protracted as it is, compared 
 with the one so confidently assumed, is still far too 
 rapid to result from procreation only ; a conclusion, 
 which, I think, will be demonstrated hereafter. 
 
 (22) In conclusion : the foregoing proportions are 
 not, as has been already observed, arbitrary assump- 
 tions of my own, to answer the purpose of this parti- 
 cular argument ; on the contrary, as it respects those 
 which concern natural increase, they have been taken
 
 576 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book 11. 
 
 from authorities who are quite eager enough to prove 
 that their " country possesses, in a superior degree, an 
 " inherent, radical, and lasting source of national vi- 
 " gour and greatness V' to quote the language of one 
 of them. Then again, regarding emigration, another 
 class of writers, as fully bent as the Americans in 
 shewing it to be " immaterial " to the present increase 
 of their population, have themselves dictated the facts 
 which have been made the basis of the calculation, as 
 to its effects ; only that I think I have kept far within 
 the proportion of marriages resulting from that cause, 
 (and that is the point of chief importance,) which 
 their own admissions and assertions warrant. All 
 uncertainties, however, would have been avoided, had 
 the statistics of the United States afforded the neces- 
 sary information. If the authorities there had been 
 as anxious to record the importations of men as of 
 merchandise, the present dispute could never have 
 existed. Had the due performance of the rites of 
 Christianity been provided for by law, without (if it so 
 pleased them) prescribing uniformity in their cele- 
 bration, the registry of marriages, births, and burials 
 would have decided the most important of the points 
 at issue. An establishment, moreover, which should 
 have secured the universality and perpetuity of Chris- 
 tian worship, would have repaid a thousand-fold its 
 expense, in the additional decency and comfort it 
 would have conferred upon the entire community. 
 Those who would persuade us, that it is unnecessary 
 to provide for religious tuition and worship, and still 
 are loud in their praises of the compulsory establish- 
 ment of an institution of far less national importance, 
 that of schools, throughout the Union ; asserting, that 
 the former may be safely left to individual feelings, but 
 
 ' Barton, American Phil. Transact., vol. iii., p. 26.
 
 Chap. XIII.] ITS EFFECT ON GENERAL INCREASE. 577 
 
 tliat the latter cannot, argue either as infidels or enthu- 
 siasts ; if merely as the latter, they argue against facts. 
 The best writers America has yet produced have 
 deplored the state of things to which this circumstance 
 has naturally and inevitably led. Dr. D wight men- 
 tions the immense tracts of settled country where all 
 the national institutions are fully organized, where 
 every thing else prospers, but wliere the public wor- 
 ship of Almighty God is unknown. Bristed says, 
 that " full one third of the population are destitute of 
 all religious ordinances ^" And we learn from other 
 sources, that even in many places where Christian 
 worship has been already established, that it has been 
 suspended or abandoned in consequence of a want of 
 ministers ; a want which will continue and increase till 
 an adequate provision is made for them, or the feel- 
 ings which govern human beings are no longer ope- 
 rative ". I deplore this state of things, not as the advo- 
 cate of that particular form of religion which I may 
 prefer, but as a friend to Christianity; any public pro- 
 fession of which is as preferable to none, as light is 
 to darkness. The sacred function, which adds learn- 
 ing, decency, and dignity to society, to say nothing 
 of its infinitely more important duties, is, in the light 
 of political philosophy even, quite as important an 
 oflnice as that of the mere schoolmaster, the highest 
 order of which, moreover, that profession constantly 
 supplies. But I am diverging from the subject which 
 has so long been pressed upon the attention of the 
 reader, — Emigration. While discussing it, the pa- 
 thetic description of Goldsmith, the poet of Nature 
 
 ^ Bristed, America and her Resources, " lately more than 2000 congregations 
 
 p. 423. " vacant, and yet the different seminaries 
 
 ^ " One of the evils which most affect " only furnish 200 ministers annually. 
 
 " the different denominations of Chris- " The void, instead of diminishing, must 
 
 " tians in the United States, is the po- " still extend." — Bui. Uuiversel, vol. v., 
 
 " verty of the ministers. There were p. 79. 
 
 Vol. I. 2 P
 
 578 Emigration to north America. tSook ti. 
 
 and of truth, aye, and of true political philosophy, has 
 often occurred to my mind, and especially now ; and 
 I cannot forbear regretting that the exiles he so 
 touchingly describes in their adopted home beyond 
 the western main, have not found his village pastor, to 
 fix the principles of their youth, to guide their conduct 
 in the active scenes of life, and to administer consola- 
 tion in its last moments. The want of registers in 
 America has unintentionally led to these reflections, 
 which I hope some will not think entirely misplaced 
 in a work of which the object is to promote and se- 
 cure the happiness of human beings, and to assert the 
 claim of a merciful and all-sufficient Providence upon 
 their constant and solemn adoration.
 
 579 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OF EMIGRATION TO AMERICA : CALCULATED ON THE 
 
 ADMISSION OF THOSE WHO ASSERT IT TO BE 
 
 " IMMATERIAL." 
 
 (1) Lastly, I shall sliew, from tlie direct admission 
 of those who assert and argue to the contrary, that 
 emigration has been the main instrument in the mul- 
 tiplication of the population of America, and conse- 
 quently that the proof of their theory, as founded upon 
 the latter, entirely fails. 
 
 (2) The passages already quoted in the preceding 
 chapter from Mr. Malthus's Essay, and the article on 
 Population in the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica, equally admit an annual emigration to the 
 amount of ten thousand individuals. The former 
 attributes to them an increase of five per cent, per 
 annum ; for which rate, however, the latter substi- 
 tutes one of three per cent, per annum, which is 
 asserted to be the ratio of increase, as it respects the 
 entire community, and is therefore conceded with an 
 affectation of great liberality to the emigrants also. 
 Emigration, however, is still declared to be " imma- 
 terial " to the increase of the population, which, it is 
 argued, would, without such an accession, double 
 itself in less than twenty-five years. 
 
 (3) One of these articles professes to calculate the 
 effect of emigration from 1782 to 1790; the other 
 from 1795 to 1820; we shall, however, accept neither 
 term, unless it can be shewn that emigration com- 
 
 2 P 
 
 o
 
 580 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA: [Book II. 
 
 menced and terminated with either ; which those who 
 put them forth are well aware is not the case. On 
 the contrary, we have already proved the existence of 
 emigration, and to a vast extent, a century and a half 
 previous, not only from the mother country, in which 
 it awakened the fears of the statesmen and patriots of 
 those days, but from other nations, more particularly 
 from Germany ; and it would be as false and as fruit- 
 less to call into question these facts, as it would to 
 deny that Anglo- America was originally peopled by 
 emigration. It has been shewn, in particular, 
 from existing records, that prior to the earliest of 
 these dates (1782), several hundred thousand emi- 
 grants had found their way into that reservoir of human 
 existence, though, in all reason, it may be con- 
 cluded that the actual number greatly exceeded the 
 recorded one. The men who led the battles of Ame- 
 rica, the patriots who advocated her cause, the citizens 
 who jbled in its defence, would, few of them (would 
 any?) have existed, had it not been for emigration 
 during the period embraced in this inquiry. To cal- 
 culate, in the manner we have seen, the effect of emi- 
 gration, from its supposed effect between the years 
 1782 and 1790, is an equal insult upon truth and upon 
 common sense. 
 
 (4) But it must be admitted, that previous to these 
 periods, the vast afflux of people to the colonies of Ame- 
 rica is no where denied. Let us, therefore, see what 
 would be the effect of such an annual addition as the 
 anti-populationists give, 10,000, with the increase they 
 now allow upon it, three per cent, per annum, in the 
 course of a single century, upon the population of 
 that country : what is the proportion of its present 
 inhabitants which their own admission implies. 
 
 (5) Ten thousand individuals, with an annual
 
 Chap. XIV.] ITS ADMITTED EXTENT. 581 
 
 accession to the same amount, and an increase of three 
 per cent, per annum upon the whole, would, in the 
 space of one hundred years only, be far from ^' imma- 
 terial." They would amount, I think, as calculated 
 by logarithms, at the termination of that period, to 
 6,752,666, out of the 7,801,710 individuals who con- 
 stituted the total of the white population in 1820, 
 or nearly nine tenths of the whole ; a number which 
 leaves 1,109,044 as the share of the population from 
 procreation only ; and which would give a doubling' 
 from natural causes of once in 50 instead of once in 
 25 years ; a conclusion which, whether critically 
 exact or not, is, I am sure, and will subsequently 
 shew, to be nearer to truth than the latter is to pos- 
 sibility. 
 
 (6) But supposing we were to say, contrary to 
 fact and evidence, that not more than 5000 had annu- 
 ally proceeded to America from all parts of the world 
 within the last century, would the half of the former 
 sum, namely, 3,376,333, thus added to the population 
 of the country from internal procreation, raising the 
 latter, therefore, from 4,485,377 to 7,861,710, be imma- 
 terial ? This calculation would lengthen the period 
 of doubling in America to about 35 years, agreeably to 
 the former table in the preceding chapter. And this I 
 am convinced is a far more rapid duplication than has 
 ever taken place in that country from " procreation 
 
 (7) Emigration to America did not, however, com- 
 mence with the year 1720; on the contrary, thousands 
 were annually proceeding to that country half a cen- 
 tury before that period. Let, then, those who are the 
 most anxious to prove emigration " immaterial," com- 
 mence a century and a half previously to 1820, and 
 fix upon the smallest number of such accessions which
 
 582 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 authentic accounts will warrant, increasing its amount 
 when Ireland began to send forth thousands yearly, 
 and Germany added such numbers to the population 
 of the colonies, that Franklin feared the institutions 
 and even language of his country would be super- 
 seded ; I say, let the theorists themselves fix upon the 
 annual number of these perpetual accessions, and cal- 
 culate their increase after the same rate as that of the 
 natives, (for their prolificness cannot be imagined less, 
 and, it is well known, their longevity has been inva- 
 riably greater,) and they will then see clearly enough 
 the great share that these constant and vast additions 
 have had in peopling that part of the new world. The 
 lowest estimates which they can venture to put forth 
 cannot co-exist with the theory which they wish to 
 found upon the increase of the population of North 
 America. 
 
 (8) If, however, instead of entering upon such a 
 computation, they are disposed rather to withdraw 
 the admissions upon which the preceding one is 
 founded, it will nevertheless be of no avail to their 
 cause. And this brings me to the last argument I 
 have to advance in proof of the existence of emigra- 
 tion, and its influence on the increase of the inha- 
 bitants of the United States ; and it is a reason which, 
 in every sense of the word, ought to be a conclusive 
 one. It is this : even admitting the existence of the 
 geometric theory, which will hereafter be disproved, 
 still the slowest period of duplication, which it 
 is contended takes places in the United States, is, 
 consistently with the irreversible laws of Nature 
 as established throughout the world, an impos- 
 sibility. Emigration, therefore, must have partly 
 produced the results which are known to exist. But 
 this view of the subject is so important to the general
 
 Chap. XIV.] ITS ADMITTED EXTENT. 583 
 
 argument, tliat it will be pursued in a succeeding 
 part of this work, when the possible periods, in which 
 communities may naturally double, will be distinctly 
 considered. In the mean time, I will venture to 
 repeat, that the geometrical theory, however applied, 
 is not true, and that its slowest period of doubling, as 
 founded upon American increase, is impossible. 
 
 (9) I have now concluded my remarks on the 
 population of the United States till I shall shortly 
 resume the subject in another part of this treatise, for 
 the purpose of proving and illustrating, by a reference 
 to the statistics of that interesting and important part 
 of the world, a more cheering principle than that 
 which has been attempted to be established. I have, 
 I am aware, gone into the argument at much length, 
 though I have omitted at least one half of what I 
 had prepared myself to offer on the occasion ; in- 
 cluding a series of tables, proving the fallacies 
 that have been held regarding American increase, 
 especially those of Dr. Franklin. That part of the 
 argument, however, will be resumed, in a more 
 general form, in some of the first chapters of the 
 ensuing Book. As the theory, which it is the object 
 of this treatise to disprove, is founded solely on 
 the supposed facts which the country in question 
 furnishes, it appeared necessary to enter into their 
 examination with considerable care and attention; 
 and it seemed, under these circumstances, preferable 
 to run the risk of being tedious rather than unsatis- 
 factory. With the confidence that truth generally 
 inspires, I feel convinced that the latter will not be 
 the case ; in which conviction I trust the reader will 
 concur, when he reviews the whole argument, which 
 for his convenience is thus abridged. 
 
 (10) The theory that mankind would double, at
 
 584 EMIGRATION TO NORTH AMERICA : [Book II. 
 
 the very slowest rate of increase, by procreation only, 
 in five-and-twenty years, is founded upon the sup- 
 posed increase of various colonies of America, and, 
 finally, upon the growth of the entire population of 
 the United States, which, it is asserted, have doubled, 
 on the lowest calculation, in that term, and many 
 much more rapidly, independently of foreign emi- 
 gration. 
 
 (11) In refutation of this position, it has been shewn, 
 that none of the States instanced have ever so doubled 
 in any part of their history ; that the population of 
 New England in particular, as well as that of the 
 remaining colonies, at the period whence these 
 doublings are dated, has been grossly understated, 
 and that there are not, in reality, half the number of 
 wdiite inhabitants now in the United States that the 
 theory demands, had not a single emigrant proceeded 
 to that country ; that, on the contrary, a vast and 
 incessant afflux of emigrants has proceeded to Ame- 
 rica, first from England, but, very early afterward, 
 from the remaining parts of the British empire, and 
 from every country of Europe ; that, so far from this 
 emigration having been immaterial in its effects, it has 
 influenced, in every possible way, the manners, cus- 
 toms, habits, religion, and even language, of the various 
 States ; has shewn its presence by every species of sta- 
 tistical evidence, excepting that of direct enumera- 
 tion ; that, more satisfactorily even than by such a 
 mode, it has manifested its extent, by altering the 
 natural proportion of the sexes, and the classifications 
 of society throughout ; has varied the established pro- 
 portions of nature, as it respects the ages of the 
 living in the censuses and of the dead in the re- 
 gisters of mortality : and, finally, to epitomize the 
 argument no further, it has been proved, from the
 
 Chap. XIV.] ITS ADMITTED EXTENT. 585 
 
 very admissions of tliose who are anxious to demon- 
 strate to the contrary, that emigration has been the 
 main cause of that rapid increase in the population 
 of America, on which alone they build their entire 
 system. 
 
 (12) Do I deny, then, that the inhabitants of the 
 colonies of America, now the United States, have also 
 increased rapidly by internal generation, as well as by 
 these foreign accessions ? By no means : on the con- 
 trary, such a supposition would be adverse to the prin- 
 ciple of population, which, it will be seen in the se- 
 quel, I wish to establish. I may express my opinion 
 in the words of the philosopher of that country, that 
 American increase is, undoubtedly, very rapid, but 
 that " it becomes more so by the accession of 
 " strangers ^ ; " or of its geographer, who says, 
 " that their numbers rapidly increase, both by emi- 
 " grations from Europe, and by natural population^;" 
 and that the community, therefore, " is composed of 
 " people of almost all nations, languages, characters, 
 "and religions^;" or, lastly, in the language of 
 one of the first and best of its statistical writers, who, 
 in replying to the very query we are now answering, 
 says, that the vast increase in their population has 
 been derived, " in great numbers, from various parts 
 " of Europe, by incessant streams of emigration *." 
 
 ' Dr. Franklin, Works, vol. ii., p. ^ Ibid. 
 157. * Coxe, View of the United States, 
 
 2 Dr. Morse, Geog., p. 63. p, 202.
 
 586 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OF THE POPULATION OF CHINA: THE GENERAL ARGUMENTS 
 
 FOUNDED ON ITS SUPPOSED DENSITY, 
 
 STATED AND DISPROVED. 
 
 (1) I COME now to the consideration of China, which, 
 of all countries in the world, is supposed to present 
 the strongest evidence of the superfecvnidity of human 
 beings. Nay, so frequently and so confidently have 
 the advocates of that doctrine appealed to China in 
 its support, that the very mention of its name brings 
 with it the idea of extensive population, with its sup- 
 posed concomitants, universal vice and misery. In 
 America, their geometric theory of human duplication 
 is represented as being in full progress ; in China, as 
 being consummated; — checked and arrested by those 
 terrible correctives, the very mention of which fills the 
 heart with mingled horror and disgust. Happily, 
 however, neither representation is true. That regard- 
 ing America has been already shewn to be otherwise ; 
 it will be an easier task to prove that respecting China 
 to be a still grosser fiction. 
 
 (2) It is a curious, though a painful, subject, to 
 refliect upon the uses which the very imperfect infor- 
 mation we have had, at least till of late, regarding 
 the latter country has been eagerly applied. A 
 number of persons from the heart of Europe, as Malte- 
 Brun has well oberved, have busied themselves in 
 raising encomiums upon China ^; generally, however, 
 
 1 Malte-Brun, l.xliv., p. 607.
 
 Chap. XV.] CHINA : ITS POPULATION DISPROVED. 587 
 
 in order to further some favourite view. One wliile 
 it was the constant theme of infidelity, because it was 
 supposed to afford a standing refutation of the Mosaic 
 records, and, by consequence, of Christianity. Its 
 history was stated to stretch out some fifteen thousand 
 years beyond the biblical era of the creation ; and the 
 absurdity of supposing- that the rest of mankind 
 remained so many millenniums without advancing in 
 knowledge, or either inventing or acquiring the means 
 of perpetuating historical facts, was wholly overlooked 
 in favour of the preposterous pretensions of one of 
 the most ignorant and mendacious people upon earth. 
 This delusion has passed away, though it is to be 
 doubted whether the effects it produced, when urged 
 by such men as Voltaire, have subsided. Now, how- 
 ever, the same country has become the very paradise 
 of our anti-populationists, in which, as they suppose, 
 their theory luxuriates in its full vigour and maturity. 
 Hence the very mention of China is held sufficient to 
 prove that the starving wretch, whose sole crime is 
 that of having a family, has not the least claim, as of 
 right, to the smallest portion of food, and that the law 
 which concedes it to him is absurd in itself, and mis- 
 chievous in its consequences. The encouragements to 
 marriage are pointed out in that empire, and brought 
 home to our own ; and the consequences are so repre- 
 sented, as to shew that, whether the institution be that 
 of Nature and of God, or otherwise, it is wholly irre- 
 concileable with human happiness, except so repressed 
 as to comport with the views of these writers. It were 
 superfluous to shew the unhappy influence which this 
 perpetual appeal to the experience of so vast a portion 
 of the human race must have upon the principles and 
 feelings of those who credit it, or to assert the duty of 
 dispelling so gross and pernicious a delusion. At all
 
 588 CHINA : REDUNDANCY OF [Book II. 
 
 events, the present work would be obviously incom- 
 plete without attempting to do so. 
 
 (3) If any department of knowledge accessible to hu- 
 man beings has been progressively enlarged and illus- 
 trated, it is, undoubtedly, geography ; and at the very 
 outset of an inquiry like the present, and concerning 
 a country which, though hitherto inadequately known, 
 is still far more so than it was till very recently, 
 it seems not a little suspicious, that the early ac- 
 counts are relied upon, and false as many, and marvel- 
 lous as the whole of them are, that they should be pre- 
 ferred to much later and more authentic information. 
 The author to whom I shall still principally attend 
 has, indeed, made a few references to Sir George 
 Staunton, who had, confessedly, very limited means 
 of information, and was greatly imposed upon by the 
 representations of the natives ; but to this hour he 
 has made not the slightest mention of Barrow, Ellis, 
 Abel, and others, who have rectified many of the state- 
 ments made by the former author. But even Staunton 
 is only quoted in proof of the great fertility and ge- 
 neral and judicious cultivation of the soil, and of the 
 universal encouragement of marriage ; of agriculture ; 
 and a few other similar topics. But when the evils 
 of the principle of population have to be demonstrated 
 from this empire, other authorities are exclusively 
 consulted. The writers of the " Edifying and Curious 
 Letters," published, as we are told, to fan the devo- 
 tions of a Maintenon, are still to pourtray to us an 
 empire which many of our own scientific countrymen 
 have traversed and described within these few years 
 past. Even before better information was obtained, 
 no one thought theirs was worthy of implicit credit. 
 Duhalde himself, whose history was principally made 
 up of a careful selection from them, mentions in the
 
 Chap. XV.] ITS POPULATION DISPROVED. 589 
 
 outset^ tlieir want of exactness and precision, and ac- 
 cuses tliem elsewhere of exaggeration^, which Lord 
 Macartney particularly notices ^ The former, how- 
 ever, presents in their behalf this most weighty excuse : 
 "They had," he said, "only seen the finest and most 
 " populous provinces, and hence their exaggerations 
 "as to the number of the inhabitants ^" Barrow 
 speaks of these " reverend gentlemen^" and "their 
 pleasant stories " in less exculpatory terms ^ ; though 
 not so plainly as does Adam Smith, who denominates 
 them, at once, "stupid and lying missionaries'^," who, 
 nevertheless, as another author observes, " contrived to 
 " impose upon Europeans their absurd and ridiculous 
 " notions ^." Perhaps, however, they were generally 
 "weak and credulous ^" as Malte-Brun describes 
 them, rather than wilfully mendacious. And they 
 had the apology frequently of knowing little of the 
 subject on which they wrote ; thus, one of them, F. 
 Attiret, describing his journey, thus expresses him- 
 self: " Half the way we came by water, and both ate 
 " and lodged in our boats. We were not allowed to 
 " go ashore, or even to look out of the windows of our 
 " covered boats to observe the face of the country as 
 " we passed along. We made the latter part of our 
 "journey in a sort of cage, which they were pleased 
 " to call a litter. In this, too, we were shut up all 
 " the day long, and, at night, carried to our inns, 
 " (and very wretched inns they are,) and thus we got 
 " to Pekin, with our curiosity quite unsatisfied, and 
 " with seeing but very little more than if one had been 
 
 1 Duhalde, China, pref. ^ Ibid, P- 441. _ 
 
 2 Ibid., vol. i., p. 240. ^ Smith, Wealth of Nations, vol. iii., 
 
 3 Macartney, Journal of an Embassy, c. i., p. 123. 
 
 &c p. 432. ^ Maitland, Hist, of Loudon, vol. ii., 
 
 519. 
 
 4 Duhalde, China, vol. i., p. 240. p, 751 . 
 
 5 Barrow, Travels in China, pp. 518, * Malte-Brun, Geog., 1. jdvu., p. 550.
 
 590 CHINA : REDUNDANCY OF [Book II. 
 
 " shut up all the while in one's own chamber. Indeed, 
 " they say the country we passed is but a bad country, 
 " and that though the journey is near 2000 miles, 
 " there is but little that might deserve much atten- 
 " tion \" Some of these writers, who had sent home 
 such exaggerated accounts as those whence the 
 statements I shall allude to were selected, saw their 
 error subsequently, and rectified it ; nor have the re- 
 tractations of such been entirely suppressed. Thus, 
 F. Chavagnac writes to F. Gobien, " All China does 
 " not answer the notion I had at first conceived of it. 
 " I had seen some parts only of the province of Canton 
 " when I sent you so magnificent a description of it. 
 " I had scarce travelled four days journey up the 
 " country, before I could see nothing but steep moun- 
 " tains and dreadful deserts, full of tigers and other 
 " wild beasts. Between Nangan and Cantcheou-fou, 
 " there is nothing but deserts," &c.^ This talk about 
 wild beasts, in a country represented as so unmerci- 
 fully over-peopled, reminds me of a similar account of 
 Sir George Staunton, who, in his limited observation 
 of the best parts of the country, talks of seeing v/ild 
 horses scampering along ^, a descriptive circumstance, 
 perfectly conclusive as to the state of the population. 
 
 (4) Such, then, are the authorities (and even their 
 information is garbled) from whom it appears we 
 are to derive our ideas of the present condition of the 
 inhabitants of China, to the rejection of those who 
 have written a century later : during which time, if 
 the principle of population which is thus to be sup- 
 ported had been true, the pressure of misery which it 
 would have created must have been still on the in- 
 
 ^ Lettres Edif. et Curieuses, F. At- certain Missionaries, p. 177. 
 tiret, t. xxvii. » Staunton; Embassy to Cliiaa, vol. 
 
 -Letters, Edifying and Curious, of ii., p. 176,
 
 Chap. XV.] ITS POPULATION DISPROVED. 591 
 
 crease \ and the last evidence, therefore, the most con- 
 clusive. 
 
 (5) Before we proceed to shew the real state of the 
 question in relation to that empire, we must briefly 
 present the description of its situation by the anti- 
 populationists ; derived, it is true, from two very dif- 
 ferent sources, the information from which runs often 
 in opposite directions, but still it is so selected and 
 combined as to " work together " in their proof of the 
 evils resulting from the principle of population, of 
 which they thus constitute China one of the most 
 hopeless and dismal examples. 
 
 (6) In the first place, we have a country immense 
 in its extent, containing, in all probability, at least 
 one thousand millions of acres ^; the soil of which, con- 
 sidering this extent of surface, is probably wholly un- 
 rivalled ^, yielding, in many of its provinces, double 
 harvests *, and in some, we are informed, even three 
 crops in the year ^. We are told further, that agricul- 
 ture is greatly encouraged, and the pursuit honoured, 
 and even venerated: that the whole surface of the 
 country is, with trifling exceptions, under culture, 
 and dedicated, moreover, to the production of food 
 for man alone ; there being no meadows, very little 
 pasture, nor are the fields cultivated for the support of 
 
 ' Malte-Brun thus sums up the less ing persons were ill-qualified to appre- 
 
 recent authorities on the subject of date." — Geog., 1. xlvii., p. 550. 
 
 China. " Shice that period," (that of ^ gncy. Brit., Sup. 
 
 Vasco de Gama's successors,) " we owe ^ No place in the world like China for 
 
 our knowledge to some ambassadors who fertility. — Le Compte, China, p. 100. 
 
 have seen the court and the great roads ; Grosier, 1. iv., c. 3., p. 391. All the ad- 
 
 to some merchants who have inhabited vantages of climate, soil, and produc- 
 
 a suburb in a frontier town ; and to a tiou, have been lavished here by Na- 
 
 considerable number of missionaries ture with an unsparing hand. — Lord 
 
 who have penetrated the country in Macartney's Journal, p. 340. 
 
 every direction, and who, being cOn- * Le Compte, China, p. 95. Grosier, 
 
 sidered as credulous admirers, though China, 1. iv., c. 3., p. 391. Von Braam, 
 
 artless narrators, inspired little con- Dutch Embassy to China, vol. ii., p. 
 
 fidence in their judgment ; so that the 284. 
 
 world was left to guess at the truth of * F. Premare, Lett. Edif. et Curieuses, 
 
 numerous facts which these well-mean- p- 112.
 
 592 CHINA: REDUNDANCY OF [Book II. 
 
 cattle of any kind : that there are no commons or lands 
 suffered to lie waste by the neglect, or the caprice, or 
 for the sport of great proprietors : that there is little 
 land appropriated even for roads, which are few and 
 narrow : that there are no fallows ; the earth, under a 
 hot and fertilizing- sun, yielding annually, in most 
 instances, (as before observed,) double crops, in con- 
 sequence of adapting the culture to the soil, and of 
 supplying its defects by mixing it up with other earths ; 
 by irrigation, and by careful and judicious husbandry 
 of every sort : that agricultural pursuits are so uni- 
 versal, that even soldiers are cultivators; and that 
 the quantity of subsistence is also increased by con- 
 verting more species of animals and vegetables to that 
 purpose than is usual in other countries ^ : that the 
 prodigious quantity of human food so produced, is 
 again rendered available to a far greater number than 
 in this or any other European country ; numbers having 
 the advantage of living together, like soldiers in a 
 mess, adopting the greatest economy in the manage- 
 ment of their provisions, and reducing themselves to 
 the use of vegetable food, with a very rare and scanty 
 relish of any animal substance ^ This parsimony 
 brings us to another part of the same picture. 
 
 (7) Notwithstanding all this fertility, intelligence, 
 industry, frugality, the inhabitants, it appears, do not 
 subsist in the least degree of comfort. On the con- 
 trary, according to our authority, a third part of the 
 people would, after all, hardly find sufficient rice to 
 support themselves properly^; consequently the la- 
 bouring part of the population (there almost the only 
 class) is pressed down to the most abject state of po- 
 verty. In a word, a Chinese, we are told, will pass 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, pp. ^ Ibid., p. 151. 
 148, 149. ^ Ibid., quoted from Premare, p. 152.
 
 Chap. XV.] ITS POPULATION DISPROVED. ^93 
 
 whole days in digging- the earth, sometimes up to the 
 knees in water, and in the evening is happy to eat a 
 little spoonful of rice, and to drink the insipid water 
 in which it was boiled, and this is all they have in 
 general ^ Another consequence of this universal 
 penury and distress is said to be, that the most loath- 
 some food is eagerly and habitually accepted ^. 
 
 (8) Nor does all this suffice. The still redundant 
 numbers have to be repressed : hence, among other 
 dreadful calamities which are enumerated, dearths and 
 famines are said to be the most powerful of all the posi- 
 tive checks to the Chinese population ^ ; and did not 
 these, from time to time, thin the immense number of in- 
 habitants which China contains, it would be impossible 
 for her to live in peace ^. I will not distress the reader 
 by copying the description given of them. The 
 wretches, in an afflicted province, it appears, die with 
 hunger before national benevolence reaches them ^ ; 
 while those who do not wait for the last extremity, 
 crawl, as well as they can, into other districts, where 
 they hope to get support ; but leave the greatest part 
 of their number dead upon the road®: and, as it is 
 said elsewhere, to the check of famine that of pesti- 
 lence is also added, which is represented as sometimes 
 so to prevail, that " the roads are found covered with 
 " dead bodies, which infect the air to a great distance"." 
 
 (9) But the unnatural and horrible cruelty which 
 the misery arising from excess of numbers is described 
 to occasion, is the most revolting part of the whole 
 picture. I do not allude to the selling of wives and 
 children ^, or to the alleged murder of the aged by 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay ou Population, p. * Ibid., p. 159. 
 
 153. 5 Ibid. p. 159. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 151. "Any animal sub- ^ Ibid., p. 160. 
 
 stance." 7 Ibid., p. 155. 
 
 3 Malthus, Essay on Population, p. " Ibid., p. 154. 
 158. 
 
 Vol. I. 2 Q
 
 ^9^ CHINA : REDUNDANCY OF [Book II. 
 
 the young', to save them from the agonies of a dilatory 
 death \ but to that infanticide on which the main 
 authority quoted dwells so perpetually, without, how- 
 ever, estimating its extent. He says, the number of 
 victims depends very much upon the seasons^, and 
 adds; " after any great epidemic or destructive famine, 
 " the number is probably very small ; it is natural 
 " that it should increase gradually on the return to a 
 • ' crowded population, and is, without doubt, the 
 " greatest when an unfavourable season takes place, 
 " at a period in which the average produce is already 
 " insufficient to support the overflowing multitude ^" 
 I will not follow this writer through all his reasonings 
 upon this subject, which, I confess, fill my mind with 
 the deepest indignation ; I will only add, that from the 
 extreme poverty of the lower classes, (in all countries 
 the immense majority, and, on his shewing, particu- 
 larly in China,) he argues that, if they were not de- 
 terred from entering into the marriage state, under the 
 certainty of being obliged to expose all their children, 
 or to sell themselves and families as slaves, such a 
 certainty would often present itself^. But the lower 
 classes do marry, otherwise the population, be its 
 amount whatever it may, would instantly sink, and 
 soon become extinct. The inference, therefore, is 
 certain ; and a horrible one it is, to be fixed upon one 
 of the first institutions of civilization and Christianity 
 — marriage. 
 
 (10) Can any thing darken this condition of human 
 nature ? Yes ; its utter hopelessness ! In a coun- 
 try cultivated as represented, where the population 
 has been habituated by degrees to live almost upon 
 the smallest quantity of food^, the average produce 
 
 ' Malthus, Essay on Population, p. ^ Ibid., p. 1 58. 
 
 159. Mbid., p. 154. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 158. sjbij.^p, 151,
 
 Chap. XV.] ITS POPULATION DISPROVED. 595 
 
 of which is barely sufficient to support the lives of 
 the inhabitants ^, where wealth is stationary, and 
 the soil cultivated nearly to the utmost^, not the 
 slightest prospect of relief awaits the great mass of 
 the people, whose increase of numbers " has not only 
 been," as we are further told, " an addition of so much 
 " pure misery in itself, but has completely interrupted 
 " the happiness which the rest might have enjoyed^." 
 And all this misery, crime, and sufiering is attributed 
 to the principle of population ; and it is represented 
 to have overtaken, in this instance, one-third of the 
 existing race of man. Merciful God ! can such facts 
 be true ? Can such a principle be that of Providence? 
 No : and, happily for human beings, there is not the 
 slightest possibility that they should. The several 
 statements in the whole of this miserable representa- 
 tion of China refute each other. 
 
 (11) First; the cause assigned for all this suffer- 
 ing and crime is neither adequate nor true. It is 
 stated that the population amounts to 333,000,000*. 
 This account, of which more hereafter, no longer im- 
 poses upon the world ; but admitting, for the present, 
 its accuracy, how occasions that number the evils 
 attributed exclusively to it? The following facts, 
 given in other words than my own, and on good autho- 
 rity, will decide the question. " China," says the 
 Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in an 
 article upon that country, " consists of at least one 
 " million and a half of square miles. Deduct one- 
 " third of this for waste lands, lakes, and mountains, 
 " and 640 millions of acres still remain ^." Barrow 
 says of the same empire, that " an acre of land, with 
 
 * Malthus, Essay on Population, * Ibid., p. 146. 
 p. 152. ^Encyc.Eiit., Supplement, Art. Cliina, 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 151. vol. iii.,p. 102. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 153. 
 
 2Q2
 
 59G CHINA : REDUNDANCY OF [Book II. 
 
 " proper culture, will afford a supply of rice for ten 
 " persons, for a whole year, in the southern provinces; 
 " and sufficient for the consumption of five, in the 
 " northern, allowing each person two pounds a-day : 
 " while an acre of cotton will clothe 200 or 300 per- 
 " sons^" These facts shew us that, cultivated to the 
 utmost, China would clothe and feed five times as 
 many human beings as probably inhabit the whole 
 world : a very different calculation, in all respects, 
 to that of Brother Premare, who represents a Chinese 
 happy in obtaining, for the most abject labour, a little 
 spoonful of rice per day, with the water in which it is 
 boiled, and still that there is not rice enough to sup- 
 port a third part of the population ; nor is the country, 
 according to his notion, a fourth part of the size which 
 it ought to be to contain its inhabitants^. 
 
 (12) Ridiculous as are these assertions and argu- 
 ments, they nevertheless continue to be put forth, and 
 especially by Mr. Malthus, in proof of the excess of 
 Chinese population ; though, admitting its amount to 
 be as high as stated, it is, in proportion to its size, 
 much less densely peopled than England. Certainly 
 it is unnecessary to point out the difference the latter 
 exhibits in the relative consumption of food both by 
 men and animals. The comparison instantly ends the 
 argument ; which, however, ought never to have been 
 started from such facts, had they even been true. 
 " There is no want of land," as Mr. Barrow has ob- 
 served, " to support the assumed population of 333 
 " millions ;" and, fully aware of the contrary notion^, 
 he adds, " the population is not yet arrived at a level 
 •'with the means the country affords of subsistence^." 
 Mr. Malthus asserts most peremptorily to the con- 
 
 ' Barrow, Travels in China, pp. 577, ^ Barrow, Travels in China, p. 579. 
 578. * Ibid., p. 578. 
 
 * Travels of the Jesuits, vol. i., p. 81.
 
 Chap. XV.] ITS POPULATION DISPROVED. 597 
 
 traiy. There is little difficulty of determining- between 
 these authorities. 
 
 (13) But " this total of 333 millions," which, as 
 observed in the Bulletin Universel, " has been blindly 
 *' adopted and repeated by the English writers, as for 
 " instance, by Guthrie in his Geography, by Malthus 
 " in his work on Population, and by some French," 
 is as complete an example of Chinese mendaciousness 
 as any ever afforded. The statement rests on the 
 sole authority of the mandarin Chin-ta-gin, who, on 
 being " closely questioned" by Lord Macartney, pro- 
 fessed to have had it from a particular friend at Pekin^ : 
 this mandarin was the very same veracious personage 
 who avouched to Lord Amherst that he had himself 
 witnessed the due performance of the ko-tow by the 
 former nobleman. The document, as Malte-Brun 
 observes, bears on its very face the marks of fabri- 
 cation, and therefore never imposed upon that pro- 
 found writer. On the contrary, in his great work, he 
 estimates the population of the Chinese empire at 
 considerably less than half of this amount, namely, at 
 150 millions. These differences are wide and irrecon- 
 cileable, and involve consequences of the most contrary 
 nature ; it cannot therefore be difficult to discover, by 
 the evidence of collateral facts, which of the state- 
 ments is sanctioned by truth. 
 
 (14) The vastness of the Chinese empire, and the 
 extraordinary fertility of its soil, are not matters in 
 dispute. The first question then which arises is, as 
 to the extent of its cultivation, whether the repre- 
 sentations of the anti-populationists on this head, 
 which need not be repeated here, are true ; and the 
 whole surface of the country under culture? 
 
 (15) In determining this point, we shall not trust 
 
 ' Macartney, Journal of an Embassy, pp, 371, 372.
 
 598 CHINA : REDUNDANCY OF [Book II. 
 
 to the representations of the early missionaries, who, 
 however honestly disposed, had no means of deter- 
 mining it, as they only saw the best peopled parts of 
 the country ^, and were very ignorant of, or otherwise 
 generally exaggerated, the appearance of things in 
 these ^, Abmidance of proofs, however, might be 
 advanced even from their writings. Pere Burgeois, 
 for instance, says, that in travelling over an extent of 
 country almost the size of France, he saw neither 
 woods, nor fountains, nor gardens, nor vines, nor fruit 
 trees ^: or, in other words, it was totally uncul- 
 tivated ; a representation in accordance with that of 
 P. Attiret, and others of the same fraternity*. But to 
 refer to later writers : 
 
 (16) De Guignes says he travelled through whole 
 districts, of which no portion was thrown into cul- 
 tivation^. Malte-Brun observes, that even on the 
 road from Pekin to Canton, there are extensive tracts 
 in a state of nature*^, while the western provinces, 
 according to the accounts of the Chinese, contain a 
 still larger extent of barren land". He notices also 
 those " forests of immense extent" which are known to 
 exist in China ^ ; indeed he particularizes a part of one 
 province as " presenting nothing to the view but an 
 " uncultivated soil, and mountains covered with thick 
 " forests^." Described by our own countrymen, we 
 find " extensive wastes, where not a single trace was 
 " visible of any kind of cultivation," and where not 
 a single dwelling occurred for the distance of many 
 miles ^° : of districts, only a small part of which was 
 under cultivation^^ : of wild wastes of reeds and rank 
 
 1 p. Attiret. s Malte-Bran, Geog., t. xlii., p. 562. 
 
 2 See Du Halde and others. 7 Ibid., p. 563. 
 ^ Memoires concemant les Chinois, ^ Ibid., p. 565. 
 
 t. viii., p. 293, &c. 9 Ibid., p. 588. 
 
 * Lett. Edif. et Curieuses, vol. xxvii. '" Barrow, Travels in China, p. 514. 
 
 ' De Guignes, China. '^ Ibid., p. 70.
 
 Chap.XV.J ITS POPULATION DISPROVED. 599 
 
 grasses \ than whicli it is scarcely possible for the 
 imagination to form to itself an idea of a more desolate 
 region^: of sixty miles together flat, but unculti- 
 vated, except in places where they observed some 
 fields of rice^ : of abundance of land that did not 
 seem for many years to have felt the ploughshare^: 
 of parts of the country described as actually " unin- 
 habited^." Indeed we are assured, that a very consi- 
 derable proportion of the richest land, perhaps, in the 
 whole empire is suffered to remain an unproductive 
 waste. 
 
 (17) These, with their supposed knowledge of 
 draining^, together with their almost total neglect of 
 it, are an undeniable proof of a scanty population. The 
 number and immense extent of the morasses of the 
 empire^, which are perfectly reclaimable, and the ge- 
 neral absence of terrace cultivation, especially in a 
 rice country, a fact which is asserted by AbeP, Bar- 
 row^, Ellis ^°, and many others, are perfectly conclusive 
 on this head. De Guignes observes, that wherever 
 the flat country is sufficient, even the slightest ele- 
 vations remain untilled^^ But it seems superfluous to 
 continue these observations when we know, on the 
 authority of Barrow, that he passed through districts 
 where even a considerable proportion of perhaps the 
 
 ' Barrow, Travels in China, p. 533. tion, p. 507. Tlie country began to 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 533. assume the uniform appearance of one 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 535. extended marsh, without any visible 
 
 ■* Ibid., p. 554. signs of cultivation, p. 532. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 514. ^ Abel, Narrative of a Journey to 
 
 « Malthus, Essay on Population, China, pp. 201,202. 
 
 p. 147. ® Barrow, Travels in China, p. 508. 
 
 ^ Barrow, Travels in China, p. 505. His words are, '' Terracing the hills is 
 
 " One continued swamp or morass be- " not to be considered by any means as 
 
 yond the reach of sight," p. 5 12. For " a common practice in t'hina. In our 
 
 three days' journey the whole of this ex- " direct route it occurred only twice, and 
 
 tensive plain consisted in lakes or swampy " then on so small a scale as hardly to 
 
 ground, p. 506. Except on the water and " deserve notice." 
 
 the islands, the whole of the swampy '** Ellis, Journal of Embassy to China, 
 
 country might be said to be uninhabited, p. 366. 
 
 and totally void of any kind of cultiva- " De Guignes, China, p. 202.
 
 600 CHINA : REDUNDANCY OF ■■ [Book II. 
 
 richest land remained untilled^ Near the large 
 towns and villages the lands appear to be minutely 
 cultivated"^, but not always even there ^ ; while " at a 
 distance they are suffered to remain almost useless*;" 
 as is the case in all half-peopled countries. 
 
 (18) But, if it be an egregious misstatement to 
 describe the whole land of China as cultivated, it is 
 equally erroneous to represent that the part which is so, 
 is dedicated to the production of food for man alone. 
 It is, on all accounts, singular, that such an opinion 
 .should have been hazarded, and particularly because, 
 in the first place, the dead occupy an enormous propor- 
 tion of the surface of the country, and, not unfrequently, 
 the most valuable situations ^. Their burial grounds are 
 extremely numerous. Sir George Staunton describes 
 one of them extending as far as the eye could reach. 
 The limits were thus large, as he informs us, owing to 
 that respect paid to the dead by the Chinese, which 
 prevents them opening a grave upon any spot where the 
 traces of a, former one remain °; which, moreover, are 
 always sacredly preserved. This custom occasions a 
 part of that cost in funerals, which, as Barrow observes, 
 are more extravagantly expensive there than an Euro- 
 pean can well conceive '^. The fact is mentioned with 
 a reference to a further part of this inquiry. The 
 consequences of this custom, as it regards the present 
 branch of the subject, were such as even surpassed 
 the credibility of one of the brethren of the Edifying 
 Letters. F. de Tartre says, that he " could not be- 
 " lieve all are interred in this manner, as, in a little 
 " time, the deacl would take up as much room as the 
 
 ^ Barrow, Travels in China, p. 557. appropriated," vol. i., p. 147. DuHalde, 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 570. vol. i., p. 307. " Extensive plains ap- 
 
 ^ Abel, Narrative of a Journev, &c., propriated for the dead." Barrow, p. 497. 
 
 p. 204. " Staunton, p. 445. 
 
 •* Barrow, Travels in China, p. 570. ^ Staunton, Embassy to China, p. 364. 
 
 * Von Braam, " Vallies entirely so "> Barrow, Travels iu Cliina, p. 175.
 
 Chap. XV.] ITS POPULATION DISPROVED. 601 
 
 " living ^" Mr. Maltlius argues, somewhere, that the 
 religious observances of communities are often dic- 
 tated by their general necessities : how does svich a 
 notion comport with these extensive sacrifices of the 
 surface of the country to the dead ? If it were sur- 
 charged with numbers, as he supposes, could such a 
 custom, however instituted, be possibly' continued ? 
 
 (19) It is hardly worth while to contradict an- 
 other proof of the extreme populousness of China, 
 namely, the little land taken up in roads, which, it is 
 said, " are few and narrow." The same may be as- 
 serted of any half-peopled country ; and it was the 
 case in England a couple of centuries ago. The roads 
 here were then few enough, and, being principally 
 traversed by pack-horses, were often worn into defiles, 
 so narrow, as to render it necessary for the leaders to 
 wear bells, in order to prepare for the circumstance of 
 a meeting. But, in this respect, it happens that China 
 has the advantage ; owing, perhaps, in part, to the 
 whole of the land being supposed to be vested in the 
 sovereign ^, and, consequently, a kind of public pro- 
 perty. Hence, the imperial roads are said to be triple, 
 one being appropriated to the emperor, another to his 
 attendants, and the third to the public at large ^, a 
 refinement upon regal prerogative which argues but 
 little in favour of the parsimony with which land is 
 appropriated to these communications. The other 
 public roads are invariably described as fine'*, and, as 
 Duhalde informs us, " commonly very broad ^ ;" with 
 which Von Braam concurs '^. We may judge of the 
 width of that leading to the capital, from the circum- 
 
 1 Edifying Letters, p. 220. De Guignes, torn, ii., pp. 215. 216. Bell 
 
 2 Macartney, Jomnal <if an Embassy, of Autermony, Travels to Pekin, pp. 
 &c., p. 379. Barrow, Travels in China, 349, 363. 
 
 p. 468. = Du Halde, China, torn, i., p. 265. 
 
 ^ Staunton, vol. ii., p. 279. ^ \'on Braam, Dutch Embassy to 
 
 * Du Halde, China, torn, ii., p. 52. China, vol. ii., p. 93.
 
 602 CHINA: REDUNDANCY OF [Book II. 
 
 stance of " eighteen or twenty feet, in its centre, being 
 paved ^" Respecting tlie by-ways of China, I ima- 
 gine too little is known to bring them in proof of the 
 geometric theory. F. le Compte, however, tells us, 
 that " we cannot imagine what care they take to make 
 " even the common roads convenient for passage." 
 He says, " they are fourscore feet broad, or near it^." 
 So much for the argument regarding Chinese roads ; 
 but, if they were as narrow as represented, and as 
 execrable as possible, I should scarce admit the infor- 
 mation in proof of an excess of population, but rather 
 of the reverse. 
 
 (20) Nor is the assertion more correct in other 
 respects, which represents the whole surface of the 
 country employed in the production of human food 
 only. Whether there be no meadow, and very little 
 pasture, and no cultivation pursued for the support of 
 cattle of any kind or not, it is unnecessary to dispute. 
 Barrow asserts that there is both'^; and, as for cattle, 
 they are in sufficient abundance ^ The Chinese, 
 however, rejecting, in a great measure, milk, butter, 
 and cheese ^ and, like most other easterns, being very 
 sparing in the use of animal food, which does not 
 constitute the chief luxury, even among the higher 
 classes ; and, when using it, preferring swine's flesh, 
 for which Europeans give them the credit of good 
 taste ; it would be absurd to suppose that they would 
 attend to the breed of cattle beyond their necessities. 
 But they are not limited, in this respect, by the want 
 of room ; and if the flocks and herds, as well as 
 horses, are not numerous, particularly in the northern 
 
 ' Barrow, Travels in China, p. 91. China, vol. ii., p. 171. " Many oxen, cows, 
 
 ^ Le Compte, Travels through China, " buffaloes, and goats, and of swine a 
 
 P-309. " vast number." Marco Polo, Travels, 
 
 ^Barrow, Travels in China, p. 83. p. 549. 
 
 •* Von Braam, Dutch Embaysy, vol. ii., ^ Encyc. Brit., Supplement, vol. iii., 
 
 pp. 246 ,248, &c. Staunton, Embassy to p. 103.
 
 Chap. XV.] ITS POPULATION DISPROVED. 
 
 603 
 
 provinces, tliere is a fatality about all the information 
 communicated concerning- that country \ Of the 
 latter, horses, an immense number, we are told, is pro- 
 vided for the public couriers, and the cavalry of the 
 empire consists of 410,000^. Marco Polo says, 
 " 200,000 are employed in the department of the 
 " police ^" and that the imperial stud amounts to 
 1 0,000 ^ The mention of the latter fact reminds me of 
 one of the descriptions in the " Lettres Edifiantes," 
 which is little reconcileable with many of the rest. 
 We are there informed, that the emperor goes forth to 
 the chase, (still the favourite court diversion,) accom- 
 panied by fifty thousand attendants; but, in a country 
 wholly and minutely cultivated, almost entirely without 
 meadows or pastures, and where the surface is tilled 
 for human food alone ; where the roads are so few and 
 narrow, and no land is suifered to lie waste for the 
 caprice or sport of great proprietors : where it was 
 that this patron of agriculture, his Celestial Majesty, 
 hunted ; what was the game he pursued, and how he 
 and his fifty thousand sportsmen were mounted, we 
 are not informed ; these curious circumstances remain, 
 amongst other mysteries in these edifying volumes, 
 which we are not permitted to fathom. 
 
 (21) The industry, intelligence, and skill, with 
 which agriculture, which is represented as the almost 
 universal calling, is pursued, is so insisted upon as to 
 render any material accession to the population of 
 China impossible, and any improvement in their pre- 
 sent condition hopeless. But this is as fallacious an 
 assumption as any of the former ones. One of the 
 
 ' Von Braam, Dutch Embassy to na, vol. ii., p. 1 76. Lord Macartney, 
 China, vol. ii., pp. 109, 246, 248 ; vol. Journal of the Embassy, p. 369. 
 i., p. 138, 179, 266. M'Leod, Narra- 2 Asiatic Journal, Sept. 1825, p. 294. 
 tive, p. 58. Staunton, Embassy to Chi- " Marco Polo, Travels, p. 363. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 251.
 
 604 CHINA : REDUNDANCY OF [Book II. 
 
 most accurate observers, Barrow, has remarked, on 
 this subject, that " a very erroneous opinion has 
 " been entertained in Europe with regard to the skill 
 " of the Chinese in agriculture." He says their im- 
 plements are bad, their ploughing bad, which is per- 
 formed by the dragging of mules, asses, and old 
 w^omen ; that they have no knowledge of the breeding 
 of cattle, nor of instruments for breaking up and pre- 
 paring waste lands ; no system of draining ^ But I 
 will not continue this description, but refer to the 
 author I have been quoting, and to the article on 
 China, in the Supplement to the Encyclopeedia Britan- 
 nica, where the subject is particularly adverted to. 
 I shall conclude with an observation from the former 
 writer, who says, "let 50 or 100 acres of the best 
 " land in China be given to a farmer, and so far from 
 " making out of it the value of three rents, on which 
 " our farmers usually calculate, he would scarcely be 
 " able to support his family, after paying the expense 
 " and labour that would be required to work the 
 •" farm ^." He adds, however, that in minute spade 
 husbandry, the Chinese may be more than equal to 
 Europeans^. In this respect they probably deserve 
 the encomiums of Lord Macartney, Von Braam"*, and 
 others ; the former of whom denominates them " the 
 best husbandmen in the world ^" The fact, therefore, 
 is, that they can and do prosper by the complete culti- 
 vation of a small surface, when they would be ruined 
 on a more extensive one ; and this is the real cause 
 of that degree of comfort which is observable amongst 
 the Chinese peasantry in the more crowded districts of 
 
 ' Barrow, Travels in China, p. 567. •* Von Braam, Dutch Embassy to 
 
 * Ibitl., p. 569. - China, vol. i., p. 47. 
 
 =* Ibid., p. 570. " The Chinese never * Macartney, Journal of an Embassy, 
 
 " broad cast, but plant their corn in p. 360. 
 
 " trenches." — You Braam, vol. i., p.'J5.
 
 Chap. XV.] ITS POPULATION DISPROVED. 605 
 
 the country : a similar fact lias been no secret in agri- 
 culture, ever since it has been treated as a science, for 
 these two thousand years past, and verified before our 
 eyes in various parts of the world ; one which philan- 
 thropy has always cherished, and which true political 
 philosophy will, ere long, recognize, even in this 
 country, where mercenary calculations, as false in a 
 pecuniary, as pernicious in every other point of view, 
 have tempted the wealthy and the powerful to an oppo- 
 site course, to the utter ruin of multitudes of the best, 
 though humblest, class of the community, and to the 
 injury of the remainder: and, if persisted in, it will 
 be to the peril, ultimately, of those rights of property 
 thus abused in their administration. 
 
 (22) Other facts, detailed as something preter- 
 natural by " weak and wondering travellers," as Adam 
 Smith calls some of our Chinese authorities, have been 
 eagerly adopted by many of "the philosophers of 
 Europe " in proof of the excessive population and con- 
 sequent distress of the Chinese empire ; which, were 
 they not repeated with so much confidence as bearing 
 on the subject, would not, as totally irrelevant to it, 
 now be noticed. I will only mention two of these argu- 
 ments. The first is this : the promiscuous use of 
 animal food, and, consequently, of some kinds which 
 are loathsome to us in England, is held to be a proof 
 of the same sort of distress which could alone induce 
 such a circumstance here ; whereas, it is no proof of 
 distress at all, but only of the dissimilar habits of the 
 country. " The people," as Sir George Staunton says, 
 " know no distinction of clean and unclean meat. 
 " The preference given to one species of animal food 
 " before another, they reckon as little more than a 
 " matter of taste or fancy \" Hence, Du Halde, speak- 
 
 ' Staunton, Embassy to China, vol. ii., p. 399.
 
 606 CHINA : REDUNDANCY OF [Book II. 
 
 ing- of the food of the Chinese, informs us "they are very 
 well pleased with horses, dogs, cats, ratsV' and adds 
 some other curious Chinese edibles. As to the first de- 
 scription of food mentioned, it is one of the character- 
 istics of the ancient race from which they undoubtedly 
 sprung. The Scythians were even called hip- 
 pophagi^; and "the taste for horse-flesh," as Malte- 
 Brun observes, " appears peculiar to the Mongols, 
 " Tartars, Finns, and other descendants of the Scy- 
 " thians ; and to the Sclavonic and Gothic nations^." 
 Hence, our Saxon ancestors partook of it*. In the 
 north-eastern parts of the world where the tribes of 
 mankind yet retain their primitive manners, it still 
 remains a favourite repast ^. It is unnecessary to ob- 
 serve, that it could never be generally resorted to from 
 a principle of economy or " a want of room :" but, to 
 end all conjectures on that point, we know that as it 
 was the favourite food of the nobles among our early 
 ancestors^, so it still remains, where it is used at all. 
 The Tartars are fond of horse-flesh, as the celebrated 
 geographer, quoted so often, remarks ; but, as it is 
 expensive, beef is more generally used'. Lastly, 
 Abel also informs us, that in the markets of China, 
 " horse-meat sold at a higher price than beef ^." 
 
 (23) The eating of dogs, which may create in us 
 still stronger feelings of aversion, proceeds from the 
 same cause ; but it is a practice which prevails to a 
 much wider extent. That the Greeks ate dogs-flesh 
 we have on the authority of Hippocrates ^ ; so also 
 
 * Du Halde, China, vol. i., p. 314. ^ Mallet, Northern Antiquities, vol. i., 
 2 Bacon, Nat. Hist., cent. ix. § 859. p. 115. 
 
 ^ Malte-Brun, Geog., 1. xxiii., p. 597. ^ Malte-Brun, Geog., 1. xxxvi., p. 
 
 * Turner, Hist, of Anglo-Saxons, vol. 383. 
 
 iv., p. 61. ^ Abel, Narrative of a Journey to 
 
 = Marco Polo, Travels, pp. 204,309. China, p. 231. 
 
 Bell, of Autermony, Travels, vol. i., ^ Dr. Campbell, Survey, vol. ii., p. 
 
 pp. 34, 199. Cochrane, Journey through 205. 
 Russia, &c., vol. ii., p. HO.
 
 Chap. XV.] ITS POPULATION DISPROVED. 607 
 
 did the Romans \ In Otaheite, we are informed, a 
 boiled puppy is considered a delicacy ^ ; nor is it one 
 which is unappreciated in one of the most luxurious 
 countries in Europe ^. It would, perhaps, disparage 
 the argument to add, that the blacks are fond of 
 them*. But, to come to the point, Finlayson, who 
 has observed upon the habit, on the spot, adds, 
 " scarcity of food cannot be urged in extenuation of 
 the practice, if, indeed, it require extenuation^." We 
 are, of course, not disputing- about national tastes, 
 but national necessities, and the fact is, that the 
 eating of dog's-flesh by the Chinese does any thing 
 rather than prove the latter. An authority, to whom 
 Mr. Malthus will, perhaps, defer, and who will be 
 quoted in the conclusion of these remarks, says, " they 
 account dogs-flesh delicate^;" and hence they are 
 fattened, and regularly sold in the shambles of China ^. 
 
 (24) The remaining part of the catalogue may be 
 dismissed in few words, and in a manner quite satis- 
 factory to the most confirmed epicure. " Dogs, cats, 
 " and rats," says Abel, " are exposed to sale, and 
 " eaten by those who can afford to purchase other 
 " food. In a shop at Ta-sung, the same price, about 
 " eighteen pence, was asked of one of the embassy, 
 " for a pheasant, and a cat^." And to defend the 
 Chinese taste, by that of a missionary, " I myself," 
 says Father Navarette, " have eaten of a horse, dogs, 
 " and mice, and, in truth, I liked them welP." 
 
 (25) But the proof of the general distress of the 
 
 ' Dr. Campbell, Survey, vol. ii., p. ^ F. Domiiiick Fernandez Navarette, 
 
 205. Account of China, Collection of Voy- 
 
 2 Dr. Irvin, Letters on Sicily, p. 31. ages and Travels, vol. i., p. 59. 
 
 3 Ibid. ^ Marco Polo, Travels, p. 390, note. 
 
 * Dr. Campbell, Survey, vol. ii., p. ^Abel, NaiTative of a Journey to 
 
 205. China, p. 231. 
 
 ^ Finlayson, Mission to Siam and ® Navarette, Account of China, vol. 
 
 Hue, p. 17. i., p. 60.
 
 608 CHINA : REDUNDANCY OF [Book II. 
 
 Chinese, founded on sucli habits as these, is futile 
 altogether. When we hear in Europe of one neigh- 
 bouring country placing frogs, or another snails, and 
 so on, in the catalogue of their delicacies, and when 
 we are aware, also, that we value food which they as 
 peremptorily reject ; do we conclude each other to be 
 in a state bordering on actual starvation, and miser- 
 able from want of room ? Certainly not. And if the 
 Chinese, who are often represented to us as the 
 greatest epicures living \ use a larger variety of food 
 than many other countries, and include in it dishes 
 (not meaning birds' nests) which it would not be quite 
 decent to express ^ are we thence to conclude, that 
 they are suffering under an excess of population, with 
 all the evils which it occasions, and dictating the ne- 
 cessity of its repression? The supposition is absurd. 
 
 (26) But the argument just disposed of has some 
 colour of reason, how little soever it bears examina- 
 tion, compared with those in proof of the same sup- 
 posed fact, which are founded upon the penurious 
 employments of some part of the Chinese population, 
 such us the gathering rags, bones, and even ordure ^. 
 Where is the city of Europe in which there are not 
 those who follow these avocations ? One word respect- 
 ing the last. Much is said regarding the care they 
 manifest in collecting their stercoraceous stock. And 
 in a country where, we are informed, there is hardly 
 any, and where, we are willing to admit, there is not 
 much pasturage ; and where, therefore, tillage is in a 
 very undue proportion, can any thing be more rea- 
 
 ^ DuHalde, China, vol. ii., pp. 63, 1 03, " little able to endure, as any other nation 
 
 491. — Finlayson, Mission, &c., p. 62. — " whatever." — Von Braam, Dutch Em- 
 
 " Every one is sure there of findhig a bassy to China, vol. i., p. 69. 
 
 "repast to his taste, and the means of ^ Du Halde, China, vol. i., p. 314. 
 
 " guarding against that want of aliment, ^ Ibid., vol, i., p. 277. 
 " which the Chinese, perhaps, are as
 
 Chap. XV.] ITS POPULATION DISPROVED. 609 
 
 sonable and certain, than that the ag-rlculturist should 
 eagerly avail himself of every means of obtaining that 
 which is to secure his crop ? But have those who use 
 such an argument in reference to China, never seen 
 the same system carried to a far greater height in a 
 country where the pasturage bears probably the largest 
 proportion to the tillage, of any district in the world ; 
 and where, therefore, the necessity for such a species of 
 industry, and the value of its results, must be propor- 
 tionably so much less ? Where is the equestrian 
 traveller in England, who has not been solicited in a 
 half serious, half facetious tone, by numbers of poor 
 ragged creatures, who 
 
 Lean pensioners upon the traveller's track, 
 Pick up their nauseous dole ! 
 
 We are informed, indeed, in one of our capitals, 
 even " the modern Athens," the very privilege of mo- 
 nopolizing this Chinese practice is purchased from 
 the constituted authorities, at the annual expense of 
 some thousand Chinese taels. 
 
 But I turn from these pretended proofs, equally 
 absurd and revolting, of an excessive population in 
 China, to arguments of a more reasonable and decisive 
 character. 
 
 Vol. I. 2R
 
 610 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 OF CHINA : THE ASSERTION THAT INFANTICIDE 
 REGULATES ITS POPULATION, mSPRO\"ED. 
 
 (1) It is unnecessary to observe upon tlie fallacy 
 of the proof of an excessive population in China, 
 founded on the frequency and fatality of epidemics 
 there ; as any one, the least conversant with the history 
 of any country, must be well aware that those cala- 
 mities are evidences of a scanty population, and 
 mdeed result from it, in consequence of the imperfect 
 state of cultivation which then exists. The annals of 
 this country, and of all Europe, have placed this fact 
 beyond dispute. It is, however, worthy of remark, 
 that the climate of China seems favourable to health. 
 Sir George Staunton says, " the atmosphere is dry, 
 " and does not engender putrid disorders^;" and Du 
 Halde expressly asserts, " that the country had been 
 " free from the plague, and almost perpetually at 
 " peace ^ :" disposing, therefore, of two of the main 
 checks to population at once, and in a manner in 
 which he is fully corroborated by subsequent testi- 
 mony^. 
 
 (2) A few words concerning the preventive check, 
 in reference to China. Perhaps a more striking ex- 
 ample of the delusion into which a man may argue 
 himself, in behalf of a favourite notion, could hardly 
 be instanced, than the supposition, or rather assertion, 
 
 ' Staunton, Embassy to China, vol. ^ Grosier, Gen. Descrip. of China, 
 ii., p. 156. vol. i., p. 390. 
 
 2 Du Halde, China, vol. i., p. 240,
 
 Chap. XVI.] PREVALENCE OF INFANTICIDE DISPROVED. 611 
 
 put forth, that the preventive check must operate to a 
 very considerable degree in China. Notwithstanding- 
 that the institutions and customs of the country recom- 
 mend and enjoin marriage \ as a sacred and indis- 
 pensable duty^; and that it is therefore promoted and 
 facilitated in every possible way, and especially by 
 affording to every individual, on application for it, 
 land for cultivation^, on the general terms of tenure, 
 which are sufficiently favourable* ; notwithstanding 
 it is the interest of all to enter into that state, and, as 
 Sir George Staunton has explained, especially of the 
 poor, with whom it is there a matter even of pru- 
 dence^; notwithstanding "the passion between the 
 sexes," of the universality and effect of which so much 
 has been needlessly said^ and although celibacy is 
 accounted infamous in China "^j and to be without 
 offspring a disgrace^; still our theorists pronounce 
 that to be common^, and this consequently still more 
 so. This is reasoning to some purpose ! Nor is this 
 all. Though we are positively informed as to the 
 effect of these institutions and customs, by competent 
 and personal witnesses, and though they are what 
 reason itself compels us to believe, namely, that mar- 
 riage is generaF'', that it takes place soon in life^\ and 
 consequently "the small number of single men^^'' is 
 made matter of particular observation ; in short, that 
 "the system of early and universal marriage ^^" is 
 established in China ; still the theory of population 
 
 1 Grosier, Gen. Descrip. of China, 7 Barrow, Travels m Chhia, p. 588. 
 vol. i., pp. 389, 390, 391. « Staunton, Embassy to China, vol. 
 
 2 Du Halde, China, vol. i., p. 303. ii., p. 152. 
 
 3 Macartney, Journal of an Embassy, ^ Malthus, Essay on Population, pp. 
 &c., vol. ii., p. 379. 154,155. 
 
 * Barrow, Travels in China, p. 568. '" Staunton, Embassy to China, vol. 
 
 ^ Staunton, Embassy to China, vol. ii., p. 374. 
 ii., p. 157. " Ibid., vol. ii. pp. 152, 157. 
 
 « Malthus, Essay on Population, '- Ibid., vol. ii., p. 157. 
 p. 347. '3 Ibid., p. 114. 
 
 2R2
 
 612 CHINA: PREVALENCE OF [Book II, 
 
 requiring it to be otherwise, reason and fact and 
 authority are in this, as in so many other cases, held 
 as nothing. We are not, however, to be thus dis- 
 possessed of truth and common sense. The influence 
 of the preventive, or, indeed, of any of the checks to 
 population, among the Chinese, may be described in 
 the language of a recent and intelligent witness. 
 *' They are for the most part sober; they marry early, 
 *' and are therefore less exposed to the temptations of 
 " debauchery, and less liable to contract the diseases 
 '* which corrupt the springs of life ; their lives are 
 " regular and uniform, &c.^ " Such is the result of 
 the experience of Sir George Staunton upon these 
 subjects, who is almost the only modern authority 
 which Mr. Malthus has quoted. 
 
 (3) But of all the circumstances which have con- 
 tributed to spread the idea of an excessive population 
 in China, the supposed prevalence of infanticide has 
 been the most conclusive. The very existence of such 
 a crime, coupled with other relations regarding that 
 country, has been held good evidence of the abject 
 misery into wdiich the mass of the community is 
 plunged from that cause, though nothing can be con- 
 ceived to be a less unequivocal proof of it. Whether 
 this "prevailing stubborn vice of antiquity V' which 
 has affected all ancient states, and has continued to be 
 practised, if not tolerated, wherever Christianity has 
 not been established, especially where the inhabitants 
 are few in number, and wholly uncivilized in their 
 condition, infests China or not, to a much greater ex- 
 tent, or more openly than it does other countries, is 
 not the question ; it is, whether it exists in conse- 
 quence of the general indigence of the people, and is 
 
 * Staunton, Embassy to China, vol. ^ Gibbon, Decline and Fall, vol. viii., 
 ii.,p.374, p. 56.
 
 Chap. XVI.] INFANTICIDE DISPROVED. 613 
 
 SO prevalent as to diminish, in any sensible degree, the 
 amount, and check the growth, of the general popu- 
 lation. To this inquiry we may happily answer, and 
 with the fullest confidence, in the negative. 
 
 (4) Were we to take the largest calculation given 
 to us of the loss of life occasioned by this practice in 
 the Chinese Empire, the sum is too insignificant to 
 have the slightest perceptible effect on the total 
 amount of the inhabitants \ But there are reasons 
 suggested even by those who have presented us with 
 these accounts, inducing us to believe that many of 
 the exposures which they enumerate, are, in no 
 manner whatsoever, connected with this crime, and 
 considerable grounds of hope, that even none of them 
 may be so : they are these. 
 
 (5) The number of infanticides is principally cal- 
 calculated by the exposure of the dead bodies of 
 children, especially in the capitals ; for, elsewhere, 
 even Du Halde almost denies the practice ^. But, let 
 this circumstance be explained, not by writers " in 
 " the heart of Europe, who are busying themselves" 
 in building theories upon the condition of the Chinese, 
 but by those who have witnessed the fact. "^ The 
 "■ dead bodies of children, which the police of Pekin 
 " collect in the streets, are those of infants who have 
 *' died, and which have been thus disposed of by their 
 " indigent parents, to avoid the expense of a burial." 
 So far BelP, and De Guignes^ Barrow gives pre- 
 cisely the same relation, with further particulars. 
 " Still-born infants," says he, " or infants who may 
 " die in the first month, are laid in baskets, even by 
 " persons in comfortable circumstances, knowing that 
 " they will be taken up by the police, to avoid the 
 
 ' Barrow. Travels in China, pp. 170, ' Bell of Autemiony, vol. iii., p. 383. 
 175,176. ' ^DeGuignes, China, vol. ii., p. 285 
 
 2 Du Halde, China, vol. i., p. 277. —290.
 
 614 CHINA: PREVALENCE OF [Book 11. 
 
 " expense of a funeral," which, he observes, " is 
 " more extravagantly expensive than an European 
 " can well conceive ^" A very simple calculation in 
 political arithmetic will soon shew us that these ex- 
 posures must, under such circumstances, be numerous 
 enough to originate the most exaggerated of the sup- 
 positions regarding Chinese infanticide, on the part 
 of those who were strangers to the fact and the 
 country. 
 
 (6) There is, however, doubtless, in the cities of 
 China, a description of persons who exist equally in 
 all the capitals and great towns of Europe, who, 
 either from poverty, think themselves authorized, or 
 from less justifiable motives, are induced, to abandon 
 the support of their offspring to others who are more 
 wealthy, or to institutions provided for that purpose. 
 Regarding the latter, different forms of introduction 
 prevail in diflferent places; in some foundling hos- 
 pitals, I believe the infant had only to be deposited 
 in a certain place, and a bell rung. In China, where 
 the climate fully admits of the variation, it is placed 
 in a certain part of the streets : regarding these, Bell, 
 a traveller, who has been often desei-vedly eulogised, 
 says, that persons " are sent out through the streets 
 " every morning to pick up and carry such children as 
 " they may find exposed, to public hospitals appointed 
 "for their reception^." Barrow also speaks of the 
 " foundling hospitals of China ^." But we have the 
 same information even in the Edifying and Curious 
 Letters. " There are here," says one of the mis- 
 sionaries, " two sorts of deserted children," (enfans 
 abandonnes,) " the one are carried to an hospital 
 " which the Chinese call ' House of Mercy :' they 
 
 ^Barrow, Travels in Cliiua, p. 175. s Barrow, Travels in China, p. 176. 
 
 ^ Bell of Autermouy, vol. ii.,p. 105.
 
 Chap. XVI.] INFANTICIDE DISPROVED. 615 
 
 it 
 
 are there entertained at the expense of the emperor. 
 " The edifice is vast and magnificent, where every 
 " thing is provided which is necessary for the sus- 
 " tenance of these poor chikh-en. The other aban- 
 " doned chiklren are taken to our church ^" 
 
 (7) But, in addition to these, there are other pow- 
 erful reasons for believing that infanticide cannot pre- 
 vail, or, at least, in more than a very slight degree, in 
 China. As to being driven to this act by necessity, in 
 the first place, we are informed, that "Every male child 
 " may be provided for, and receive a stipend from the 
 " moment of his birth, by his name being enrolled in 
 " the military list^." Then, as to female children, to 
 whom infanticide, if it exist at all, must be, in great 
 measure, confined, owing to the prevalence of the 
 absurd doctrine of Yin and Yang, which sets so 
 Superior a value upon every thing masculine ^ ; these, 
 it is sufliciently well known, are valuable even as an 
 article of sale ^, concerning the disposal of whom, De 
 Guignes says^, " that if misfortune is often the cause 
 " of this unnatural act, interest is yet oftener so, as 
 " many female children are not found upon sale, 
 '' without a great number of purchasers ^" We are 
 not all this while to imagine that the Chinese are 
 divested of natural afi'ection ; on the contrary, Lord 
 
 ' Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, torn, alludes, the author, in the text, speaks as 
 
 xix., p. 248. to the tenderness and affection with 
 
 ^ Barrow, Travels in China, p. 588. wliich they are treated : an account 
 
 =* Milne, Retrospect of Protestant Mis- which perfectly comports with what we 
 
 sions to China, p. 38. Du Halde, China, meet with elsewhere on the same sub- 
 
 vol. ii., p. 11-. ject. I heartily wish the same coidd be 
 
 * Marco Polo, Travels, p. 542. Du truly asserted respecting the appren- 
 Halde, vol. i., p. 305. "The girls ticing of the children of paupers of large 
 bought up elsewhere, are brought up towns, in this country, too often sent to 
 in the cities of Yoing-cheu and Su-cheu." distant parts, and to toilsome occupa- 
 Barrow, Travels in China, p. 518. tions. But we are apt to be imposed 
 Staunton, Embassy to China, vol. ii., p. upon by specious names; and conduct to 
 366. these unfortmiates is passed by unnoticed, 
 
 * De Guignes, torn, ii., p. 292. Re- which, were it transferred to the slave, 
 specting these sales, whether of boys or would not be endured. 
 
 girls, to wliich Mr. Malthus pointedly ® Ibid., torn, ii., p. 293.
 
 616 CHINA : PREVALENCE OF [Book II. 
 
 Macartney, as well as Ellis and others, notice their 
 " extreme parental fondness V' and strong desire for 
 posterity^. We may, therefore, suppose, without any 
 outrage of probability, that this very transfer of their 
 children is even dictated by it : indeed, we read in 
 Marco Polo, that " the indigent sell their children to 
 " the rich, in order that they may be fed and brought 
 " up in a better manner than their own poverty would 
 " admit^." But we must stretch our credulity, re- 
 garding human wickedness and cruelty, to the utmost 
 possible extent, to believe that, under all these cir- 
 cumstances, infanticide can be prevalent in China. 
 
 (8) Enough, it is presumed, has been already ad- 
 vanced on this head as it respects the argument, but 
 not as much as is consistent with truth, or necessary 
 to the defence and consolation of humanity. It is 
 pleasing to add, that the crime of child murder, if it 
 prevail at all in China, prevails to a very slight degree. 
 In proof of this, I might adduce the authority of many 
 writers who have founded their opinion upon long 
 personal observation, such as Mr. Wilkinson, who 
 declares that he never saw a single instance of it*; of 
 De Guignes, who, with every opportunity which long 
 and varied observation could aiford, asserts the same 
 tiling^, and of several others ; but a quotation from 
 the work of a gentleman connected with our last em- 
 bassy to that country shall suffice. Mr. Ellis remarks, 
 " that supposing any of the statements respecting in- 
 " fanticide had been well founded, it will scarcely be 
 " believed that in passing over its populous rivers, 
 " through upwards of sixteen hundred miles of country, 
 ^' we should meet with no proofs of its mere existence. 
 
 ' Lord Macartney, Journal of an Em- ^ Marco Polo, Travels, p. 542. 
 
 bassy to China, p. 416. Ellis, Em- * Wilkinson, Sketches of Cliinese 
 
 bassy to China, p. 234. Customs, &c., p. 127. 
 
 2 l)u Halde, China, vol, i., p. 304, ' De Guignes, China.
 
 Chap. XVI.] INFANTICIDE DISPROVED. 617 
 
 ' Yet such has been the fact ; for not even that very 
 
 ' ecjui vocal and variously explained circumstance of 
 
 ' infants supported above water by gourds fastened to 
 
 ' their necks, fell under our notice, nor indeed any 
 
 ' thing which could lead to a belief in its practice. 
 
 ' The experience of De Guignes, whom," says he, " I 
 
 ' have so often quoted, and of whose accuracy we all 
 
 ' had frequent proofs, was of a similar nature. He has 
 
 ' had occasion to declare, ' that in his route through the 
 
 ' whole extent of China, in travelling by water he 
 
 ' never saw an infant drowned ; and in travelling by 
 
 ' land, although he had been early in the morning in 
 
 'cities and in villages, and at all hours on the high- 
 
 ' ways, he never saw an infant exposed or deadS'" 
 
 He goes on to remark that Mr. Barrow spoke of it 
 
 merely on report, but that the infanticide which is 
 
 said to occur in dreadful scarcities ever materially 
 
 affects the population, he says, " the entire absence of 
 
 " all evidence within our experience, even of its mere 
 
 " existence, does not allow me to believe." The same 
 
 writer elsewhere observes, that of the degree of distress 
 
 which might drive parents to such a crime there was 
 
 no appearance, nor did any fact of the description 
 
 come within his knowledge ^ 
 
 > Ellis, Journal of an Embassy to Cbma, p. 234. « Ibid., p. 431.
 
 G18 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 OF CHINA: THE ARGUMENT OF ITS EXCESSIVE POPULATION 
 
 FOUNDED ON THE SUPPOSED INDIGENCE AND DISTRESS 
 
 OF ITS INHABITANTS, DISPROVED. 
 
 (1) Let us now advert to the condition of the people 
 of China, in disproof of its alleged excess of popu- 
 lation. Mr. Malthus, as we have seen, attributes to 
 the " extraordinary encouragements to marriage V' 
 that redundancy of inhabitants which he asserts " has 
 " completely interrupted the happiness which the 
 " rest might have enjoyed^," and that the country "is 
 " already insufficient to support the overflowing mul- 
 " titude^j" hence those sufferings and crimes, which I 
 will not distress the reader's feelings by again enu- 
 meratino;. 
 
 (2) In controverting this statement, I do not 
 mean to deny that there is in China, as every where 
 else, indigence. No state of society ever was or 
 ever can be exempt from it ; and that in which the 
 population is scanty, least of all. Nor will it be 
 confined to those who, in the humbler walks of life, 
 are incapacitated from labour by sickness or debility, 
 whether of mind or body. In a country where 
 the soil is appropriated, it will, on the contrary, 
 be found to take its rise also from occasional want 
 of employment. From distress, attributable to these 
 causes, the population of China, no more than that 
 
 * Malthus, Essay on Population, ^ Ibid, p. 153. 
 p- 154. 3 Ibid., p. 158.
 
 Chap. XVII.] CHINA : SUPPOSED INDIGENCE, &c. 619 
 
 of any other country, is exempt; but it no more 
 amounts to a proof that it is over-peopled, than the 
 necessity for instituting a legal relief of the poor in the 
 early stages of American colonization demonstrates 
 that the settlements were then surcharged with people. 
 I am aware that it is held by the anti-populationists, 
 that continuing to afford this relief, especially where 
 the population is already considerably increased 
 in numbers, involves a physical impossibility; but I 
 will leave them to solve the difficulty into which they 
 have precipitated themselves, by explaining how their 
 views of the immensity and excess of the inhabitants 
 of China, comports with a legal system for the relief 
 of indigence, more comprehensive, perhaps, than 
 exists in any other country in the world. In the exten- 
 sive districts of that empire, land, as before observed, 
 may be obtained by any one upon application, and 
 on favourable terms ^ ; while all the waters of the em- 
 pire, the lakes and rivers of which are very nume- 
 rous ^, and which, we are informed, yield fish in " pro- 
 digious quantities ^" are free to every inhabitant \ In 
 the cities, where other pursuits prevail, the distressed 
 and unemployed poor have not merely to depend upon 
 the alms of private charity^* but can be supported, 
 as Lord Macartney observes, in public hospitals pro- 
 vided for that purpose ''. And this provision is of 
 
 ' Laws of China, Staunton, Book ii., I will assist them, and beUeve it to be 
 § 90, p. 95. my duty to support them as far as I am 
 * Barrow, Travels in China, p. 558. able." — Du Halde, Maxims of the Chi- 
 ^ Du Halde, China, vol. ii., p. 303. nese,vol. ii., p. 77 . And again, the foUow- 
 ^ Barrow, Travels in China, p. 558. ing extract contains a sentiment worthy 
 ' If the moral precepts published in of Christianity, though exceedingly de- 
 China have any influence on public cried by our modern theorists: — ''If 
 feeling and conduct, the duty of charity you relieve a poor man, never be soli- 
 must be extensively practised in that citous to know by what means he came 
 country. "When! see," says one of into misfortune, for such a knowledge 
 these, "that any one is dipt in misfor- might raise your indignation against 
 tune, and that he has not wherewithal him, and stifle the first sentiments of 
 to extricate himself, or that another suf- your compassion." — Ibid., p. 65. 
 fers a great deal from want, though I ^ Macartney, Journal of an Embassy, 
 may not have much to spare myself, yet &c., p. 458.
 
 620 CHINA: SUPPOSED INDIGENCE [Book II. 
 
 ancient date. Marco Polo says, " if they notice any 
 " person wlio, from lameness, or other infirmity, is 
 " unable to work, tliey place liim in one of the hospi- 
 '^ tals, of which there are several in every part of the 
 " city, founded by the ancient kings and liberally en- 
 " dowed^"' The patriarchal system of that country is 
 also highly favourable to the purposes of charity ; it 
 confides to their children the care of the ao-ed, and if 
 the latter have no surviving offspring, then the next of 
 kin must supply their place". Meantime, distribu- 
 tions are constantly made by the Emperor, and to a 
 large extent, especially in times of scarcity, when 
 it is his prerogative to " immediately relieve " his 
 people ^. I am aware that it has been said, the law to 
 that effect is almost a dead letter ; it is impossible, 
 however, to believe this, in as much as we find a con- 
 stant distribution decreed to large numbers of the 
 community, even under ordinary circumstances. An 
 edict of the Emperor Kang-He (I think the reigning 
 one), delivered in the 27th year of his reign, regulates 
 the proportion of relief to be given to the inferior 
 classes, above seventy years of age. The septuagena- 
 rians were exempted from service, and had a right 
 to be nourished by the state. To octogenarians were 
 given a piece of silk, a kin of cotton, a shih of rice, 
 and ten kin of food. The nonogenarians had a double 
 portion awarded them \ Previously to these specific 
 allowances, an edict of Tay-tsong ordains certain mea 
 sures of rice to be distributed to the aged, and to 
 every woman who brings forth a son ^ ; which last fact 
 is, by the way, a conclusive proof, either that the 
 country is the reverse of over-peopled, or otherwise ot 
 
 ' Marco Polo, Travels, p. 559. 89, 90. 
 
 5 Barrow, Travels in China, p. 401. * Asiatic Journal, Oct. 1826, p. 431. 
 
 3 Staunton, Embassy to China, pp. » Du HaJde, vol. i., p. 515.
 
 Chap. XVII.] OF ITS POPULATION DISPROVED. 621 
 
 a fatuity in its government wholly unexampled in hu- 
 man affairs. 
 
 (3) Such is the provision for the aged and the 
 poor of China ; the consequence is precisely what 
 occurs in every country where legal relief is duly af- 
 forded : the almost total absence of mendicity. Thus, 
 Barrow says, that he did not observe a single beggar, 
 from one extremity of China to the other, except in 
 the streets of Canton ^, a statement in which he is 
 more than confirmed by Ellis ^ ; and Sir George Staun- 
 ton, in allusion to the subject, asserts, no spectacles 
 of distress are seen^; and again, elsewhere, that 
 " none of the people are driven to the necessity, or 
 " inured to the habit of craving assistance from a 
 " stranger*." Can it then be possibly true that they 
 murder their own offspring, and have the apology, of 
 being driven to the utmost extremity of human suffer- 
 ing, for so unnatural and horrid a practice ? 
 
 (4) But it is by no means meant to be contended, 
 that China forms an exception to every other commu- 
 nity, in that its industrious classes are far removed 
 from the approaches of comparative poverty ; in which 
 case, neither they, nor those of any country upon 
 earth, would long continue to be industrious. We 
 may, therefore, fully credit Sir George Staunton, 
 where he says, that " no small portion of the people 
 " seemed, it is true, to be in a state approaching to 
 " indigence^" and also the representation of the con- 
 dition of some of the commonest artisans, as given by 
 Lord Macartney, wliere he says, " a common weaver, 
 "joiner, or other tradesman, earns little more than a 
 " bare sustenance*^."' (Would to God that the same 
 
 ' Barrow, Travels in China, p. 401 . * Ibid., p. 89. 
 
 * Ellis, Journal of a late Embassy to * Ibid. 
 China, p. 431. * Macartney, Journal of an Embassy, 
 
 ^ Staunton, Embassy to China, p. &c., p. 457. 
 110.
 
 622 CHINA : SUPPOSED INDIGENCE [Book II. 
 
 could be asserted of the former class in England at tlie 
 present moment!) Without dreaming of an over- 
 whelming excess of numbers, we may concur with 
 Grosier, where he says, that " the common people, 
 " who are the suffering part of every country, live 
 " very poorly in China, as well as elsewhere \" But, 
 neither in China nor elsewhere, do they suffer from an 
 excess of numbers ; on the contrary, in the provinces 
 of that country, some of which are as extensive as are 
 many kingdoms, the population seems the most pros- 
 perous where it is the least scattered and scanty. Let 
 us now, therefore, take a view of it§ general condition, 
 as presented by recent and competent witnesses, taking 
 care to confine our inquiries to the situation of the 
 mass of the community. 
 
 (5) The abundance which exists in this vast em- 
 pire is the theme of almost every writer. Du Halde 
 has an entire chapter " On the Plenty which reigns in 
 China ^." Marco Polo had long before borne witness to 
 the same fact ^. F. Alvarez Semeda, who informs us 
 he was twenty-two years a resident in China, says, 
 " as to plenty. Nature seems there to have laid upon 
 " heaps, what she scatters through the rest of the 
 " world ■*." Von Braam speaks of the " signs of 
 " abundance and prosperity every where visible^," and 
 dilates upon " the flourishing condition of the country ^" 
 It is unnecessary to multiply these representations, or 
 to speak of the cheapness with which, if true, they 
 must be accompanied ; our information regarding the 
 latter is of such a nature as to appear very extrava- 
 gant, when compared with European calculations '. 
 
 ' Grosier, Description of China, 1. vol. ii., p. 159. 
 
 iv., c. 5, p. 320. "ibij^ p. 284. 
 
 2 Du Halde, China, vol. i., p. 314. ^ JMarco Polo — Such an abundance, 
 
 3 Marco Polo, Travels, p. 363. that you may purchase for the value of 
 ■* F. Semeda, Account of China, p. 4. a Venetian silver groat, a couple of 
 
 ^ Braam, Dutch Embassy to Cliina, geese, and two couple of ducks, p. 514.
 
 Chap. XVII.] OF ITS POPULATION DISPROVED. 623 
 
 (6) But the extent to which this plenty is distri- 
 buted is the main question, which I shall not answer 
 by an hypothesis, but in the words of actual witnesses. 
 " I have been much struck," says Ellis, " in all the 
 " Chinese towns and villages with the number of 
 " persons apparently in the middle classes, from which 
 " I am inclined to infer a wide diffusion of the 
 " substantial comforts of life^" Again, the same 
 author remarks, that an impression was produced 
 highly favourable to the comparative situation of the 
 lower orders?. Von Braam makes a similar remark : 
 " the great number of villages, hamlets, and habita- 
 " tions have the double effect of enriching the land- 
 " scape, and of bringing to tjie mind the idea of 
 " prosperity and abundance. It was easy also to 
 " perceive, from the crowd of people who flocked to 
 " see us, that the inhabitants are strangers to po- 
 " verty^." The appearance of the common people 
 was accordingly, even as remarked by Lord Macart- 
 ney, who had been sufficiently possessed with the 
 opinion of their excessive numbers, " strong, hardy, 
 industrious, cheerful^ :" agreeably to the observation 
 of Von Braam, who said, that "the peasantry were a 
 good looking race^." Indeed the latter writer says in 
 one place, that " he could venture to assert, that in 
 " the whole space his eyes could reach, in every 
 " direction, there was not a single unpleasant point of 
 " view. Externally every thing wore the appearance 
 
 Apico for 125 lbs. of wheat; apicois ' Ellis, Journal of an Embassy to 
 
 five reals. Mutton, one penny per lb. China, p. 323. 
 
 A pigeon, a farthing and a half F. ^ Ibid., p. 431. 
 
 Alvarez Semeda, China, pp. 4, 8. A * Von Braam, Dutch Embassy to 
 
 Chinese toss is about the value of one- China, vol. ii., p. 140. 
 
 tenth of a penny; with one of these a man '^ Macartney, Journal of an Embassy, 
 
 can buy a dish of tea, a pipe of tobacco, p. 421. 
 
 or a dram of brandy ; and a beggar ' Von Braam, Dutch Embassy, vol. ii., 
 
 may dine for three of them. — Bell of p. 160. 
 
 Autermony, Travels, vol. ii., p. 38.
 
 (( 
 
 li 
 
 624 CHINA : SUPPOSED INDIGENCE [Book II. 
 
 "of plenty and happiness ^" Barrow remarks, that 
 " the countenances of the peasants were cheerful, and 
 " their appearance indicative of plenty"." Indeed 
 on the authority of the intelligent Dutch writer so 
 often quoted, " the peasantry are very well clad^," or, 
 as our own countrymen express themselves, "the 
 " great mass of the people is decently and substan- 
 " tially clothed^." In a word, " the apparent happy 
 " condition of the numerous inhabitants was indicated 
 " by their cheerful looks and substantial clothing, 
 
 chiefly in silk. Such are the scenes which presented 
 ' themselves to our countrymen who composed the 
 
 embassy of the Earl of Macartney, and were re- 
 " cently repeated to those who accompanied Lord 
 " Amherst ^" 
 
 (7) But the habitations of a country, as they are 
 certainly the most obvious, so, perhaps, they are not 
 the least decisive proof of the general condition of 
 its inhabitants. Concerning these, Sir George Staun- 
 ton remarks, that even " the cottages are clean and 
 comfortable''." But upon this point, perhaps, the 
 testimony of a Dutchman will be the most con- 
 clusive. Von Braam then says, that " the houses 
 " gave them a very favourable idea of the prosperity 
 "of the inhabitants':" and again he remarks, that 
 " the inhabitants must live in the enjoyment of easy 
 " circumstances, since they scarcely saw a single 
 " habitation ill suited to a view embellished with 
 " prosperity^." I would, however, prefer bringing 
 home the picture to an Englishman's heart, if the pre- 
 sent pernicious system has left him one. " The happy 
 
 ' Von Braam, vol.i., p. 91. ' Ibid., p. 1 10. 
 
 * Ban-ow, Travels iu China, p. 558. * Staunton, Embassy to China, vol. ii., 
 ^ VonBraam, Dutch Embassy, vol. ii., p. 108. 
 
 p. 160. ^ Von Braam, Dutch Embassy, vol. i., 
 
 * Encyc. Brit. Supplement, China, p. 90. 
 
 p. 112. 6 Ibid., vol. ii., p. 248.
 
 Chap. XVII.] OF ITS POPULATION DISPROVED. 625 
 
 " condition of the peasantry is like that of our ancient 
 " English cottagers, with cow and sheep ^ :" at least 
 to every cottage is attached a small spot of ground for 
 raising culinary vegetables, and about each are a few 
 hogs, the favourite food of the Chinese"; and poultry, 
 especially ducks ^, their delicacy'*. Indeed we are 
 told that " there are few peasants without their breed 
 of hogs^." (Would to God the same could be asserted 
 of the English peasantry ; but the present system of 
 engrossment has almost entirely prevented that source 
 of sustenance to the lower classes !) But to conclude 
 this part of the subject, still confining myself to the 
 humbler walks of life, in the words of Sir George 
 Staunton ; " An air of active cheerfulness," says he, 
 " seemed to pervade both sexes. Many of the pea- 
 " sants are owners of the land they cultivate. There 
 " are no great and speculative farmers aiming at 
 " monopoly or combination in the disposal of their 
 *' produce, and overwhelming with their wealth the 
 " poorer husbandmen, till they reduce them, at length, 
 " to mere daily labourers^." 
 
 (8) A single, but important, word may be here 
 added. It is to the minute husbandry of the Chinese, 
 in which they are, on all hands, confessedly unri- 
 valled, that under circumstances otherwise highly un- 
 propitious, this individual, and consequently general 
 prosperity of the peasantry of that mighty empire, is 
 plainly attributable : a system which, most happily 
 for the people, has, as is partially the case in some of 
 the provinces of the Netherlands, if not elsewhere, 
 not only the sanction of custom and benevolence in its 
 
 ' Barrow, Travels in China, p, 561, * Grosier, Description of China. 
 
 ^ The Chinese prefer swine's flesh to ' Barrow, Travels in China, p. 549. 
 
 all kinds of footl. Campbell, Survey, "^ Staunton, Embassy to China, vol. ii., 
 
 vol. ii., p. 187. It is always cheap. Ibid. p. 367. 
 
 ^ Staunton^ Embassy, vol. ii., p. 374. 
 
 Vol. I. 2 S
 
 626 CHINA : SUPPOSED INDIGENCE [Book II. 
 
 favour, but the arm of the law raised in its defence. 
 A system which invariably gives a mass of individual 
 comfort, which none other does or can bestow, and 
 secures it in every condition of society ; conferring on 
 a dense population the boon of overflowing plenty of 
 all kinds ; and, as in the instance of China, bestowing 
 on a scanty one the advantages which it otherwise 
 rarely enjoys : which, in a country like our own, is 
 equally prompted by the interest of the wealthy, and 
 the comfort of the laborious classes of society ; being 
 the best, if not the only, permanent foundation of ge- 
 neral happiness and prosperity. It has been unhappily 
 abandoned, to the increasing detriment of every class 
 of society, and to none more than the trading and 
 manufacturing interests of the community. 
 
 (9) But to return. The condition of the culti- 
 vators of China is thus, in the most emphatical sense 
 of the word, comfortable, and all may belong to that 
 class, if they are so disposed \ though, as Schoutens 
 observes, " avarice attracts those who should cultivate 
 " some of the wastes of the finest provinces, to the vi- 
 " cinity of the great rivers, and to the cities^." Those, 
 then, who voluntarily prefer the latter situations can- 
 not be in a worse condition than the cultivators. We 
 may therefore, perhaps, venture to give credence to 
 Du Halde's assertion, with some limitation, where he 
 writes, that " there is not a person, man or woman, in 
 " China, but what may easily gain a livelihood^." 
 It follows, then, that the great mass of the population 
 of China is in very different circumstances to those 
 generally supposed. 
 
 (10) On the whole, I feel persuaded that we shall 
 hear less in future respecting the extreme indigence, 
 
 ^ Laws of the Chinese, hy Sir George ^ Schoutens, Voyage, t. ii., p. 154. 
 Staunton. s p^ Halde, China, vol. i., p. 277.
 
 Chap. XVII.] OF ITS POPULATION DISPROVED. 627 
 
 or the excessive population, of China. Perhaps, in- 
 deed, it may be thought that the argument has proved 
 too much, in reference to the great principle, which it 
 is the object of this work to establish, by shewing 
 that China is not fully peopled, and still that, gene- 
 rally speaking, its inhabitants are in the enjoyment of 
 plenty and prosperity. But I think it may be safely 
 asserted, that the population of China, when duly con- 
 sidered, bears ample testimony to the same cheering 
 principle which has been already fully established as 
 regards all other countries. I shall not, however, run 
 into the error which I have deprecated, at all events, 
 by an attempt to demonstrate my theory from the 
 circumstances and situation of a country still so imper- 
 fectly known : but two remarks I cannot refrain from 
 making, both of which are strongly confirmatory of the 
 principle for which I am contending throughout. The 
 first is this ; that the general dilfusion of that comfort 
 and prosperity which we have been proving to exist 
 in China, is, we are assured, confined to its best peo- 
 pled districts. I shall not reverse the picture which 
 I have sketched, by describing those which are less 
 fortunately circumstanced in that respect, but confine 
 myself to a very brief description of them, as given by 
 an individual who traversed them. He assured Mr. 
 Barrow, that, " having satisfied his curiosity, no 
 " earthly consideration should tempt him to undertake 
 " a second journey by land to the capital," (by water 
 is the frequented and populous route,) " for that he 
 " believed the whole world could not furnish a like 
 " picture of desolation and misery^" 
 
 (11) The other proof of the principle advocated 
 in this work, as deducible from the condition of this 
 immense empire, is, that as population has increased, 
 
 ^ Barrow, Travels in China, p. 514. 
 
 2 S2
 
 628 CHINA : SUPPOSED INDIGENCE [Book II. 
 
 instead of adding " so mucli pure misery," and com- 
 pletely interrupting the happiness of the whole, it has 
 augmented the general prosperity. That the inhabit- 
 ants have very considerably increased, cannot be 
 doubted, if we either rely on the nature of the case, 
 or credit the, seemingly, authentic facts which are 
 transmitted to us on this subject. And there can be 
 still less doubt but that increasing prosperity has 
 accompanied the augmentation of the population, if 
 we may credit what Adam Smith regards as one of the 
 most unequivocal proofs of that fact, namely, com- 
 plaints and remonstrances against the prevailing 
 luxury of more recent times. These complaints and 
 remonstrances are not confined, as it respects the 
 Chinese, to the declamations of their writers, but they 
 run through all the recent edicts of the emperors, in 
 which the temperance and frugality of the ancients 
 are recommended ^ I shall quote only one proof of 
 this convincing fact, which I select from a Chinese 
 treatise on Moral Philosophy, as translated by P. Her- 
 vieu and P. DentrecoUes, and given by Du Halde. 
 " The number of mouths every day increases in the 
 " empire. P'or instance, in my family, says Chin, I 
 " can count a thousand people, including women, for 
 " one that was in it three hundred years ago." — 
 '' Whence then comes it to pass that all are supplied, 
 " and that the number of the poor do not increase ; 
 " especially as every age finds some new arts of pro- 
 " digality and expense ? In former times men con- 
 " tented themselves with plain habitations ; now they 
 " covet ornament and sculpture. Modest and cheap 
 " habits were formerly in use ; now, nothing but cost 
 " and elegance are in request. Formerly no more than 
 " six dishes were served at an entertainment; now 
 
 ' Du Halde, vol. ii., p. 491,
 
 Chap. XVII.] OF ITS POPULATION DISPROVED, C29 
 
 " there are no limits to the number. The ancient pos- 
 " session of a single man is now divided among a 
 " thousand, and yet every one of that thousand would 
 " raise himself hisfher than that sinole man ever 
 " did\" I shall leave this decisive evidence, as to 
 the effect of an enlarging population on the condition 
 of China, in the recollection of the reader, undis- 
 turbed by any remarks of my own ; it will be the 
 purport of a succeeding book of this work^ to prove 
 the same cheering fact from those different countries 
 of the world, including our own, with which we are 
 more conversant ; in all of which, increasing numbers 
 has been but another term for advancing degrees of 
 prosperity and happiness. 
 
 ' Moral Philosophy of the Chinese; M. P. Hervieu and P. Dentrecolles, for 
 by two native Authors; translated by DuHalde. China, vol. ii., p. 103. 
 
 2 Book v.; vol. iii.
 
 630 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 OF CHINA : ITS ACTUAL POPULATION STATED FROM 
 OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS. 
 
 (1) Disregarding tlie accounts of the population 
 of the Chmese empire, as furnished by " Chinese 
 amplification^;" and those transmitted to us by the 
 Jesuit missionaries, one of whom informs us that the 
 inhabitants of Pekin amounted in his time to sixteen 
 millions ! — and equally rejecting the extravagantly 
 ridiculous estimates, as Malte-Brun justly calls them, 
 of some of our own countrymen already so much 
 alluded to ; let us proceed to state, from authentic 
 sources, what the population of that great empire 
 actually is, the amount of which will be so totally 
 diiferent from that usually stated in this country, as 
 to render it necessary to introduce it by quoting the 
 observations of several recent travellers in China, 
 whose impressions, as recorded upon the spot, will 
 sufficiently prepare us for the result, and abundantly 
 confirm it. 
 
 (2) Before, however, I conclude this branch of the 
 argument by presenting to the reader these final 
 representations and statements on the subject, it may 
 be proper to suggest a reason or two why those of so 
 contrary and exaggerated a nature should have been 
 put forth ; which will, in some measure, exculpate 
 their authors from intentional error. The route by 
 which most of these writers travelled to the im- 
 
 ^ Barrow, Travels in China, p. 36.
 
 Chap. XVIIL] CHINA: ITS POPULATION. 631 
 
 perial court is not only that between the two great 
 capitals, but also the principal, one might almost say, 
 the only, grand thoroughfare of the empire. That 
 this particular line of country must be far more thickly 
 peopled than the other parts of it, it would have been 
 absurd to doubt, even before direct information to that 
 eifect had been published. No principle of political 
 arithmetic, then, could have been more erroneous than 
 that of calculating the population of the empire by 
 that which appeared to exist on the banks of the Grand 
 Canal. But this is a consideration of far less import- 
 ance than that which follows. The expected appear- 
 ance of an embassy to their emperor from a distant 
 nation of the world, of totally dissimilar manners, 
 habits, and appearance, must have attracted from 
 all quarters, wherever it was passing, a vast, per- 
 haps a hundredfold addition, to the resident popu- 
 lation ; so that " spectators," as Von Braam said re- 
 garding the Dutch Embassy, " came crowding by 
 " thousands to satisfy their curiosity, and get a sight 
 " of the Europeans ^" The British embassies pro- 
 bably attracted still more attention^. It is quite clear, 
 therefore, that no accurate ideas could be formed of 
 the total population from the crowds - assembled, on 
 these occasions, on the banks of the great canal ; a 
 circumstance of which recent travellers have become 
 fully aware ^, and have therefore ceased to express 
 themselves in exaggerated terms concerning the over- 
 whelming population of China. 
 
 (3) Barrow gives his impressions on the subject 
 in these words : " However unfavourable the country 
 " might be for an extended cultivation, which did not 
 
 Von Braam, Dutch Embassy to - Barrow, Travels in China, p. 494. 
 China, vol. i., p. 79. — See Abel and ^ Ellis, Journal of a late Embassy to 
 Ellis. China, p. 366",
 
 G32 CHINA: ACTUAL AMOUNT [Book 11. 
 
 " appear to be the case, the proximity of the capital 
 '' would have led me to expect a corresponding popu- 
 " lation. Nothing of the kind appeared. The vast 
 " numbers we had observed in ascending the river 
 " were drawn from the distance of many miles, out 
 " of mere curiosity ; the inhabitants of the vicinity 
 " now shewed themselves, and we were rather sur- 
 " prised at the fewness of them^" Elsewhere he 
 expresses himself to the same effect, and mentions 
 that his expectations, founded on the relations of tra- 
 vellers, were disappointed^ : " the great road to the 
 " capital," he again observes, " lay across an open 
 " country, sandy and ill cultivated. Few houses on 
 " each side^" 
 
 (4) Ellis speaks thus on the same subject : " It is 
 " useful to mark the progressive impressions regarding 
 '' the amount of population, as the ultimate opinion 
 " will be more accurate from collectina- the several 
 " recollections ; and, with this view, I must here con- 
 " firm my former assertion, that in the country through 
 " which we have lately passed, with the exception of 
 " Nang-chang-foo, placed, when we passed it, under 
 " circumstances calculated to increase the ordinary 
 '' assemblage, no exuberance of population, comparing 
 " China with any of the tolerably flourishing countries 
 " of Europe, or Asia, has been observed*." Again : 
 " I must confess, that my daily impression is not that 
 " of the superabundant population assigned by most 
 " authors to China ; I should almost affirm, that the 
 " population was not more than proportionate to the 
 " land under cultivation — a ratio very inferior to that 
 ''usually assigned^;" "a military mandarin, how- 
 
 ^ Barrow, Travels in China, p. 494. * Ellis, Journal of the Proceedings of 
 
 s Ibid., p. 84. a late Embassy to China, p. 366. 
 
 » Ibid., p. 91. » Ibid, p. 264.
 
 Chap. XVIII.] OF ITS POPULATION. 633 
 
 " ever, observed," continues Mr. Ellis, " that wars 
 " were absolutely necessary to maintain the propor- 
 " tion between the supply and the consumers. It is 
 " something singular to meet a disciple of Malthus 
 " on the Imperial Canal ^" And let it still be recol- 
 lected, that it was while floating on this grand artery 
 of the empire, that this partial cultivation and mode- 
 rate population was witnessed. 
 
 (5) I shall give but one other authority, still con- 
 fining myself to those who were attached ofhcially to 
 our embassies. He says, " the apparent population of 
 " China was not such as he had been led to expect^; " 
 and again, " the visible population of China did 
 " not appear more than commensurate with the quan- 
 " tity of land under actual cultivation^." As this 
 assertion refers to a description he had previously 
 given, to render it intelligible, I must quote, though 
 somewhat out of its place, his impressions respecting 
 the extent of cultivation. " I have already," says he, 
 " stated, that hills capable of terrace cultivation are 
 " often entirely untilled ; and I may now make a simi- 
 " lar observation, but with greater limitation, respect- 
 " ing the plains. I might here quote the declaration 
 " of those authors who assert that whole districts 
 " of China are uncultivated and uninhabited ; or 
 " those who have, with justice, pointed out the 
 " quantity of land occupied by the burial-grounds of 
 
 the Chinese; but I shall content myself with ob- 
 " serving, that much land capable of tillage is left 
 
 neglected, and I mean land capable of that kind of 
 " tillage which is understood by the inhabitants. 
 " I often noticed portions of land, even in the vicinity 
 
 ' Ellis, Journal of the Embassy to ^ Abel, Narrative of a Journey to 
 Chiaa, p, 264. China, p. 204. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 205. 
 
 a 
 
 (C
 
 634 CHINA : ACTUAL AMOUNT [Book II. 
 
 <' of cottages and villages, remaining waste, for no 
 " other conceivable reason than because its cultiva- 
 " tion was unnecessary to the support of the neigh- 
 " bouring inhabitants. These facts," he adds, " which 
 " might be deemed of too little importance for asser- 
 " tion in an account of any other country, are of con- 
 " sequence as they regard China — a country of which 
 " it has been asserted, that not an inch of ground is 
 " left uncultivated ^" It must be still borne in mind, 
 that these observations also are the result of a survey 
 of the country from the Grand Canal. Others, of a 
 precisely similar import, might be added, but it is 
 unnecessary. 
 
 (6) To come, then, to a determination as to the real 
 population of China. One of the most profound and 
 accurate geographers of the present, or perhaps of 
 any age, Malte-Brun, after wholly rejecting the exag- 
 gerated account relative to the subject, arrives at this 
 conclusion : '' Cool and impartial men estimate the 
 " population of China at one hundred and fifty mil- 
 " lions^." Probably his opinion was founded upon 
 the census which was taken by the order of the Em- 
 peror Kien-Long, and published in the eighth year of 
 his reign, in the Ye-tung-tche, or, ^' All matters con- 
 cerning China ; '" which makes the number of the heads 
 of families, paying taxes, to amount to 28,514,488, 
 which, by reckoning five persons to each, would give 
 142,582,440'^. Grosier, indeed, makes the amount, 
 by adding other classes supposed to be omitted, 
 157,301,755*. He speaks, however, hesitatingly, but 
 certainly thinks the account of P. Amiot, who had 
 estimated the population at nearly a third higher, 
 
 , ' Abel, Narrative of a Journey to ^ Encyc. Brit., Supplement, China, 
 China, p. 204. p. 103. 
 
 2 Malte-Brun, Geog. 1, xliv., p. 007. •> Grosier, China, vol. i., p. 365, &e.
 
 Chap. XVIII.] OF ITS POPULATION. 635 
 
 namely, two hundred millions, exaggerated ^ Ellis 
 was informed, also, tliat by the most accurate Chinese 
 accounts the amount was considerably below that 
 number^. 
 
 (7) Happily for the argument, we have now ob- 
 tained what may be regarded official information upon 
 this important subject; and as it is given by the 
 Chinese authorities, we need be under no apprehen- 
 sion whatsoever that they will err in deficiency ; 
 " there being no reason to suspect them of any inten- 
 " tion," as Ellis observes, "of underrating a circum- 
 " stance so materially connected with their national 
 ■' greatness^/' Timkowski, one of a late Russian mis- 
 sion, copies an official account of the population of 
 China Proper, (including the province of Chin-King, 
 or Lias Toung,) taken in the year 1790, which gives 
 the amount at 142,326,734 ^ From a totally different 
 quarter we derive similar facts. Dr. Morrison, one of 
 the Protestant missionaries, who has been long resident 
 in China, and who has done more to make us acquainted 
 with its language than all his predecessors, has trans- 
 lated some statistical accounts of China, taken by 
 order of the present Emperor, Kia-King. According 
 to this census, the total population, including the 
 twelve Tartar banners, and all ranks and conditions, 
 great and small, amounts to between 145 and 146 
 millions ^ Lastly, we have, from an official work 
 published in the country, entitled "Tsin-shin," the 
 population of China in 1823; and it amounts to 
 146,280, 163 ^ which enumeration is also given in the 
 Appendix to a translation of a Chinese work, by 
 Mr. Thoms, printed at the East India Company's 
 
 I Grosier, China, vol. i., p. 365. ^ Timkowski, Ti-avels of the Russian 
 
 .^ Ellis, Journal of the late Embassy Mission to China, 1827. 
 to China, p. 432. * Ency. Brit., Supp., art. China. 
 
 3 Ibid. * Asiatic Journal, Sept. 1825, p. 294.'
 
 636 CHINA : ACTUAL AMOUNT [Book it 
 
 press at Macao, in 1824 \ and copied thence into tlie 
 Bulletin Universel, in the subsequent year^, and the 
 Asiatic Journal, at the same period^. It comports, 
 very nearly, with Malte-Brun's estimate, and no 
 doubt whatever exists as to its authenticity. 
 
 (8) The extent of the Chinese empire is estimated 
 to be, at least, one million and a half square miles, 
 perhaps exclusive of the territory of the Tartar ban- 
 ners ; but, to include them, this surface gives, for a 
 population of 146,280,103, only 97^:^0 inhabitants to 
 the square mile, — little more than the relative popula- 
 tion in the State of Massachusetts, in North America; 
 less than that of the kingdom of Prussia, and little 
 exceeding- two-fifths of that of Eno-land. 
 
 (9) It has been already seen, that if we deduct 
 one-third of the surface of China, as not improvable, 
 or, at least, not at present improved, there still remain 
 640 millions of acres cultivated, or nearly 4^ acres to 
 each individual. Now, Mr. Blodget estimated, a 
 few years ago, the land under cultivation in the 
 United States, at 40,950,000 acres, or about 5| acres 
 each, for the contemporaneous population *. Nothing 
 can place the absurdity of what has been industriously 
 scraped together about the overwhelming population 
 of China, and its miserable consequences, in a stronger 
 light, than the simple enunciation of these undeniable 
 facts. America exports a large quantity of the sur- 
 plus produce of her soil ; China, unless teas may be 
 so reckoned, none. The assertion, therefore, that 
 China, notwithstanding its immense extent, its great 
 fertility, its double harvests, and its universal cultiva- 
 tion, does not suffice to keep its inhabitants in a state 
 of the most abject wretchedness, without their being 
 
 ^ Thorns, Chinese Courtship, &c. Ap- a Asiatic Journal, 1825, p. 294, &c. 
 pendix, p. 323. * Malte-Bnin, 1. lxxix.,p. 150. 
 
 - Bulletin Universel, Geog. et Statist.
 
 Chap. XVIII.] OF ITS POPULATION. 637 
 
 obliged to liave recourse to tlie most atrocious crimes, 
 is, when thus brought to the test of truth, one of the 
 most preposterous representations ever put fortli. The 
 confidence, however, with which this is repeated, 
 not only without, but directly contrary to, all recent 
 and authentic evidence, and the pertinacity with 
 which the opinion thus promulgated is retained, fur- 
 nish full proof of the justice of an observation of, 
 I think, Locke, that an error boldly put forth and 
 constantly repeated, will gain credence, and continue 
 to maintain itself, in spite of reason and truth, for, 
 perhaps, generations. It is an error, however, which 
 would have had no notice in these volumes, but for 
 the purpose to which it has been applied. Mr. 
 Townsend, and, after him, Mr. Malthus and others, 
 have impugned the institutions of their country, and 
 the laws of Nature, by appealing to the population 
 of China ; of which they knew less than nothing, 
 because what they assumed was, as far as the question 
 at issue is concerned, erroneous. The principle of 
 population they broached, and its demonstrations, are 
 thus worthy of each other. 
 
 (10) The difficulty is, in every possible view of 
 the question, to account, not for the excess, but the 
 paucity of the population of China. Reasons for this 
 fact have occasionally presented themselves to my 
 mind, or, as I ought rather to express myself, conjec- 
 tures concerning it, some of which I will suggest to 
 the reader, and leave them to his consideration. 
 There may be much in wdiat Malte-Brun has said, 
 regarding the little tendency of the most ancient races 
 to numerosity ; a thought which he exemplifies by 
 the decay of the oldest trees in the forest, while the 
 younger extend afar their spreading branches ^ : there 
 
 ' Malte-Brun, 1. xcv., p. 72.
 
 638 CHINA : ACTUAL AMOUNT [Book II. 
 
 may be still more in the circumstance of the people 
 being- so entirely dissevered from connexion with 
 all others ; an inveterate habit or feeling, almost 
 amounting to actual vice, and, as having a tendency to 
 divide the brotherhood of human beings into unsocial 
 and disconnected sections, hardly compatible with 
 the views of Universal Providence. At all events, as 
 Dr. Seybert has profoundly observed, it is the con- 
 trary practice, that of a mixture of races, which, agree- 
 ably to the physical laws of Nature, most conduces to 
 increase ^ But the universal taste for sedentary en- 
 joyments and avocations^, if there be any truth in the 
 system of physiology, about to be developed in this 
 work, as far as the question it embraces is concerned, 
 is unquestionably very unfavourable to population : 
 and lastly, those vices, equally heinous and yet more 
 loathsome than infanticide itself, which are under- 
 stood to prevail in China ^, must still more interfere 
 with their natural increase. But whatever truth there 
 may be in these suppositions, the fact of an inadequate 
 population, infusing languor and listlessness through 
 the whole body politic, and intercepting the advance 
 of the country to higher degrees of prosperity and 
 happiness, is undeniable. Were better principles, 
 civil and religious, — in one word, was Christianity 
 established among them, the growth of the species 
 would inevitably follow. These dry bones would then 
 live. There would be a shaking heard among them. 
 The sinews and flesh — strength and feeling, would 
 come upon them ; and they would stand up, a great 
 and mighty army, prepared to assert the best rights, 
 and exercise the noblest functions, of human beings. 
 
 ' Seyhert, Statist., Annals of Ame- ^ Barrow, Travels in China, p. 150. 
 
 rica, p. 52. Navarette, Account of China, vol. i., 
 
 - Staunton, Embassy to China; vol. ii., p. 668. La Pederastie des Chinois, 
 
 p. 71. Pallas.
 
 Chap. XVIII.] OF ITS POPULATION. 639 
 
 (1 1) The sole proofs of the theory of human super- 
 fecundity, founded, as they are, upon the statistic of 
 America and China, have now been examined ; and 
 if facts may be allowed to have any advantage over 
 abstract reasonings, on matters concerning which, 
 after all, human experience can alone determine ; and 
 if, in questions of mere numbers, the rules of arith- 
 metic shall continue to be preferred to mere unsub- 
 stantiated guesses, then are what have been called 
 the demonstrations of the geometric ratio of human 
 increase overthrown. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
 
 LONDON : 
 
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