inhabit more southern and fertile countries, which, in their ignorance, they supposed to be of easy accomplishment;-a noted instance of which may be cited in the account of the Helvetic emigration, contained in Cæsar's Commentaries. A country, abandoned by the inhabitants, soon degenerates into wilderness, woods, and morasses. We have been in Sweden, and Norway, &c., where, as in the Northern Islands, and Highlands of Scotland, numerous indubitable marks of cultivation are to be seen in situations which, on account of their elevation and barrenness, cannot now be advantageously cultivated.

We think people do not sufficiently consider the vast quantity of labour expended in modern Europe, in procuring luxuries, comforts, and enjoyments, unknown to our ancestors, and the great increase which might be made to the actual means of subsistence, if but a tithe of the labour so expended were employed on the cultivation of the soil; almost the largest portion of the vast foreign trade of the British isles, and, consequently, the labour employed therein, both immediately and remotely, is really expended on the procuring those luxuries. The article of tea, alone, consumes many millions worth of national labour annually, partly in taxes for the use of government, and partly in enabling the English East India Com

pany to incur treble charges of freight, &c., and to make their shipping and officers mimic those of the Royal Navy, and to enable the latter to engage in the borough-mongering business after a few voyages. What an immense disproportion is there between the numbers of the military, civil, judicial, medical, and clerical persons, and their families, which are now regularly and constantly supported by the labouring population of modern Europe, as compared with the ancients. It is, indeed, probable, that more than the whole difference in the quantity of produce raised by modern European agriculture beyond that of the ancients, is consumed in the manner explained. Neither does it appear to be sufficiently considered, that when a tribe or family occupied a valley or glen, and employed themselves solely on its cultivation, they would have a superabundance of labour beyond what was wanted to cultivate that part which could yield a profit; and, therefore, it was better for them to employ that superabundant labour on the rest of the land, (although the returns might not even be adequate to replace the food expended while cultivating it,*) because they must have consumed food, whether they laboured or not;

* The most barren mountains in Scotland could be profitbly made to yield an addition to the means of subsistence, by (otherwise) unemployed labour being expended on it.

and it was better for all to labour, though for little advantage, than not to labour at all: whereas, in modern society, labour has not only more modes of employment; but, if it cannot produce a surplus it will not be at all employed on the land; and when, if it cannot be otherwise employed, it must cease to exist, (owing to the dissolution of the ancient social connections,) or exist only on the grudging and forced bounty of others. Let us now examine what is to be found in the next chapter.

CHAPTER VII.

"OF THE CHECKS TO POPULATION AMONG MODERN PASTORAL NATIONS."

In this Chapter, our author inquires, what are the checks to population among the tribes of the Tartar and Arab races? which checks he finds to be "restraint from increase, owing to the inability to obtain a wife; vicious customs, with respect to women, epidemics, wars,* famines, and the diseases arising from external poverty." Mankind not being irresistibly compelled to increase their numbers, none of those vices and miseries can be fairly charged to the power of procreation, in any sense whatever.Even famine itself, probably, in some degree,

*One can hardly help remarking the little value set on human life, and the bloody disposition evinced by the whole of the genuine Tartar race, from Siberia to New Zealand, and throughout America, as contrasted with the different treatment of the vanquished and the stranger by those of the European and Arab race.

are unavoidable; evil might, doubtless, be greatly mitigated by the adoption of those measures which would be suggested by the general dif.fusion of knowledge, and the principles of good

government; every one of the other evils enumerated may be avoided and remedied by knowledge. Ignorance, therefore, appears to be their only earthly cause.

Mr. Malthus quotes the following passage from Gibbon, on the circumstances of the Arabians "The measure of population is regulated by the means of subsistence, and the inhabitants of this vast peninsula might be outnumbered by the subjects of a fertile and industrious province;" to which Mr. M. appends a note, in these words-" It is rather a curious "It circumstance, that a truth so important, which has been stated and acknowledged by so many authors, should so rarely have been pursued to its consequences," &c. Now, if its consequences were really what Mr. M. assumes, we should agree with him, in wondering that, notwithstanding the information of Revelation, and the investigations of reason, the origin of evil had remained undiscovered until the fiftyeighth century after the creation of mankind; but we must be sure, that the discovery is really made, ere we acknowledge the merits of the discoverer.

Let us pass on to the next, since nothing