numbers in the interval, which in the sex and at about the period of life in question, is, in this country, considerable, has to be added. In either case, the males surviving the marrying period of life, and remaining single, and especially that part of them, which it is possible to imagine have so continued in consequence of the preventive check, must, however calculated, be small indeed, compared with the entire number of the community.

(18) Such, then, on every possible view of the subject, are the puny dimensions of the power which our political theorists give forth as that which alone checks the swift and destructive strides of the gigantic principle of evil, with whose progress they threaten their country and mankind. That I have accurately ascertained its exact influence I will not pretend to assert; but I feel confident that I have, at all events, succeeded in proving it, under every possible rectification of the preceding computations, to be " immaterial." The population, as given in the national census, may have been somewhat underrated; for this I am not responsible; I am, however, answerable for the proportion of second and third marriages assumed, in which I may have similarly erred. As to the necessary deductions, few, I think, will judge them to be overrated, nor would any reasonable alteration in them much influence the proportions obtained. On the whole, therefore, though I am aware that the direct information is wanting which can alone fix the question with any great degree of precision, and although I am as anxious as any one that it should be obtained, yet I am fully confident, from the nature of the facts already appealed to, and from collateral evidence on the subject still to be adduced, that the result of the foregoing computations is substantially

correct.

(19) And is not actual and universal observation coincident with numerical demonstration, in relation to this important branch of our subject? The highest order amongst us is, beyond dispute, a marrying one: while even in the middle sphere, how very few forego the comforts and resist the natural necessity of the domestic connexion: but what is the influence of these, on whom nevertheless our attention is habitually and almost exclusively fixed on every occasion, compared with that of the lower and working classes, whose numbers overwhelm all comparison, and who, therefore, of themselves necessarily determine the question? Undeniably true is it that they are an early and universally marrying people; yea, our anti-populationists and political economists confess it when it suits their purpose, and fix this sacred habit upon them as their folly and their crime: it is one, however, which, while it has secured the virtue and promoted the happiness of the country, has multiplied its means and extended its power, and constituted Britain the most powerful and prosperous empire of the world.

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CHAPTER IX.

OF THE METHOD OF CALCULATING THE COMPARATIVE PREVALENCE OF THE PREVENTIVE CHECK IN

DIFFERENT TIMES AND COUNTRIES.

(1) THE method pursued by our anti-populationists in estimating the comparative prevalence of what they suppose to be the great regulator of the human increase, remains to be examined; when it will be seen that if their mere suppositions regarding it are egregious mistakes, their calculations, when they resort to them at all, are as essentially erroneous. The rule adopted by them to determine this point is indeed as simple as it is universal; it is this,-to divide the amount of the population by the annual marriages, determining, on a comparison of the results thus obtained, the relative prevalence of the preventive check in the different

countries so examined.

(2) Now, the utter fallaciousness of any computations thus formed, will be apparent by adverting to the very nature of this "check." The male births which survive the nubile age, and are prevented, by other than physical obstacles, from entering into the marriage state, may be said to prove its existence, and the number of these, compared with those who marry, indicate the extent of its prevalence. But when these proportions are calculated upon the entire number which compose such community, and, with a further view of contrasting them with those of a similar nature which exist in others, the question becomes much more complicated. In this case two circumstances have to be especially considered; first, the law of mortality, or the

mean duration of life; and secondly, the rate of increase respectively prevailing in the countries so compared, both which exceedingly vary throughout the world; and, though totally lost sight of in the computations of our theorists, are so important in their consequences, as not merely to correct their calculations in regard to the various countries to which they appeal, but to reverse them altogether. This, I apprehend, requires little proof. In a stationary population the number existing will be precisely that of the number of the births, multiplied by the mean duration of life; to elongate the latter, therefore, without any increase of the former, would be to augment the population to that degree; and supposing the same proportion of the born still to marry, their relative number, computed on the whole, would be evidently diminished in a corresponding ratio. Furthermore, and still supposing the same law of mortality to exist, the rate at which the population increases "by procreation only," has evidently to be considered in this mode of determining the question. Births, and the marriages which they ultimately form, are evidently not contemporaneous, the average age at which the latter take place has to intervene; and however greatly the population may augment in that interval, the utmost possible number of the present weddings is limited by the births of the former period, and remains fixed. The marriages, therefore, in such a case may, as calculated on the entire population, seem relatively to diminish, while the proportion of the surviving births who marry (which is the present point) may remain the same, or even be on the increase. Whenever, therefore, comparisons are meant to be made, on the method under consideration, as to the prevalence of the preventive check in one and the same country at different periods, or between different coun

tries at the same time, these differences in the duration of life, and in the rates of increase by propagation only, though lost sight of by our political computists, are evidently essential to the calculation.

(3) Arithmetical processes, verbally explained, are generally obscure however incontrovertible; and the fact that mine may be more than usually so, must apologize for my perhaps too frequent and broad illustrations. Suppose, in exemplification of the first case, a community of two thousand antediluvians, stationary in numbers, and of the uniform longevity of a millennium each; and let all of them marry at puberty: here, only one annual marriage in the two thousand could take place. Suppose another society, consisting of the same number and similarly circumstanced in all respects, excepting in the term of life, which should be only one tenth of the duration of the former; let these also marry as before, and without exception: the average number of annual marriages in this latter instance would be ten in two thousand, or one in every two hundred. Now, it is evident that the mode of computation I am combating would prove that the preventive check prevailed just ten times as much in the former as in the latter community, though it is quite clear it would have no existence whatsoever in either.

(4) In exemplification of the other point, the necessity of computing the different rates of increase arising from a variation in prolificness in times and countries thus compared: suppose two communities of equal numbers twenty-five years ago, the nubile age in each being that term, and both in other respects similar. The one, however, doubles its population "by procreation only" in these five-and-twenty years, while the other remains stationary. At the former period, the births in both being equal, the number surviving