coincidence the whole exhibit in regard to the comparative prolificness of every successive year, considering that they are constructed on such different principles, is a sufficient guarantee of the accuracy of the mode of calculation adopted in each, and of the truth of the general deduction. The last tables, rejecting, as they do, that proportion of the existing marriages which is no longer fruitful, exhibit, of course, greater differences in the annual fecundity of the remainder, and therefore confirm, in a more striking and I cannot but think accurate manner, the principle

at issue.

(18) But, perhaps, the preceding tables, especially the first, may be founded upon calculations somewhat too complex for general examination, and, consequently, may not be so satisfactory, as they otherwise might be deemed. To obviate this remaining objection, I shall present the whole of the facts in another form, and one which will only require a reference to public documents, instantly to verify the conclusion. Dividing the term biennially, in order to avoid all possible cavil, and classing the years as before, into the cheaper and dearer ones; and also giving, in this instance, the deaths of each, for the purpose of grounding upon their relative number an interesting remark, these are the naked facts:

TABLE XL.

SHEWING, BY A further Method, from the REGISTERS OF ENGLAND, THE EFFECT OF SCARCITIES ON THE PROLIFICNESS OF MARRIAGES.

Years. Marriages. Conceptions. Deaths. Years Marriages. Conceptions. Deaths.

(19) The preceding table, then, consists, not of calculations, but of facts; and with this I will close my appeal to the statistics of England, on the important question before us, which it effectually decides. Dividing the above term into sections of two years each; in the cheaper of each of these, since the annual registers have been given, there were 1,582,968 marriages celebrated; in the dearer, 1,553,465: in the former, there were 5,564,569 conceptions, but in the latter 5,584,354 so that, though in the more plentiful seasons compared with scarce ones, there were 29,503 more marriages celebrated, there were fewer conceptions by the sum of 19,805! In the dearer years, there were, indeed, 18,159 more deaths, which, it will be observed, were more than compensated for by the superior prolificness of those years.

(20) But it is to the latter half of the foregoing table that I would direct particular attention, namely, the first twenty years of the present century; during which, circumstances have occurred which could not fail to put to the severest test and finally determine the question at issue: I mean those wide and sudden variations in the price of corn, which do, indeed, influence human prolificness, but in a manner directly contrary to what recent writers on the subject of population suppose, or rather, perpetually and confidently assert. In the last twenty years then of the above table, during which time we may reasonably suppose, nay, we are assured that the public records are, upon the whole, kept with greater accuracy, there will be found to have occurred in the cheaper years 873,849 weddings, 3,046,088 conceptions, and 1,981,533 burials: in the dearer ones, 841,666 marriages, 3,087,836 conceptions, and 1,978,728 burials: that is, there were in the dearer

years 32,183 fewer marriages, 41,798 more conceptions, and 2805 fewer burials than in the cheaper ones! So utterly destitute of truth, therefore, is the notion that man "breeds up to the level of food," and that he multiplies in proportion as it becomes more cheap and plentiful.

256

CHAPTER XVI.

OF THE EFFECT OF SCARCITIES ON HUMAN PROLIFICNESS.

(1) THE opinion that the state of crops influences the principle of prolificness was taken, it appears, from M. Nicander, who applied the observation to the movements of the population of Sweden; and if the effect of variations in the products of the earth in that country had been as described by him, especially in the earlier part of the period to which he refers, still I should deny that the notion which he held, and which has since been attempted to be transferred to this country, is, as a general principle, proved. I mean not to contend that a state touching upon literal starvation is favourable to human increase; I have stated otherwise, where, in discussing the subject physiologically, I have defined more particularly the limits of my proposition, excluding from it the condition of extreme indigence, as I do in fairness, culpable excess, from that which I oppose; and I must refer to what is there advanced on the subject. In the mean time, if the general condition of Sweden is as described by the great advocate of the doctrine against which I am contending, that of " one of the most barren and worst supplied countries of Europe1," a state, therefore, little removed from what would be here deemed actual want at any time, and liable to be plunged into instant and universal suffering, by an unusually rigorous season and its concomitant, a failure in the crops, it is obvious that the consequence of the latter must be the disso

'Malthus, Essay on Population, 6th edit., vol. ii. p. 438.