stant and minute regulation of this as well as every other provision in the true system of population, constituting it a principle of universal benevolence, -a conclusion which the abettors of the theory of the arithmetical and geometric ratios recognize only to ridicule. I proceed, however, to advance a further and last proof of the existence of that governing cause, regulating the relative numbers of the sexes, which I have developed; and one which, it is conceived, will at the same time establish the fact and furnish an answer to all those objections or doubts with which it might be assailed.

(14) I find, by a reference to the synoptical register of the Peerage of the United Kingdom, to which I have elsewhere referred for other important purposes, that it is not the ages of the peers at marriage which determines the proportion of the sexes of their children. I have ascertained that age in 1027 cases of fruitful marriages, and the following are the results :

TABLE LIV.

EXHIBITING THE AGES OF 1027 PEERS AT THEIR MARRiage, and THE NUMBER and Sex oF THEIR CHILDREN.

The above table, therefore, the intended accuracy of which I avouch, disposes of the supposition that the advanced age of the male increases the number of the male births: that circumstance, simply considered, it is obvious, has no reference whatever to the proportionment of the sexes.

(15) Neither has the age of the female parent at marriage, separately considered, any greater influence on the proportion of the sexes she produces than that of the male, as will appear from the 471 instances. of fruitful marriages adduced in the succeeding table,

EXHIBITING THE AGES OF 471 PEEresses at their Marriage, and THE NUMBER AND SEX OF THEIR CHILDREN.

It is perfectly clear, therefore, as far as these instances can prove it, that it is not the age of the female parent at marriage which influences the proportion of the sexes she produces.

(16) The following table, however, constructed on the same authority, (the registers of the peerage,) will, it is believed, place the principle advanced in this chapter beyond all doubt, and prove that it is the relative ages of the parents which really adjusts the proportions of the sexes at birth. It is calculated upon 381 instances of first marriages, being the whole number in which the ages of both parties could be ascertained nor was that number obtained without a much longer and more laborious research than, perhaps, can well be imagined.

TABLE LVI.

SHEWING THE INFLUENCE WHICH THE DIFFERENCE IN THE AGES OF THE PARENTS, RESPECTIVELY, HAS IN REGULATING THE PROPORTION OF THE SEXES OF THEIR CHILDREN. TAKEN from the REGISTERS OF THE PEERage.

(17) The above table, therefore, completely answers the comment put upon Aristotle's recommendation, and rescues him from the imputation of discouraging population: an imputation, however, which any one acquainted with the general tenour of his works knows to be erroneous. It does far more; it shews, as clearly as facts can demonstrate any thing, that there is a principle in Nature which counteracts the consequences of those perverse habits in regard to the postponement of the period of marriage of one sex in comparison with that of the other, which would otherwise occasion the most pernicious effects in any community in which it should prevail. Without, therefore, alluding to those rarer cases in the table in which the age of the females exceeds that of the males at marriage, or those in which it is equal, in which instance,

also, physically considered, the males may still be justly regarded as the juniors in constitution, and where, consequently, the excess of the female children, resulting from such marriages, corroborates the general argument by a most important converse proof; let us commence with that section in which, the difference in age at marriage being from one to six years, the sexes may be justly regarded as being, in a natural point of view, contemporary: and we there find the proportion of males and females born (1000 to 964) is that which seems to anticipate the excess of mortality in the former sex up to the nubile age, so accurately as to produce that balance of their numbers which, as before observed, is found to exist at that period. To preserve that balance, so essential to the preservation of the population, when the males habitually postpone marriage, it will be seen that the proportion of male births increases with the term of that postponement, and conformably to the law of mortality. In order to exemplify and prove the latter fact, I shall now add another column, in which the proportionate number of males existing at the ages specified are given from Table XLVIII. in the Supplement to Book III., which will shew, with a greater precision than I conceived could have been established by the averages of so limited a number of instances, how minutely all the anticipatory processes of reproduction are calculated, and how certainly they are accomplished. Had the collection of cases been sufficiently great, I am fully persuaded that the aberrations in the following table, unimportant as they now are, would have entirely disappeared.