the greatest where that state commenced the earliest, and therefore continued the longest; arguing either an excess of prolificness in the one instance, or a deficiency in the other. Such, however, is not the dilemma in which the laws of Nature have left the human race. On the contrary, it is universally known, that where the reproductive period commences soon in life, there it terminates, at least, proportionably early. The United States of America, so often appealed to on the subject of population, exemplify this fact, and prove it beyond contradiction.

(26) But still it may be urged that, supposing the whole period of female prolificness, which thus varies in its date, to remain equal in duration, it is clear that in those countries where it commences the earliest, the births would take place the soonest; and as the generations must therefore be more crowded upon each other, the population would necessarily augment more rapidly. The coexisting numbers would, in such case, be greater than where the commencement of human fecundity was deferred, and the generations, consequently, placed more apart. But against this consequence Nature has also provided, in having abridged the length of that term in the female, in proportion as its commencement is antedated. This also is a fact, too universally notorious to need any accumulation of proofs to establish it. Again, to instance America, where the period in question, compared with that in the northern countries of Europe, is forestalled a few years, it is abridged in its duration, at least, twice as many; and in India, as a celebrated natural philosopher has observed, "where the human female "commences to be prolific at eight, she ceases to "remain so before she attains thirty."

(27) I shall here terminate the proofs of what I

have ventured to call the anticipatory computations of Nature relative to the law of population; which, neververtheless, might have been considerably multiplied. Enough, however, it is confidently hoped, has been advanced to prove that every thing connected with even the preparatory processes of human reproduction is regulated, not by fixed and arbitrary, but by varying and relative proportions, involving a series of secondary causes, all contributing to the same end; the due increase of the species. After these ample (I had almost said, miraculous) proofs of the Divine intention, in this respect; to suppose that His purposes are, nevertheless, frustrated, and that the final result of the whole is left so uncertain, or rather erroneous, as to be rectified by vice, misery, and moral restraint, or, in plainer terms, by resisting the physical, or rebelling against the moral, laws of GOD, were absurd and blasphemous. If only thus far of the Divine calculations relating to this all-important subject were apparent, and its final conclusion still involved in essential mystery, or lost in the imperfect knowledge of the present or the obscurer records of past ages, still in these we have abundant proofs as to the benevolent purposes of the Deity. But if we trace the subject yet further, we shall find that all remaining doubts will vanish, and the principle of population will be found. regulated by the numbers, and adapted to the circumstances, of human beings. To the development and proof of such a law, the remaining part of this treatise is devoted.

352

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE LAW OF POPULATION: THE PRINCIPLE DEFINED.

(1) No one fact relative to the human species is more clearly ascertained, whether by general observation or actual proof, than that their fecundity varies in different communities and countries'. The principle which effects this variation, without the necessity of those cruel and unnatural expedients so frequently adverted to, constitutes what I presume to call THE LAW OF POPULATION, and that law may be thus briefly enunciated : THE PROLIFICNESS OF HUMAN BEINGS, OTHERCIRCUMSTANCED,

WISE

SIMILARLY

VERSELY AS THEIR NUMBERS.

VARIES

IN

(2) The preceding definition may be thus amplified and explained. Premising, as a mere truism, that marriages under precisely similar circumstances will, on the average, be equally fruitful everywhere, I proceed to state, first, that the prolificness of a given number of marriages will, all other circumstances being the same, vary in proportion to the condensation of the population, so that that prolificness shall be greatest where the numbers on an equal space are the fewest, and, on the contrary, the smallest where those numbers are the largest.

(3) Thus far the theory announced has reference to space only, and even then it is, if proved, of incalculable importance to human beings, in indicating a system of population so regulated as to people the

1 Dr. Davenant, Works, vol. ii., p. 180. Malte-Brun, vol. ii., p. 555. Jarrold, Dissertations on Man, pp. 184, 287.

earth where it is uninhabited, or to restore the number of its inhabitants where they are unhappily wasted, without at the same time threatening to overwhelm it with a continued and arbitrary increase; and the very exceptions to this rule, as referrible to space only, will be found to confirm its main principle, for

(4) The prolificness of human beings, as thus regulated by the extent of the space they occupy, is furthermore influenced by the quality of that space, or otherwise by its potential produce; so that the same number of marriages in a population occupying an equal surface, will, all other circumstances remaining equal, be less productive in mountainous than in champaign countries, and less in the frigid than in the temperate regions.

(5) When I first detected this general law of Nature as apparently regulated by space only, I confess I was disappointed in finding that it failed when applied to the above exceptions, where, had mere room been the sole governing principle, it ought to have been particularly manifest: a little consideration, however, convinced me of the necessity of such variations, as an opposite result would, in those instances, have been fatal to the theory as a law of benevolence applicable to all countries and conditions, and have doomed mankind, under certain circumstances, to an increase beyond the ultimate means of subsistence, and, consequently, would so far have identified my argument with that which I am opposing. In this instance, however, as in every other, I adhered to and allowed full weight to facts as they arose, and these ultimately formed themselves into that system which, together with its proofs, will be fully submitted to the reader, who will judge of their harmony and truth. Though these ex

VOL. II.

2 A

ceptions, therefore, may seem to divest the argument of somewhat of its mathematical precision, yet, when duly considered, they add to it a moral demonstration of incalculable weight, in proving that the prolificness of human beings is regulated by the space they occupy with a further reference to its potential produce, or, in other words, to the means of their subsistence.

(6) Let not those, however, who may be adverse to the principle already partly propounded, if such there be, anticipate a failure in its proof, from suppos ing that these exceptions will be either so numerous or so important as to confuse the main argument. Even according to the last view of the subject, space may be still generally regarded as the chief, though not sole, regulator of human prolificness; and the ensuing calculations, it will be seen, will establish the principle with sufficient minuteness and certainty. Nor ought it to be otherwise. The great mass of civilized society, at least that part of it with the statistics of which we are alone conversant, and from which, therefore, our proofs will have to be chiefly derived, inhabits the temperate and fertile regions of the earth, the variation in the productiveness of which is, on the main, but little, and that little rendered still less by the continued efforts of an industry which can overcome all but physical obstacles, and, indeed, partly remove even them.

(7) But in the circumstances contemplated in the primary definition as operative on the measure of human prolificness, there is one which remains to be noticed, distinct from either the extent of space, or its fertility; and it is this, the prevailing measure of mortality. Lastly, then, the prolificness of an equal number of individuals, other circumstances being similar, is greater where the mortality is greater, and,