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CHAPTER VII.

OF THE LAW OF POPULATION: ITS APPARENT EXCEPTIONS STATED, AND PROVED TO BE CONFORMABLE TO

ITS PRIMARY PRINCIPLE AND DESIGN.

1) IT has been already observed, that the prolificness of human beings is not only regulated by the extent of space they possess in proportion to their numbers, but also by the nature and quality of that space; so that, under all its modifications, the law of population, having thus a direct reference to the means of sustentation, vindicates its character as a principle of universal benevolence. Thus, on leaving the temperate regions and approaching the polar ones, as the climate becomes severer and less favourable to vegetation, and, consequently, more unfriendly to the preservation of mankind, there the principle of human increase visibly contracts. Again, as far as my remarks have extended, it is an equally true, and still more striking fact, that the more mountainous is any country, the less prolific are its inhabitants. These circumstances, together with that of the inverse proportions of human fecundity and longevity, constitute those modifications of the general law of population, which, as variously operating, not only in different countries, but in different divisions of the same country, may seem to give a degree of complexity and uncertainty to the calculations which are to establish the principle; they nevertheless exhibit the simplicity and unity of its design in a far more striking point of view. It determines that the family of Nature is small or great, and, therefore, that there is room for their increase, or otherwise,

by a reference to the possible means of sustentation provided for them; and consequently presents the question, as governed by those plain principles of common sense which ultimately decide every other subject. (2) First, then, as it respects the diminution of human fecundity in the severe climates and sterile regions of the north. I shall not claim Sweden as a very striking proof of this fact, as I am persuaded the disadvantages under which it labours, in both respects, are removable, in a great degree, by human industry: at present, however, I cannot doubt but that they operate partially in a considerable part of that country, containing, as it does, within itself so wide a difference in surface and climate as to occasion, probably, material deviations from the general rule, had we the facts necessary to determine this point. From, however, the years 1749 to 1763, inclusive, there were celebrated in Sweden. 315,502 marriages: the births, during the same period, amounting to 1,312,255, it follows that the fecundity of each was as 4.16 to 1.1

(3) In the northern division, however, of the Cimbric Chersonese, the principle, if true, must be found to apply; and such proves to be the case. The Laplanders, we are assured by their celebrated historian Shefferius, are unfruitful?.

(4) As to the Icelanders, whose climate and the general sterility of whose soil are too well known. to render it necessary to do more than merely advert to them, we are informed, on the authority of MalteBrun, that their offspring are not numerous3.

(5) Lastly, respecting the Greenlanders, who inhabit one of the least propitious countries in the world, we are assured, on the very best authority, namely, that of Crantz, that they are the reverse of prolific: so

1 Wargentin, K. V. ac Handl., 1766. * Malte-Brun, 1. lxxvii., p. 106. Shefferius, Lapland, p. 120.

much so, indeed, that when told of the fruitfulness of the Europeans, it seemed to excite in them feelings of contempt, as something unnatural; and they compared them, he tells us, in this respect, to their dogs. Meantime, Nature appears to accomplish its purpose, that of limiting human increase where the means of providing for it are so scanty, without the particular interference of the checks. Their fondness for their children is extreme, and their care for them as exemplary; and few of either them or their mothers are lost in parturition. Still population, on the whole, very slowly, if at all, increases in this inhospitable region : indeed it is thought that, in certain parts, it has entirely disappeared.

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(6) With these data before us, we must conclude that the increase in the inhabitants of countries bordering upon, or within, the arctic regions, if it exists at all, very slow. The only document which I have seen, in reference to any of them, are the censuses of Iceland, and these will abundantly suffice to prove the whole of the foregoing facts and deductions: they comprehend a period of more than a century, and are as follows:

The population in that island, therefore, scarcely maintains its numbers, though, judging from a solitary register in Sussmilch's tables, the marriages were to the population as 1 in 123; arguing, therefore, a very general exemption from the preventive check, the absence of which the then unusually small mortality of 1 in 42 renders still more conspicuous'.

(7) Next, it has to be explained, that in moun1 Sussmilch, Gott. Ordnung., th. iii., tab. p. 64.

tainous and sterile districts human beings are less prolific than in champaign ones. This is a distinction, however, which, in reference to the main principle advanced, does not, when duly considered, involve an essential difference. It is very clear that, where the surface of a country is, in any considerable degree, taken up by uninhabitable mountains and barren hills, its population may, in the cultivated parts, be in reality far more crowded than a larger number of inhabitants in a country of the same extent, but more generally fertile, and where the people are consequently more evenly distributed. Whatever be the causes, whether physical or moral, which regulate the fecundity of human beings by their numbers on a given space, they must operate in reference to the extent actually, and not politically, occupied.

(8) There are but few districts in the temperate regions, concerning which we possess the necessary information, that exhibit these striking contrasts. Two only occur to me at present; the one is Wales, whose surface is in a high degree mountainous, compared with England; and, therefore, in full conformity with the principle advanced, we find the prolificness of marriages in the latter country, as calculated on the ten years preceding the last census, to be 3.591 to one; whereas that of Wales, during the same period, was only 3.29 to one: a difference of nearly 10 per cent." In Switzerland, if we may transfer the calculations of the indefatigable Muret respecting his own canton, Vaud, to the whole Confederation, the prolificness of marriages was considerably less than in France at the same period3. Agreeably to this result it has long

PP.

1 Abstracts, Parish Registers, 1821, 145 and 153.

Ibid., p. 153.

VOL. II.

3 Muret, Mémoires de la Soc. Econ. de Berne, 1766, p. 2.

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been stated that Switzerland is better peopled, in reference to its labourable soil, though not its actual extent, than France.

(9) The last point of consideration in this branch of the argument is the correspondence of the law of mortality to that of fecundity, and the visible adaptation of the latter to the former; a fact not only of a most curious nature in itself, but of the utmost importance to the moral demonstration of the theory of population for which I contend: nor is there one regulation in reference to this theory which, in the great plurality of cases, and under every variety of circumstances, operates with more universality and certainty. And first, it manifests itself as it respects entire countries when relatively examined. For instance, the kingdom of Naples, compared with that of France, is not very dissimilarly peopled. In the former, however, the deaths to the population are nearly as high as 1 in 31, taking an average of the mortality of the years 1822, 1823, and 1824, and calculating on the population of the middle period'. The deaths of France, however, were not, during those years, 1 in 402: a prodigious difference; but the proportion of births to marriages, which was in the latter country only 3.94 to 13, rose as high in the former as 4.86 to 1*. It would be idle to object that in Naples the marriages were more early than in France, or that they were more numerous: the reverse in both instances will turn out to be the fact, if the calculation be made on the correct principle already sufficiently explained.

(10) The same curious fact holds good likewise as it respects the different districts of one and the same

1 Giorn. del Reg. delle due Sicilie, Juil. 1825.

2 Annuaire, 1827, pp. 100, 101.

3 Giorn. del Regno delle due Sicilie, Juil. 1825.

• Annuaire, 1827, p. 101.