official authority, most clearly indicates that the principle of human increase is as fully operative in Prussia now as it was half a century ago. The facts are classed agreeably to those already given, and are these. TABLE LXIX. DEMONSTRATING THE LAW OF POPULATION FROM THE COMPARATIVE INCREASE IN THE PROVINCES OF PRUSSIA, FROM 1820 TO 1827. (6) Thus, by the preceding table it appears that, during the last eight years, the increase has been the greatest where the population has been the smallest, and that the difference has regularly conformed to, and, indeed, fully confirmed, the law of population, as deduced from the statistics of other countries, and by a different method. Hence where there were, in 1827, less than 2000 inhabitants on the square German mile, the average annual increase during the eight preceding years was 1.744 per cent.; where they amounted to between 2000 and 3000 on the same space, that increase was only 1.451; where to between 3000 to 4000, it was 1.308; where to 4000, and less than 5000, 1.279; and, lastly, where to upwards of 5000, on the same area, that increase was 1.114 only, exhibiting a difference, comparing the first and last sections, therefore, in the annual increase, of between 50 and 60 per cent.; the intermediate ones, in the mean time, classing themselves in exact conformity with the principle under consideration. The proof, as it regards Prussia, therefore, might well be considered as conclusive. I am not unwilling, however, to submit the principle to a further and somewhat more rigorous examination. In the following table, then, the subdivisions of these provinces are taken separately, and the whole number classed as before. This more minute method gives the following results : TABLE LXX. DEMONSTRATING THE LAW OF POPULATION FROM THE COMPARATIVE INCREASE IN THE SUBDIVISIONS OF THE PROVINCES OF PRUSSIA, FROM 1820 TO 1827. (7) In the preceding table, then, the increase in the population of the twenty-five subdivisions of the Prussian provinces, respectively calculated as before, evidences the principle of population contended for, by a difference in the average annual increase in them, when classed as before, of more than 70 per cent., and varied as follows: in that division of the table, where the inhabitants on the square German mile are Less than 1500, the annual increase has been From 1500 to 2000 2000 to 2500 2500 to 3000 3000 to 4000 4000 to 5000 1.912 and 5000 and upwards (8) These proofs of the true principle of human increase, to which I have only had access while these pages were printing, are, considering the circumstances already mentioned, too striking to need a word of explanation. (9) I recollect only two other countries of which we possess regular registers of marriages and births, which have not been adverted to; namely, Wales and the Kingdom of the Netherlands: the former of which has been already particularized as possessing a surface remarkably varied and mountainous, and, consequently, forming one of those modifications of the general rule which are necessary to accomplish its plain purpose as a law of beneficence: the latter has yet to be considered as exhibiting, in one and the same country, the principle in question, accomplishing, through the very means of its apparent exceptions, its one wise and uniform intent. Previously, however, to entering upon the examination of the censuses of |