(16) Such are the proofs the population of Russia affords to the doctrine advanced in this book. The increase in one or two of the first years in the second section of the table was doubtless checked by the war with France; but I conceive this is far more than balanced by the thirteen years of universal peace which ensued, especially if we at all advert to the effects which the more lengthened wars in the first period certainly produced.

(17) But the necessity of all minute rectifications, and all doubts as to the cogency of the argument, are at once removed when we attend to the following facts. First, the expectation of life, as well by the introduction of vaccination as by other means, has undoubtedly improved in Russia as well as in every other civilized country, during the latter half of the period embraced in this table; and part of the increase in that division of it is to be attributed to that cause, proportionably lessening therefore the increase which has taken place from natural prolificness only. Second: the Greek religion, to which the above table solely refers, has most certainly augmented the number of its professors in the Russian empire by other means than procreation; namely, by the numerous accessions to the dominant faith, Christianity, which in that vast extent of country where it is only partially professed, are constantly taking place; and above all, by those acquisitions amounting to many thousands of square miles, and containing millions of Greek Christians which have been added to the empire during the same period. On the whole, then, notwithstanding the greater accumulation of population from an equal number of births, which takes place in consequence of the elongation of human life, and the large accessions to the numbers of the Greek

church by other means than that of procreation, the increase of the population relatively to its numbers has actually declined; proving, therefore, that the prolificness of marriages during the same term has diminished in a still more extraordinary degree. The statistics of Russia, therefore, abundantly demonstrate the principle at issue.

(18) In Denmark the prolificness of marriages from the year 1769 to 1774 averaged, as before mentioned, 4.89 children each1. In twenty years afterward, the population having considerably augmented, that proportion was reduced to 4.04 to one. In Prussia, from the year 1756 to 1784, the same proportion was 4.7 to one in the year 1817, the population, meantime, having at least trebled, we find it reduced to 4.05 to one3.

(19) In Sweden, the fecundity of marriages in 1748, the population being then 1,736,483 only, was 4.3 children to each; in 1823, the population amounting to 2,687,457, that fecundity had fallen to 4.09. That the prolificness of marriages has diminished in Sweden, Mr. Malthus acknowledges, accounting for it, however, conformably to his system, and therefore erroneously. The marriages are neither fewer in proportion to the population, nor contracted at a later period in life, but the reverse is the truth in both cases.

(20) Since writing the preceding paragraph, an extract from the report of the royal commission of statistics, regarding the births, &c. of this kingdom, from 1821 to 1825, has met my eye. This brings down the information to a later date, and the facts it presents in relation to the present subject are as follows.

Tab.

396.

Sussmilch, Gött. Ord., th. ii., p. 64. vi. Univers., Géog. et Statist., t. iv,

2 Ibid., th. iii., p. 63. Tab.

Jacob, Travels, p. 233.

p. 302.

6

Kongl. Tabell commiss., &c. Bul.

4 Wargentin, Ency. Brit. Supp., vol. Univers., vol. xiii., p. 499.

TABLE LXXXVII.

SHEWING THE PROLIFICNESS OF MARRIAGES in Sweden DURING FIVE YEARS, FROM 1821 TO 1825 INCLUSIVE.

(21) The kingdom of the Netherlands, which has been already noticed as fulfilling the rule of human increase by means the most varied, still conforms to the general argument in this respect also, as the following short table, exhibiting the increase of four consecutive years, will fully shew1.

TABLE LXXXVIII.

SHEWING THE DIMINISHING RATIO OF INCREASE IN THE Kingdom of THE NETHERLANDS AS POPULATION HAS INCREASED, FROM THE YEARS 1824 TO 1827 INCLUSIVE.

1

1 Quetelet, Recherches sur la Pop., &c., des Pays-bas, p. 5.

488

CHAPTER XVI.

OF THE LAW OF POPULATION; AS PROVED BY THE EFFECTS OF THE INCREASE OF INHABITANTS UPON HUMAN PROLIFICNESS IN IRELAND AND IN THE UNITED STATES.

(1) IT has been already remarked that the statistics of Ireland and of the United States of America, two countries concerning which more has been said of late, in reference to population, than of all the nations in the world besides, present us with no accounts of annual marriages and births. In the former part of the argument, however, a proof of the principle of population has been constructed, from the materials which their respective censuses present, as discriminated into ages; of infinitely more importance than had it been founded upon the facts appealed to respecting the other countries examined: arriving, as it did, at the same conclusion by means totally different, and not liable to those objections which may, possibly, though unfairly, be urged against the former method. I proceed, therefore, to apply the same principle of computation to the further consideration of the population of these two countries, in reference to the historical part of the present demonstration; and first, as it regards Ireland.

(2) Ireland is a country where the population has probably varied more than in most others, and must, therefore, furnish a proof of the principle, if it is true, of a most minute and interesting and decisive nature; supposing us to be in possession of the necessary data. During the course of this inquiry, I have met with

such, and have applied them to the argument, with what success the following results will determine.

(3) Dr. Anderson has transcribed, in his History of Commerce1, a printed list of the families in each of the four provinces of Ireland, about the year 1733; which, according to the mode of enumeration then adopted, and corroborated by the statement of Dr. Maule, the Bishop of Dromore, amounted to the following number of persons in each. In Leinster, 653,020; in Munster, 614,654; in Ulster, 505,395; and in Connaught, 242, 160; which give, in the first province, 150 on the square mile; in the second, 116; in the third, 104; in the last, 59. According to the principle of population for which I contend, the prolificness would be the greatest, where the numbers on an equal space were the fewest; and consequently the increase, in such cases, the largest. Now, it must be remarked, that the order in which these provinces then ranked, in reference to the density of the population, was almost directly the reverse of that in which they stand at present. If, therefore, through the intervening period of nearly ninety years, the increase has conformed to the law of population laid down, it will certainly amount to an additional proof of its reality and truth, of a singularly satisfactory character; as shewing that that law acts upon a principle totally distinct from any temporary or local peculiarities whatsoever: and such turns out to be the fact. The following table, in which the provinces are arranged according to the comparative density of the population at the former period, exhibits these conclusive results.

1 Anderson, History of Commerce, vol. ii., p. 348.