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resulting from improvement in the quantity and quality of food, clothing, and lodging the number of children begotten having been the same, and the exercise of the procreative power a constant quantity.* Admitting this to be so, we are brought to the remarkable conclusion, that increase in the duration of life, resulting from increased command of the necessaries, conveniences, and comforts of life, leads, and that inevitably, to the establishment of pauperism and slavery as the normal condition of the great masses of the human race. Such are the inconsistencies of theorists, who fail to find in the law regulating the growth of population, the same adaptation to circumstances that is so clearly seen to exist in every other portion of the material world!

At times, after periods of war or pestilence, human fertility is much increased, and the question at once arises, as to which is the cause, and which the effect. Is war required to correct an error of the Creator, or has the Creator himself supplied the corrective required for removing the effects of human error? Does natural health require the establishment of an ulcer, by the drainage of which plethora is to be relieved? or, is the large supply of fluids escaping from an extensive suppurating surface, provided for the purpose of meeting an accidental drainage? Here is a question, the answer to which may be found in the following brief narrative of a case in surgical practice, now before us. A man in full health, exposed to severe cold, had had his limbs frozenextensive and long-continued ulceration, attended by copious discharges, being its results. Amputation proving necessary, the surgical wound heals rapidly—the emaciated patient speedily not only recovering his flesh, but suffering from obesity, and at length

The changes that have taken place in the duration of life, in the last three centuries, have thus been estimated:

"In the latter part of the sixteenth century, one-half of all who were born died under five years of age-the average longevity of the whole population being but eighteen years. In the seventeenth century, one-half died under twelve years; but in the first sixty years of the eighteenth century, one-half of the population lived over twenty-seven years. In the latter forty years, one-half exceeded thirty-two years of age. At the beginning of the present century, one-half exceeded forty years; and from 1838 to 1845, one-half exceeded forty-three. The average longevity at these successive periods has been increased from eighteen years in the sixteenth century up to 43.7 by the last reports.

"This increase in the duration of life has been caused by improved medical science, improvements in the construction of houses, drainage of streets, and superior clothing."

dying from internal engorgement resulting from excessive nutrition, or plethora. Such being the facts, little professional knowledge would seem to be required for deciding, that this excesssive supply of fluid had been produced during the continuance of the disease, with a view to meet the accidental waste-the fatal issue being wholly due to the injudicious suddenness with which its flow. had been arrested. Nothing, certainly, in the previous bodily condition of the subject of this accident, warrants the conclusion, that the freezing and ulceration were necessary, as either "positive or preventive checks" to an excessive energy of secretion. The human frame, threatened with exhaustion by an accidental waste of its vital fluids, can, in self-defence, double, treble, or quadruple its productive power, in whatsoever direction; but, is this rate of vital activity, in one direction, the law of the structure, demanding the correction and restraint of disease? *

Vegetable life exhibits similar phenomena affording, by analogy, similar inferences, available for our argument. A sugar

* A bone being broken, or a wound inflicted, nature at once departs from her accustomed course, with a view to repair the injury. That such is also the case in reference to the phenomena of reproduction, is clearly shown in the changes in the proportions of the sexes at birth, that are observed. The wars of Louis XIV. and XV. caused a great deficiency in the supply of men, as compared with women; and yet, at the opening of the revolution, the proportions had been restored. The wars of the revolution and the empire caused such a waste of men, that in the year IX. the excess of females was 725,225. Later, that excess increased; and so recently as 1820, the deficiency of males amounted to 868,325. Gradually, however, it declined, the following figures exhibiting the differences found in several successive periods:

1835
1840

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In the decennial period terminating in 1840, the male births of Philadel phia exceeded the females, by an average of 6.29 per cent. Nevertheless, the year 1833 gave an excess of females-that excess being found in the months corresponding with the conceptions that had taken place during the prevalence of cholera in 1832. The diminution of male conceptions in that period was not less than 17 per cent. Similar phenomena, precisely, were observed in Paris-the excess of male births in 1832 being in its usual proportion, whereas, in the month of 1833 corresponding with December, 1832, when the cholera had become most fatal, there was an excess of females. That these differences were certainly due to the prevalence of that disease, is proved by the facts, that in those portions of the city exempt from it, there was a universally large excess of males, while in those most subject to it, there was an actual excess of females. EMERSON: American Journal of the Medical Sciences, July, 1848.

tree, in full vigor, tapped for the first time, will yield but half a pound of sugar in the season. Let it, however, be tapped for several successive seasons, and it will yield three pounds - the health of the tree being thereby in no manner affected. Here, the supply first given is but one-sixth of what is afterwards produced, to be spared from the service of its own particular life. Need the question be asked, as to whether the tree, full as it had been of health and vigor, required the drainage to relieve the plethora, or whether the drainage induced a surplus flow of sap, for the purpose of supplying the accidental waste? Applying this case to the question of population, it might, with great propriety, be asked - Has the drainage of population from Ireland produced a tendency of vital force in the direction of procreation; or has the drainage been required for the correction of excess in the procreative tendency?

The difference between vegetable and animal modes of vitality, whatever it be, docs not affect the bearing of these instances upon the proposition under consideration-life, of every kind and degree, requiring similar provisions of constitutional law. In all cases, organic capabilities must be accommodated to the conditions by which the being is likely to be affected — failure in this being followed by failure in the scheme of creation, and disappointment of its purposes.

It has been intended here to show, first, that none of the functions of the human body has any such fixed and determined rule of action, as would permit of its being made the basis of arithmetical formulæ, as has been done by Mr. Malthus and his successors; next, that they all vary, under varying conditions, through the whole scale, from deficiency up to excess; third, that they vary in their form, under self-adjusting laws, in obedience to the final cause of the being's existence; and lastly, that there is no instance, throughout the whole of nature's realm, in which the known laws of the subject thwart their own objects, or break the harmony of the general scheme of creation.

In answer, it may be said, that the germs of life perish in a thousand seeds, for one that finds root, and survives in successive generations. The reply, however, is a plain and simple onethey being the proper food of beasts, birds, and men, to that end, and that alone, appointed. Having performed that work, their

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office is fulfilled, without jar, or break, in the general order. Beasts, birds, and fishes, prey upon each other— man, in turn, subsisting upon them all. Here, again, we find no inconsistency, no violation of the order of creation so plainly indicated these inferior animals being plainly destined to violent death, and thus most mercifully relieved from the incapacities attendant upon great advance in age. Being well provided with those instincts which are called into action by the necessity for providing for their young, the continuance of the races is thus secured. Having no filial affection, impelling them to provide material aid and comforts for the aged, they have no hospitality, no family economy, no capabilities for either social service, or such further self-development as would make life, prolonged beyond a vigorous maturity, either a necessity, or a blessing, to them. Consequent upon this it is, that we find nothing in their constitution which either predicts, or pledges, a life. prolonged beyond an average maturity.

Of all earthly creatures, below the rank of man, it may be safely said, that their sufficiency for his use is the fulfilment of their destiny. His existence, however, has no such reference to a higher class of beings here, as to warrant the idea, that his life may be crippled, abridged, or otherwise disappointed, without involving a violation of the harmony of things, and a disturbance of the order, plainly indicated in the constitution of the system at the head of which he has been placed. It is not the divine order, but man's disorder, that limits his earthly life so far within the period, beyond which he ceases to be useful to his fellows, or to find enjoyment for himself.

§3. In the inorganic world, all the compounds are constantsthe composition of clay, coal, and granite, being the same now that it was a thousand years since, and certain to be the same a thousand years hence. In the organic world, we find a susceptibility of change, the fruits and flowers developed by cultivation being greatly superior to those existing in their original state -the dog and the horse exhibiting themselves, at times, as capable of receiving instruction fitted to enable them almost to take their places by the side of the reasoning man. Look where we may, however, we meet with evidence of the one great law, VOL. III.-18

that the power of progress is in the direct ratio of the dissimilarity of the parts, and consequent perfection of organization.

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Coming now to man, we find the highest physical organization, combined with a power for intellectual development, that places him far above all other creatures; and here it is, that we find no constants all the parts and portions of the MAN, as distinguished from the animal, being in a perpetual course of change— the power of association growing in one country, and declining in another individuality becoming more and more developed in one portion of society, and less so in others- the feeling of responsibility augmenting in one man, while decaying in those around him one set of men becoming more provident from year to year, while another becomes more reckless one nation manifesting the existence of a power for rapid progress in the direction of increasing civilization, when, close at hand may be found others whose progress is equally rapid in the direction of total barbarism. In the first of these, freedom increases from day to day, with constant increase of the feeling of hope in all the men of whom the community is composed. In the last, freedom gradually declines, and slavery takes its place their members becoming more despairing from year to year. In the one, hope in the future prompts to the feeling of self-respectthat, in time, producing foresight. In the other, recklessness exhibits itself as the offspring of despair.

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The qualities of the man thus indicated are very various, but are yet in close relation each and every of them in the ascending scale, tending to promote the advance of every other; that, too, as certainly as does decline in any one tend to cause diminution in every other. The more perfect the power of association, the greater becomes the development of individuality, that, in turn, by increasing the number of differences in society, greatly increasing the power of association and combination. The greater the development of the individual faculties, the more perfect is the physical and mental power of the individual man, and the more absolute is his responsibility to himself, to his family, to his fellowmen, and to his Creator for all his actions.* Responsibility, in its

*That responsibility exists in the ratio of the development of the various faculties, is proved by the fact that the law does not hold the monomanias responsible for his actions.

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