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In the second book an appeal is made to the experience of mankind in different ages and countries of the world, particularly those which have been referred to for a contrary purpose; and it is shown that whenever and wherever the population has advanced, instead of the individual shares of the means of subsistence having been diminished, directly the contrary has been invariably the effect; and that not only has the quantity of food increased in a superproportion, but that its nature and quality have undergone as striking an improvement. The proof, indeed, extends to the animal creation: as population has multiplied, the surplus food has sufficed to sustain a far greater relative and still increasing number of those animals which are kept by man for convenience, pleasure, or display, and which, in an advanced stage of civilization, consume so large a quantity of the products of cultivation.

On the other hand, it is clearly shown that in every country where the inhabitants have unhappily diminished, there, instead of the means of subsistence having been more liberally dispensed, the population has been invariably still more degraded and reduced in condition than in numbers.

In the former part of this book, a view is taken of the history of Greece and Rome, and other ancient states, in relation to this question, and the opinion of the ancient philosophers and legislators is shown to have been very dif

ferent to what is now represented; their fears, generally speaking, were excited by the evils of a declining rather than an enlarging population; fears, prompted by the facts they witnessed and recorded, and which futurity has confirmed in so striking a manner. It may be added, that the character of Plato is completely rescued from the imputation of his having ever contemplated infanticide as a regulator of the population of his imaginary Republic, much more from his having recommended it.

In this branch of the argument, which necessarily extends to a very considerable length, the history of our own country, as incomparably the most interesting and important part of the inquiry, is particularly attended to. It is hoped that facts as conclusive as they are curious are brought forward, in proof that England has confirmed, in every period of its history, the principle of population for which I contend, as that of nature and of God.

The succeeding section of the work is devoted exclusively to the consideration of the population of China and America; the two main pillars of the contrary theory-the latter, as it is supposed, exhibiting the principle of human increase doubling itself at the presumed intervals by procreation only, as in actual operation; and the former, as furnishing an example of that principle having advanced to its utmost limits, arrested by necessity, and "kept down to the level of the means of subsistence" by those

distressing and disgusting checks which the theory enunciates. These being the only practical demonstrations of the system opposed, particular attention has been paid to each. And regarding the latter, if we may be per mitted to dismiss the authority of the "Lettres édifiantes et curieuses," the "lying missionaries" of Adam Smith, in favour of modern authorities, and amongst these, especially, our own scientific countrymen, this appeal, so constantly made, is completely silenced. China is now known to be a country very sparingly inhabited, excepting, perhaps, upon the borders of the grand canal, and often so, even there. Malte-Brun, from the numerous authorities he consulted, estimates the number of the Chinese at considerably less than half that given to Lord Macartney by the veracious Chow-ta-Zhin, in a document which he ridicules, and which, on the face of it, is a palpable forgery. Mr. Malthus, however, I perceive, with an unaccountable pertinacity, still continues to put forth this statement, even now that several official censuses of China have been published within a few years past, all of which, agreeing with each other, confirm the recorded opinion of every recent writer of credit who has had an opportunity of judging on the subject, that China, in reference either to its extent or fertility, is decidedly one of the worst peopled countries upon earth. If the Chinese, therefore, are plunged in the misery Mr. Malthus describes, and resort to infanticide in order to repress their

numbers (a fact, however, which the latest and best writers seem unanimously to discredit), China becomes one of the strongest proofs in favour of the argument I am maintaining. In England there are two hundred and twentyseven inhabitants in the square mile; in China, with her boasted soil and double harvests, there are ninety-seven only.

But to the population of America, far better known than that of China, and on which the theory I am opposing professes to be mainly founded, still more particular attention has been paid, and by a series of proofs and calculations, which extend through several chapters, it is clearly shown that the geometric ratio of increase has no existence even there, much less that the increase actually taking place is independent of emigration. Both of these conclusions rest on a variety of proofs, founded principally on the American censuses themselves. Two branches of the argument, however, shall only be alluded to on this occasion; either of which is perfectly decisive. A very few years subsequently to the period when Mr. Malthus reports the settlers of New England as amounting to twenty-one thousand two hundred only, adding, that it was calculated more left them afterwards than went to them*, (a number which, without the least examination, is palpably incorrect and irreconcileable with the importance of our North American Colo

Essay on Population, p. 338.

nies, even at that early period) we find, on the authority of the reports of the governors of the respective states now existing in the public offices at home, that the inhabitants, then principally confined to New England, amounted in the whole to considerably upwards of two hundred thousand souls; so that if the geometric ratio contended for had been true, there would have been at least twice as many inhabitants in the United States as exist there at the present moment, had there not subsequently gone a single emigrant to the American shores. The particulars and dates of the enumerations alluded to are given, and a history of emigration from thence to the period when America became, as one of its most intelligent writers observes, "the colony of Europe," is subjoined, by which it is conceived the fallacy of the strange assertion, that emigration has been "immaterial" to the rapid growth of its population, will be fully apparent. The admission of an annual accession of ten thousand, with an increase of three per cent. upon that number, instead of being "immaterial" would, I think, as calculated by logarithms, amount, in a single century only, to more than six-sevenths of the entire white population. But no such annual increase as three per cent. can possibly take place on an entire population, by" procreation only," consistently with the established laws of nature, developed under the most favourable circumstances. The error, however, of attri

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