it is notorious that every state of society, except the first possessors of uncleared countries, is reduced in order to procure subsistence for some of its members. It arises from the activity of the principle, which, as long as it remains unchecked, as in America, and to a considerable degree in some parts of the Russian empire, so quickly doubles the population, that in old and fully peopled countries the population is still constantly pressing against the means of support, and labouring to increase, by every possible mode, the quantity of food which the country affords.

A survey of the different conditions in which we find mankind collected; whether the hunting state, the pastoral, the agricultural, or the commercial; will satisfactorily prove, that by a principle inherent in their constitution, mankind invariably press against, and have a tendency to surpass their actual and available supply of food.

It would appear that in the hunting countries,

though they are so thinly peopled, that a traveller may go many hundred miles without meeting half a dozen persons, the distresses which are occasionally suffered from hunger are incredible. Mr. Hearne, after describing some in which he was so unfortunate as to participate, desires that these may be considered as no more than the common occurrences of an Indian life, in which they are frequently driven to the necessity of eating one another.*

It would appear, that in the immense districts of Asiatic Russia, Turkey, and the inhabited parts of Africa, we find the same truth universally meeting us. Insecurity of property, arising from vicious government at home, and from the perpetual risk of foreign incursions, spreads an unnatural sterility over the most fertile countries of the world. Yet it is an un

Quoted by Mr. Weyland, in his volume on Population and Production, p. 34. It is necessary to remark here, that the cause of these evils is not over-population, but want of regular industry. The fact really proved is, that there is no country where the demand for food is below the supply.

deniable fact, that the people, under every circumstance of discouragement, rudely press against the limits of their actual subsistence. Even countries so peculiarly situated as North America, and the newly settled districts of Russia, do not furnish an exception to the general rule the pressure, of course, is less severe; population only reaches the available supply, without passing it; but still it reaches those bounds; there is nothing to spare.

With regard to the more crowded commercial countries of Europe, the most advanced we know in point of absolute civilization, we have only to look around us in order to be satisfied whether the people do not increase up to the means of support; i. e. whether those who have no other maintenance than the daily wages of their labour, do not increase till that labour earns barely sufficient to support their families. The result of such observation cannot fail to be, that in every department of national industry there are more claimants for employ than employers; that the demand is

for labour rather than for labourers; that there are somewhat more manufacturers, more artificers, more agriculturists than can be usefully or profitably, under the existing circumstances, kept in activity by the funds destined for their maintenance. And as labour is the only claim to support which the lowest classes can urge; to be without employ, is to be without support; and to multiply beyond the demand for labour, is to multiply beyond the available supply of subsistence.

While every new discovery acquaints us that this principle is not partial in its influence, we learn from history that it has always operated, and produced the same effect. The invasion of Egypt by the shepherd kings, for whose increase their original limits had become insufficient, took place within three hundred years of the deluge, and shows how rapidly the most desirable part of the East had been occupied.*

* The other accounts we possess of this period tend to the same conclusion. The partition of countries, a hundred years after the flood, was of course dictated by expediency,

The numerous migrations from the maritime states of Asia and ancient Greece, show the constant tendency of the parent countries to multiply beyond the means of comfortable subsistence. Neither the fertility nor the barrenness of any region seems to prevent the same cause from ending in the same result. Even

if not by absolute necessity. The dispersion from Babel followed at the distance of a hundred and fifty years, and it was soon after that event, that the invasion alluded to in the text happened, by part of the family of Ham, who, according to Manetho, took possession of Memphis, under the title of Auritæ, or shepherds. See Bryant, Ant. Myth. vol. i. How much light is thrown upon history by the exposition of the principle of population, appears from the following passage of Mr. Mitford: "Mankind, according to the most ancient of historians, considerably informed and polished, but inhabiting yet only a small portion of the earth, was inspired generally with a spirit of migration. What gave at the time peculiar energy to that spirit, which seems always to have existed extensively among men, commentators have indeed, with bold absurdity, undertaken to explain; but the historian himself has evidently intended only general, and that now become obscure information. All history, however, proves that such a spirit has operated over the far greater part of the globe; and we know that it has never yet ceased to actuate, in a greater or less degree, a large portion of mankind." Hist. of Greece, vol. 1. sect. 1.