would pretty exactly serve to indicate the measure of foreign intercourse.

He is no consistent philosopher, who would take away the pillars by which civilization is visibly supported, and argue, that civilization would stand as securely without them. Nor is it necessary to prove again that the existing law of population is the principal of these pillars; or that the necessity it occasions is at the bottom of all intercourse, whether for the purposes of colonization or commerce. Without that necessity men would not be very likely to cross seas or traverse deserts, however easily reconciled to it, when placed under its influ

ence.

In truth, those who would prefer an ordinance of mere reproduction, must create the world itself anew, as well as its inhabitants. Every district must realize the dreams of the golden age, and produce in itself all things requisite to the prosperity of mankind. Cinchona, the sugar-cane, and the potatoe, must

be indigenous in Europe; the useful metals must abound in America and Africa. This argument is not confined to the great divisions of the globe, but is equally applicable to every separate district: all of which must possess within themselves the materials necessary for every useful art, and bring their own inhabitants to equal perfection in the practice of it, or they would gain little on the whole by an ordinance which prevented communication. According to the existing dispensation, there is a division of labour among the inhabitants of the globe as well as among the inhabitants of a city or kingdom, which is equally beneficial on the larger and on the smaller scale.

The fact is, that, when we form the first idea of a scheme from which the stimulus of necessity should be removed, we are apt to paint to our imagination a society restricted from farther increase, protected from more numerous tribes, yet placed in the midst of surrounding civilization; like the republic of Marino as described by Addison, in the neighbourhood of

the populous Italian states, receiving the works of art and of manufacturing industry they might require, in return for the redundant produce of the flocks and herds which it was their simple and innocent concern to tend: enjoying, in short, at once, the advantages of a golden and an iron age. But in forming a consistent hypothesis, we must of course suppose the whole world peopled, as far as it was peopled at all, in the same manner, and advancing in the same way to the rudiments of art and science, without the collision of foreign intercourse or the assistance of foreign wealth. And if such an hypothesis were applied to practice, and followed to its consequences in particular detail, the plain statement would contain the proof of the wisdom of a provision which is calculated to unite mankind into one great family, so as to render partial improvement universally beneficial, and to make individual genius the common property of the whole race.

We shall appreciate more justly the benefits continually diffusing by these means, if we

contemplate the state of the world at the present point of time; and consider how, in every part of it, the quick progress of population is spreading civilization. We may look first to northern Asia: where Russia has been for

many years extending her supernumerary subjects over the rude and pastoral nations which belong to that immense empire. These comparatively civilized people, together with the settlers which have been transported from the overpeopled districts of Germany, are introducing habits of industry, and communicating the advantage of their experience in the arts. From the moment when an industrious race has established itself in the neighbourhood of a rude and indolent people, the improvement of their condition is inevitable. They have no other chance of competition. For, the addition of people, and their superior views of comfort increasing the demand for the necessaries of life, enhance also their marketable value to a price which only industry can pay. The natives, therefore, either unite with the foreign race by intermarriage and assimilation, becom

ing an useful and industrious people; or they retire from habits with which they can neither cope nor imitate, and, through the increasing difficulty of rearing a family, gradually disappear. The barbarism of Asiatic Russia has felt this influence; and civilized habits have, during the last fifty years, been spreading with rapid strides. Siberia, which was formerly a wilderness utterly unknown, and in population far behind even the almost desert tracts of North America, is now a flourishing colony, its imported inhabitants greatly exceeding the natives in number. And the case is generally the same throughout the settlements, where that degree of civilization is already attained, which the rigour of the climate, the difficulty of transporting produce, and the little opportunity of commercial intercourse allow.

The immense and populous kingdoms of southern Asia do not appear to require the assistance of foreign supernumeraries. Being subject to regular governments and division of ranks; supported by agriculture, and advanced