of a dispensation, by means of which a Revelation made in one age and country, is, in effect, made to all ages and all nations. For, if we analyze those means, we find that it is the activity of full population in England which has carried the arts that minister to human comfort to unrivalled perfection; that the industry of the same population employed in the transmission of those arts, has found access to the rudest and most distant countries: and that the fulness of every avenue to wealth at home is the foundation of that readiness to emigrate and colonize, which leads to the establishment of Christianity together with civilization. This transference of arts and population leads me to remark, as one of the most admirable beauties of the system, its easy adaptation to the various circumstances in which mankind may be placed by the fortune of their birth. What is the fact? Population, which, in the American states doubles itself within twenty-five years, in the old countries of Eu rope is not supposed to double in less than five hundred years.* Here is a difference so enormous, that we might believe at first sight that it could only be effected by the interposition of rude and violent checks to the increase, in the shape of famine or epidemic disease. The plan, however, of a wise Creator is of gentler operation. It does not require that the population should be reduced, by depriving of existence those who have been once brought into the world: but it provides by a natural check, that the existing number shall never far exceed the actual demand of the country itself for labourers.† Redundance is prevented, not re * This calculation of Smith's does not agree with the quick progress of population in these kingdoms during the last century. But it may be a just average for Europe taken together; and it does not really affect the argument, whether the difference is ten or twenty fold. The fact mentioned by Mr. Malthus is more than sufficient for the purpose: "In New Jersey the proportion of births to deaths, on an average of seven years, ending 1743, was 300 to 100. In France and England the highest average proportion cannot be reckoned at more than 120 to 100." Vol.ii. p. 67. A perversion of the real state of the fact as to this point is too common. 1 medied and prevented by the simple effect of that division of property, which obliges every man, before he brings a family into the world, to see the means of providing for it within his mainly directed against an imaginary position which the author attributes to Mr. Malthus, viz. the necessity of misery to correct the evils of the principle of population. However we may pity the faculties which could fall into such an error, it certainly shows a just view of Divine Providence to be indignant at this supposed injury to his attributes. It appears undeniably from the calculation in the preceding chapter, that if the population of any country were to proceed unchecked, even for a short period, it would so far surpass the power of the land to produce subsistence, that nothing but the death of a part could allow any to survive. But it does not proceed, and is not intended to proceed, in this manner, except where the productive country is as unlimited as the power to increase the number of consumers. If prudential restraint, i. e. the preventive check, is disregarded, who can doubt that famine, war, or epidemics will arise? just as bankruptcy will come upon a man who takes no care of his fortune; or disease will follow the neglect of prudential rules for the management of the constitution. But it is not necessary that the prudential check should be violated; neither, therefore, is it necessary that famine and pestilence should carry off a redundant population. Mr. Malthus, with great candour, has omitted some paragraphs in his late edition, which had before created a wrong impression in the minds of many readers. reach; and thus gradually, as the inhabitants of a country advance nearer and nearer to the limits of their attainable support, protracts the average period of marriage much beyond the time which unchecked nature would dictate. It is true, that if the inclinations were indulged with as little restraint and consideration in old countries, as in the empty wastes of America, some melancholy corrective, as famine, pestilence, or the sword, must soon ensue, and bring things to a level. But man, being moderated by reason, as well as impelled by passion, has the means within his power of keeping, clear of any such desperate condition. Where a space appears, in which the principle of population may act unlimitedly, the natural desire is also the law of reason. But under the different appearance which most European countries present, rational prudence interferes as a check to the natural desire, and, by setting before every individual his own best interests, actually, though perhaps unconsciously, determines the rate in which population shall proceed. In all this there is no violence, no cruelty. nothing contrary to the nature of man, as a reasonable and accountable being. If his lot is cast in a country where no opening appears, by filling which he may gratify the natural wish of planting a family around him; this wish, however natural, yields at once, and almost without a struggle, to the circumstances which impede its gratification. The mind, diverted from one object, turns without pain or convulsion, to another: it seeks for amusement in the endless varieties of pursuit which civilized life affords, and devotes the attention which, in another case, would have been paid to a family, to the interests of dignified ambition or literature. In those In those ages of refinement which oppose obstacles in the way of marriage, many, like Epaminondas, have left a posterity behind them in the victories they have achieved, not indeed, over their fellowmen, but over the difficulties of natural and moral science; victories which might never have been gained, but for the circumstances which diverted their attention from the com VOL. II. |