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tions, which are calculated to prevent, and certainly do prevent, a great number of persons, in all civilized nations, from pursuing the dictate of nature in an early attachment to one woman. This check, the restraint from marriage, he properly denominates moral restraint.

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The positive checks to population are extremely various, and include every cause, whether arising from vice or misery, which in any degree, contributes to shorten the natural term of human life.Under this head, he, therefore, enumerates all unwholesome occupations, severe labor, exposure to the seasons, extreme poverty, bad nursing of children, great towns, excesses of all kinds, the whole train of common diseases and epidemics, wars, plague, and famine; and on examining these obstacles to population, it will appear that they are resolvable into moral restraint, vice, and misery.

That there is a real and universal tendency to increase beyond the means of subsistence, that these are the constantly operating checks to a redundant population, and that, moreover, the state of population, never ceasingly, varies according to the fluctuations in the state of human food, Mr. Malthus endeavors to prove by referring to the history of man, in all ages, in all countries, and under different, and the most opposite states of society; in that of the lowest state of savage barbarism, and in that which has obtained the highest degree of civilisation and social refinement; and he gives a detailed, and, apparently, a correct view of society and manners, as influenced by the state of numbers, in the several countries, and among the inhabitants of Terra del Fuego; New Holland; America; the American Indians; the Islands of the South Sea; the ancient inhabitants of the North of Europe; the more modern pastoral nations; the different parts of Africa; Siberia, northern and southerng the Turkish dominions and Persia; Indostan and Thibet; China and Japan; the Greeks; the Romans; different states of modern Europe; Norway; Sweden; Russia; the middle parts of Europe; Switzerland; France; England, Scotland, and Ireland.

The accumulated facts contained in these extraordinary details are certainly appalling, but neither can they be controverted, nor their possible results be denied; and were not the circumstances adverted to, extreme ones, and the period of their calamitous occurrence remote and indefinite, at least in countries which have attained a certain degree of civilization, they could not be dwelt upon without painful emotions, or fail to excite distressing forebodings for our posterity, even in this favored country.

In endeavouring to form an idea of an approximation to a state of population, with such an adequate supply of food, as should induce the wretched circumstances contemplated, the imagination

would not, however, fail to be relieved by a consideration of the great variety of means, which would necessarily be had recourse. to by an intelligent and well-governed people, to increase and economise food. It would, obviously, be suggested, that the multiplication of numbers is the multiplication of minds, and in the state of society assumed, of intelligent minds, the beneficial results of whose combined and well-directed efforts, in the most arduous circumstances, are scarcely to be calculated, and, in many instances, seem without ascertainable limit.

But Mr. Malthus himself does not really anticipate such an event, however possible it may be, and however evident he may have proved the tendency to it: he knows it is prevented by constantly existing causes; but he laments the necessity for their existence, because they are the principal instruments of human misery, war, vice, disease, and premature mortality; and his benevolent mind would suggest less exceptionable means of averting the calamity, by extending the influence of the moral or preventive checks.

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The evil of an over population, or the difficulty of obtaining subsistence, or, which is the same thing, the inability, by their own efforts, to procure a requisite quantity of food, must obviously, be first felt by the lower classes; and if any part of society, at the present period, be liable to experience it, and does actually experience it, it must be the lowest, or, as they are more expressly denominated, the indigent classes. In these the increase of numbers must generally operate to the increase of the evil, and Mr. Malthus is thence induced particularly to advert to them, and in the strongest manner to urge their avoiding too early marriages, so as not to be involved, while young, in the difficulty of maintaining a family, from which their future efforts are so little likely to extricate them; but, on the contrary, to endeavor, at an early period, to practise industry and frugality, deferring marriage until a little saving has been effected, and their industry, sobriety, and frugality, by becoming habitual, may be relied upon, as the means, and they can be the only means, by which they can meet occasional pressure, pass through life with any degree of comfort and respectability, and, (which, in their situation, is of incalculable value,) have any possible chance of rising out of the unfortunate situation in society, in which their humble birth has placed them.

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But he laments that such advice is, but in few instances, likely to be followed.He fears that a thoughtless disposition to early marriage among the poor, a blindness to the future, and an indifference to what may be the future condition of a family, have been, unhappily, much promoted by the unfortunate system of poor laws in this country, which, he says, "has been justly stated to be an evil, in comparison of which, the national debt, with all its

magnitude of terror, is of little moment." It will, I believe, indeed, be admitted that this system has greatly enfeebled, if not destroyed, the most powerful motive to a poor man's industry, loosened the only strong hold on his uniform exertions, the apprehension of absolute want; and induced, among the poor, on all occasions of pressure and difficulty, a reliance on the parochial rate rather than on their own efforts, thus most unfavorably changing their character, by the extinction of independent and moral feelings.

Mr. Malthus has enlarged, most impressively, on this subject; and few persons will, probably, read his observations without a full conviction of their force and truth; and yet few, I fear, will read them, without an equal conviction of the difficulty, if not impracticability, of doing away the poor laws, notwithstanding his proposal of effecting their gradual abolition, by preventing children, in future, being entitled to parish assistance, excepting every one above the number of six in a family; as the attempt to put it in force would, probably, meet with insuperable opposition in the general feeling of commiseration excited for such unfortunate and helpless beings, and which feelings, however in this instance they may be acknowledged to be misdirected, it certainly is not desirable, nor perhaps would it be practicable to extinguish,'

It must, however, after all, be admitted, that population in this country has been increasing for some time past; the census, which, within a few years, has been twice taken, is unequivocal evidence of it; in England alone, that of 1811, exceeding that of 1801, by 1,162,250, and the increase in thirty-eight years, from 1778 to 1811, in the three towns of Manchester, Liverpool, and Leeds, having been no less than 180,163. "And there seems reason to believe that the accelerated progress of increase, exhibited by the

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In adverting to the evils manifestly produced by the system of poor laws in England, and which are beginning to be felt as a most serious national calamity, I was a little surprised to find Mr. Malthus has not noticed, probably not having seen, Dr. M'Farlan's excellent Enquiry concerning the poor, published in 1782. He would have found in it many important apposite remarks, some anticipations of his own excellent ones, and much. matter for thinking.

I still more wonder that the well-informed writer of the admirable article on pauperism, in the Edinburgh Review, for March, 1817, should not have' adverted to it; particularly as Dr. M'Farlan so well considered the state of the poor in Scotland at that period, so plainly, also, foresaw, and so justly predicted the ill effects of the change of system of relieving them, then beginning to take place, in the substitution of something like parochial assessments, for the voluntary and more charitable donations at churches, and which is so satisfactorily and impressively enlarged upon in the Review. * Enfield's History of Liverpool, page 25, gives the population of these towns in 1773, and that in 1811 is taken from the census of that year.

growing ratio of excess of births above deaths, to the whole population, has yet received no check; and that the augmentation, of the people is increasing with a rapidity as great in the second as in the first decade of the century.'

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The general improvement in the condition of society; the greater attention, at present, paid to cleanliness, and the removal of sources of vitiated air, in towns; the more rational methods of nursing children; the better general treatment of diseases, particularly in the office of nursing; the measures practised to prevent the spread of contagion, and the extensive influence of vaccination, all, obviously, tend to keep up population, and seem likely, not only in continued, but in progressively increased operation, more and more to reduce the positive checks to it.

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Every advance, moreover, in civilization; every amelioration in morals; the march of science; the progress of arts; multiplied inventions; every new discovery; every new application of a principle; the researches made into the laws and economy of nature, &c. all tend to improve the condition, to increase the secu– rity, and, as a consequence, to multiply the numbers of the human

race.

And are not all our energies employed, and all our efforts uni formly and constantly directed to promote these? Is it not the

See a well-written paper on the increasing populousness of England, in the Journal of Science and Arts, No. X. page 307.

Among the various facts adduced to prove the power of vaccination in securing human life, and its consequent influence on population, none is more striking than the following extract from the Essai politique sur les Probabilitès, by the Count Laplace, noticed sometime ago in the Edinburgh Review, and which cannot be too much known:

The ratio of the population, to the number of births, would be increased if we could diminish or destroy any disease that is dangerous and common. This has been done, happily, in the case of the small pox,-first by the common inoculation for the disease itself, and afterwards in a much more complete manner, by the vaccine inoculation, the inestimable discovery of JENNER, who has rendered himself, by that means, one of the greatest be nefactors of the human race.

"The most simple way of calculating the advantage which the extinction of a disease would produce, consists in determining, from observation, the number of individuals, of a given age, who die of it yearly, and in subtracting the amount from the total number of deaths of persons at that same age. The ratio of the difference, to the total number alive at the same age, would be the probability of dying at that age, if the disease did not exist. By summing up all these probabilities, from the beginning of life to a given time, and taking the sum from unity, the remainder will be the probability of living to that age, on the hypothesis of the disease in question being extinguished. From the series of these probabilities, the mean duration life, on the same supposition, may be computed according t well known MDU VILARD has found that the mean duration of human life is increased, at least, three years by the vaccine inoculation."

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object of every human action and occupation to better the condition of man? Next to the strong principle of self-preservation, next to the desire of promoting individual interest, do we not constantly combine in all our public acts, to promote the general welfare? are they not, indeed, inseparable? and are not our sympathies, our affections, our best moral feelings, given us for this express purpose?

And shall we then, under such circumstances, under a proved actually and rapidly increasing population, lightly appreciate the exertions directed to the increased population of human food, which can alone meet it? Shall we lightly estimate those who are improving and successfully practising the only art which can create it? Shall we think little of agriculture, which, as Hume states, " is not only that species of industry, which is chiefly requisite to the subsistence of multitudes, but which is, in fact, the sole species, by which multitudes can exist ?"

And shall we, moreover, withhold the meed of respect and gratitude to the distinguished individual, who has so unremittingly, during the whole active period of his life," devoted his time, his talent, and his ample fortune, not only to improve the principles of agriculture, but to meliorate the condition of the farmer ?" as the surest means of securing his continued exertions, and laying the foundation of an extensive and permanent improvement in agriculture, so as by a gradually increasing productiveness, to meet, as before observed, the more pressing wants of an increasing population, and prevent the recurrence of scarcity and its attendant distress.

The essay on the right of property in land is an ingenious and benevolent speculation, but it is merely a speculation. The author considers the public happiness as the true primary object which ought to claim the attention of every state. He considers agricul ture as indispensable to the general support of man, and to the prosperity of nations; as the natural employment of man, and that, of all others, the best calculated to produce individual and public benefit. He thinks, therefore, that every effort should be made for the more extended cultivation of the earth; but he is of opinion, that this can never be adequately effected, unless he who cultivates it. has a greater interest in the soil, unless, indeed, he be the proprie tor; and he carries this conviction so far, as to suggest that every individual inclined to employ himself in cultivating the ground, for his own subsistence and that of his family, should be entitled to claim, in full property, a reasonable share of the soil of his country.

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