exposition of the many fallacies embraced in the above deductions from what was supposed by Mr. Ricardo to be the one great and fundamental truth.*

First among them, is the assertion, that, with increase of numbers, there arises a necessity for resorting to machinery of inferior power-yielding less and less in return to labor. Were it true, that man did commence with the richer soils, then would this proposition be also true-increase of population thus bringing with it a decline of human power, and man becoming, more and more, nature's victim. Beginning, on the contrary, with the poorer soils, he passes gradually towards the best. each successive step being accompanied by increase of power to select the soils best fitted for his purposes. Becoming, gradually, master of nature and of himself, he takes the light sand or the heavy marl- the clay or the loam - the iron or the coalthe hill-top or the river-bottom-the superficial or the profound as the one or the other may appear most calculated to minister to his present wants, and aid him in the search for further power. Increasing numbers producing necessity, the standard of man must fall, and he must sink further towards the level of that mere animal which constitutes the subject treated of in modern political science. Giving him, on the contrary,

* Among the earliest and most distinguished of the advocates of Mr. Ricardo's doctrines, was the author of the Templar's Dialogues. In a more recent work by the same author, we find the following passage:

"The tendencies of a natural law llke that of rent it is always right to expose, and Ricardo first did expose them. Others had discovered the law: he first applied his sagacious sense to its consequences upon profits, wages, price; and through them upon universal economy. That was right: for that we are irredeemably his debtors. But it was not right to keep studiously out of sight that eternal counter-movement which tends, by an equivalent agency, to redress the disturbed balance. This concealment has had the effect of introducing marvels into a severe science; since else, what other than a miracle is it that rent has not long since absorbed the whole landed produce-a result to which it so manifestly tends? *** Our own social system seems to harbor within itself the germ of ruin. Either we must destroy rent, i. e., that which causes rent, or rent will destroy us," &c.Logic of Political Economy, p. 190.

Mr. Ricardo taught that, as population increased, the return to labor diminished, and the power of accumulation became less. Mr. De Quincey would have had him teach that, as population increased, the power of accumulation also increased, and that, by aid of the capital accumulated, the return to labor increased. Mr. Ricardo did not conceal this. He did not see it. Mr. De Quincey does see it; and a very little reflection would satisfy him that the facts and the theory are totally inconsistent with each other.

power, the standard must rise towards the level of the true MAN --feeding, clothing, and lodging himself better-acting betterthinking better-and exercising, in relation to all the actions of his life, a volition increasing with every stage in the growth of his control over the material world. Which of these two classesof phenomena it is, that has been presented in all advancing countries, we may now examine.

The total population of England and Wales, in the fourteenth century, did not exceed 2,500,000. Fertile lands aboundedwaiting appropriation at the hands of man. The poor ones were, however, cultivated, with small return to labor-six to eight bushels of wheat to an acre of land, being then regarded as an average crop. The numbers of the people are now seven times greater, and the land in cultivation is at least ten times more-embracing all the poor soils upon which a growing necessity would have compelled a waste of labor; and yet, the average yield per acre, estimating green crops as beef and mutton, and looking to the vast yield of potatoes and other articles of vegetable food, has increased in a ratio almost equalling that of the acres cultivated. Famines were then frequent and severe; whereas, they have now ceased to be regarded as among the things of possible occurrence-regularity of supply having grown with increase in the regularity of demand.*

In "the good old times" of "merrie England," when fertile land was abundant and people were few in number, the Saxon hogs roamed the woods-living upon acorns produced from oaks that their owner lacked the means to fell. Later, half-starved sheep fed upon lands incapable of yielding grain, but cows and oxen were few-the fine rich meadow being covered with wood, or so saturated with moisture as to be wholly useless. Maids of honor then luxuriated on bacon, and laborers banqueted upon "the strength of water-gruel," as did, but seventy years since, many of the people of northern counties, that now present to view the finest farms in England-the rich soils composing which,

"Let any one compare the state of this or any other European country 500, or 100 years ago, and he will be satisfied that prodigious advances have been made; that the means of subsistence have increased much more rapidly than the population; and that the laboring classes are now generally in the possession of conveniences and luxuries that were formerly not enjoyed, even by the richest lords."- MCCULLOCH.

were then awaiting the growth of population and of wealth. A piece of fat pork was, in those days, an article of luxury rarely to be found on the table of the laborer. Even within a century, the bread consumed by a large portion of the people was made of barley, rye, and oats-the consumption of wheat being altogether limited to the rich. It is now in universal use; although, so recently as 1727, an eight-acre field of it, near Edinburgh, was deemed a curiosity. The state of things that there existed, is an index to that found in the Lothians, and in various counties of the north of England, where may now be seen the most prosperous agriculture. At that time, men cultivated, not the best soils, but those they could cultivate, leaving the rich ones for their successors - doing in this what is being now, every day, done by the settlers of western prairies.

While the wheaten loaf has thus succeeded the compound of barley, rye, and acorns, once denominated bread, and supposed to afford more nourishment, because of remaining longer in the stomach, and being less easily digested—an idea repeated in the present day by the poor Irish peasant, who prefers the miserable potato called the lumper, because of its having, as he says, a bone in it-beef and mutton have succeeded the salt herring on the table of the artisan and laborer, and the mast-fed bacon on that of the landlord. Within a century, the average weight of cattle has risen from 370 to 800 pounds, and that of sheep from 28 to 80 pounds—the number consumed having increased more rapidly, even, than the weight. The quantity of wool, of hides, and of other materials for manufactures of various kinds, is immense; and yet the population wholly dependent on the labors of the field is certainly not thrice greater than it was in the days of the Plantagenets. The return to labor has, therefore, largely increased as, with increased numbers, man has acquired power over the various soils, then too deep, or too distant, to be cultivated with the means at his command; but now required for the supply of the greatly increased and more prosperous population.

The history of France in the Middle Ages, when land abounded and men were few in number, is but a record of an almost unceasing succession of famines. As late as the middle of the fifteenth century, the condition of the laborers of that country was thus described by Fortescue :—

Thay drynke water, thay eate apples, with bred right brown made of rye. Thay eate no flesche, but if it be selden, a litill larde, or of the entrails, or heds of bests sclayne for the nobles and marchaunts of the lond. Thay weryn no wollyn, but if it be a pore cote under their uttermost garment, made of grete canvas and cal it a frok. Their hosyn be of like canvas, and passen not their knee; wherefor they be gartrid, and their thyghs bare. Their wyfs and children gone barefote; thay may in non otherwise lyve; for sume of them, that was wonte to pay to his lord for his tenement, which he hirith by the yere, a scute,* payyth now to the kyng, over that scute fyve skuts. Wher thrugh they be artyd by necessitie so to watch, labour, and grub in the ground, for their sustenaunce, that their nature is much wastid, and the kynd of them brought to nowght. Thay gone crokyd and ar feble, not able to fyght, nor to defend the realme; nor thay have wepon, nor monye to buy them wepon withal; but verely they lyvyn in the most extreme povertie and myserye, and yet thay dwellyn in one the most fertile realme of the world."

The reader has already seen that, so recently as the commencement of the last century, the people of that country wanted bread one-half of their time, and went clothed in skins, for want of power to obtain cloth. A century since, only 7,000,000 ate wheaten bread; now, there are 20,000,000-the improvement in the character of the food consumed, having been greater than the increase in the numbers requiring to be fed. The power to obtain the necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries of life, is dependent on the power to demand of nature their production-the greater the power of association, the greater, as we invariably see, being the quantity produced. 'Comparing," says M. Passy, "the figures relating to the ten richest and most populous departments, with those relating to the ten departments which are the least so, we find that, in the former, the average yield of a hectare (2·47 acres), is from 15 to 20 hectolitres (the hectolitre is 2.84 bushels) of wheat; while, in the latter, it is only from 7 to 11-there being an equal disproportion in all the other products. In regard

* A scute was a French gold coin, and the same with an escu, or ecu d'or, which was denominated from the legend, Dieu est mon escu,' God is my shield. It was worth 3s. 4d. in Fortescue's time.

Arcted, compelled or restrained, from the old French verb coarcier.
Quoted by EDEN, History of Poor, vol. i. p. 70.

to consumption, they offer a difference equally marked. The food is not only superior in quality, in the advanced departments; it is also superior in quantity, head for head-the consumption being thirty per cent. more in weight, than in the less dense and poorer departments."'*

Similar to these, are the facts we meet with in every advancing country. The people of Russia are now much better fed and clothed than they were in the days of Peter the Greatnotwithstanding an increase of numbers that would, long since, have compelled resort to inferior soils, had Mr. Ricardo's theory been accurate. So, too, has it been, and so is it, with those of Germany, Belgium, Denmark, and Sweden-all of whom are now incomparably better fed, than were their ancestors of the days when land was most abundant. Looking, next, to the early settlement of what are now the United States, we find their history but a record of severe privations-resulting from a paucity of numbers that forbade association, or combination. The second of the above propositions is, therefore, directly opposed to every fact presented in the history of the world-all of them being, on the contrary, in strict accordance with the one we here present:

As wealth and population increase, men are more and more enabled to associate together, and to combine their efforts, with constantly increasing tendency to development of their various faculties, and constantly increasing power to compel the various forces of nature to labor in their service-every step in the course of progress, being marked by increase of power to determine for themselves what soils to select for cultivation, with constant increase in the return to labor, and in the facility of production and accumulation.-Man thus becomes the master of nature; whereas, according to Mr. Ricardo, he becomes more and more her slave.

§ 4. The next proposition is, that, with the necessity for applying labor less productively, rent arises the owner of No. 1, yielding 100 quarters, being enabled to demand 10 quarters when resort is had to those of second quality, yielding 90 quarters; and 20, when No. 3 is brought into use, yielding only 80 quarters.

* Dictionnaire de l'Économie Politique, art. Agriculture.