custom of the country-slavery existing only as a consequence of local laws. Now, the courts decide, that slavery is the custom -freedom holding its existence under local laws.

Five-and-twenty years since, it was the custom to regard the persons employed in the transaction of the public business, as having a claim to continuance in office, so long as they performed its duties with advantage to the public-leaving to them the free exercise of their private judgment in regard to their political predilections, and as to the choice of their subordinates. Till then, the tendency had been towards the establishment of manufactures, and the consequent competition of private and public demand for mental service. Almost simultaneously, however, with the adoption of the free-trade policy, the custom of freedom among the public servants passed away-the term of office being fixed by law, with a view to carry into effect the doctrine, that "to the victor belong the spoils.'

Competition by individuals, for the purchase of labor, tends, therefore, to decline. Competition for its sale, to the public, tends to increase the results being seen in the creation of a band of office-seekers, more importunate, and office-holders, more entirely subservient, than can be found in any other civilised country of the world. What the Prætorian bands were to the Roman empire, the office-holders are rapidly becoming, in the United States.

Look where we may, competition for the sale of labor increases in the countries following in the lead of England, and adopting the policy inculcated by her economists. Competition for its purchase increases in those which follow in the lead of France -adopting the policy initiated by Colbert. In the latter, the soil becomes improved - the prices of raw materials and those of finished commodities are steadily approximating — agriculture becomes more and more a science-production increases — circulation becomes more rapid — and matter tends more and more to take upon itself the form of man; and the more rapid the growth of population, the more abundant becomes the supply of food and clothing. In the former, those prices become more widely separated-agriculture passes away-production diminishesand the disease of over-population becomes more confirmed.

CHAPTER XLVI.

OF POPULATION.

§1. "BE fruitful and multiply," said the Lord, "and replenish the earth, and subdue it." That it may be subdued, men must multiply and increase-it being only by means of association and combination with his fellow-men, that man acquires power for guiding and directing the forces of nature to his service. In obedience to the divine command it is, then, that matter tends to take upon itself, more and more, the human form — passing from the simple forms of clay and sand, through those more complex, exhibited in vegetable and animal life, and ending in the highly complex ones of the bones, muscles, and brains of men.

The tendency to assume the various forms of life, is greatest at the lowest point of organization-the progeny of microscopic beings counting, at the close of a single week, by millions, even when not by billions, whereas, the period of gestation in the whale and the elephant, is long, while the product rarely exceeds a single individual. Such are the extremes, but the rule holds good at every stage of progress, from the coral insect to the ant, and from the ant to the elephant-thus furnishing the law, that fecundity and development are in the inverse ratio of each other. In virtue of that fixed and certain law, man, "the crown and roof of all things," should increase less rapidly than any other animal whatsoever, and-carrying out the same idea-the fecundity of the human race itself should diminish, as the peculiarly human faculties are more and more stimulated into action, and as the MAN becomes more and more developed.*

The periods within which the existing population of the prin

"The plant and the animal are not required to become a different thing from what they already are at the moment of their birth. Their idea, as the philosophers would say, is realized in its fulness by the fact alone of their material appearance, and of their physical organization. The end of their existence is attained, for they are only of a physical nature. But with man it is quite otherwise. Man, created in the image of God, is of a free and

cipal nations duplicates itself, varies greatly- France requiring more than a century, and Great Britain more than half a century, while the duplication of American numbers is accomplished in little more than thirty years.*

So far as regards the ultimate destiny of the human race, it is, however, of small importance whether, in obedience to fixed and immutable laws, the duplication has been arranged to take effect in 30, 50, or 100 years- the only difference being, that under the first, there must be, some 700 years hence, a million of persons on the earth for each one that now exists, whereas, in

moral nature. The physical man, however admirable may be his organization, is not the true man; he is not an aim, but a means; he is not an end, like the animal, but a beginning. There is another, new-born, but destined to grow up in him, and to unfold the moral and religious nature, until he attain the perfect stature of his master and pattern, who is Christ. It is the intellectual and the moral man, the spiritual man."-GUYOT: Earth and Man.

In 1820, the white population was ................................ ...........................
By 1850, it had become

Increase

8,107,000 20,169,000

12,062,000

In the same period, however, the immigration had been large-the number arriving being as follows:

Of these, the number was small, that had not passed the period of infancy, while more than two-thirds of the whole were between the ages of 15 and 40, the period at which the animal forces are at the highest. Admitting that each pair imported had produced but a single child, in excess of the loss by death, we should obtain, as the addition resulting from immigration, no less than 3,782,297. Adding to this the Spanish population of Texas, California, and New Mexico, we have a total of probably 3,900,000. Deducting that quantity from the total increase, we obtain an almost exact duplication in thirty years.

That this estimate of the effects of immigration is certainly below the truth, will be seen by the following facts, for which we are indebted to the admirable vital statistics collected and published by the Government of Massachusetts.

The total population of that State, in 1855, was 1,122,463—886,571 being native born, and 235,892 foreigners, a large proportion of whom were Irish. The marriages in that year were 12,329. In 954 of them, one of the parties were foreign, while in 4269, both were so the proportion of purely native being but as 4 to 3, whereas, their proportion of the population is as nearly 4 to 1. The births were 82,845-the parentage having been ascertained in relation to 31,273. Of these, 1617 were the product of mixed couples, and 13,708 of foreign ones—making a total of 15,325, or nearly half of the entire number.

the other, rather more than 2000 years would be required for producing the same result.

What, now, would be the effect of such increase? Obviously, so to crowd the earth, as eventually to leave but standing room for the population. With the near approach of such a state of things, food must have been becoming more scarce — enabling the owner of land, to dictate to the laborer on what terms he might cultivate the land-the one becoming more completely master, and the other more entirely enslaved.

Having once admitted that the procreative tendency is a positive quantity, always ready to be excited into activity, and existing to such extent as to insure a duplication in any certain period, it cannot afterwards be denied, that slavery is to be the ultimate condition of the great mass of the race; nor, that the tendency in that direction is greater now than at any former period - the history of the world presenting no instance of increase as great as that exhibited in England, Ireland, and America, in the last hundred years. Neither can it, in that case, be denied, that man is ultimately to be subdued by the earth-his liability thereto being in the direct ratio of his obedience to the divine command with which this chapter was commenced.

Can such things be? Can it be, that the Creator has been thus inconsistent with himself? Can it be, that after having instituted, throughout the material world, a system, the harmony of whose parts is so absolutely perfect, He has, of design, subjected man, the master and director of all, to laws whose effects can be no other than that of producing universal discord? Can it be, that while furnishing every where else, evidence of the union in Himself of the qualities of universal knowledge, perfect justice, and exhaustless mercy, He has here-in reference to his last and greatest work-assumed a character so entirely the reverse? Even in man, true greatness is always consistent always in harmony with itself. Can it be, then, that after having given to man all the faculties required for assuming the mastery of nature, it has been a part of His design, to subject him to absolute and irreversible laws, in virtue of which he must inevitably become nature's slave? Let us inquire.

--

§ 2. Physica! science, in all of those departments of knowledge

in which it has been enabled to furnish demonstration of the truth of its discoveries, testifies that order, harmony, and reciprocal adjustment, reign throughout the elements, and in all the movements it has as yet explored. In all the realms of natural history thus far successfully cultivated, fitness of conditions, coherence of parts, and unity of design, afford logical evidence that the universe is one in system, one in action, and one in aim. Arriving, however, at the natural history of Man, we find theorists violating the analogies of reason, and imagining discords in the very place where, of all others, the harmonies of creation should meet together; and where, if anywhere, the wisdom and beneficence of the Creator should vindicate themselves by an exhibition of the highest perfection of orderly adjustment.

The gross error that here so obviously exists, is traceable to the one common source of false philosophy in all its shapes and forms

the mistaking of facts, and their apparent dependencies, for the laws which govern them. The dispersion of ancient populations, and their frequent invasions of the lands of other tribes or nations -the constant flow of emigrants from olden countries in modern times and the death of half of the inhabitants of densely peopled regions before their arrival at even half the allotted period of human life are the phenomena chiefly relied upon, by those who seek to demonstrate the existence of an original discord between the law of human fertility, and the earth's capacity for the accommodation of the human race.

That the people of the early communities above referred to, suffered for want of food, is a well established fact. That the laboring population of many communities of modern times are in a situation nearly similar, cannot be doubted. These facts observed, they have been made the subject of a scientific formula, which may thus be stated: Man tends to increase in number, in a geometrical ratio, whereas, food cannot, under the most favorable circumstances, be made to increase in a ratio greater than the arithmetical one. Population, therefore, increases 128 times, while food can be increased but 8 times-poverty and wretchedness being the necessary results.

These results being clear as figures can make them, the waste of life recorded by history has been inevitable-the earth being wholly incapable of affording food, or even standing room, for