CHAPTER XIV.

"OF THE CHECKS TO POPULATION AMONG THE

ROMANS."

DOUBTLESS the power of procreation is sufficient to enable mankind to recruit their numbers very fast, after being thinned by war*, pestilence, &c.; but, that is not denied by us; and, therefore, needs no argumentation for its support.

The practice of infanticide,-the existence of slavery, the depravity of morals, &c., cannot be charged to the power of procreation solely on Mr. M.'s ipse dixit; he must first shew, by adequate evidence, that the "strange and unnatural state of Rome," was a necessary and inevitable result of that power. Since, however correct the assertion may be, that, "all the checks to population, which have been hitherto considered in the course of this review of

* Modern wars tend, first, to excite an extraordinary increase of population, and then to impoverish, or, in other words, render it redundant in the belligerent countries, by compelling it to furnish an income to the owners of the capital destroyed during the prosecution of the war.

human society, are clearly resolvable into moral restraint, vice, and misery," it proves nothing; because, these are only effects, and for all of them, and every ingredient of which they are composed, Mr. M. has himself exhibited adequate causes, very different, indeed, from that of the principle of population. When Mr.

M. has proved that those are evils inevitably and necessarily resulting from the principle of population, or, in other words, "the past and present effects" of that principle, then it will

be time to inculcate the desirableness of knowing the strength of either or all of those checks.

That," in most countries considered, the population seems to have been seldom measured accurately, according to the average and permanent* means of subsistence," is an observation which, even overlooking its obscure and nonsensical composition, and admitting its correctness, can be no cause of surprise, unless we had discovered wiser, that is, more perfect human institutions, generally adopted in them, and a consequent state of society, both externally and internally favourable to the due developement of the effects producible by such institutions.

* What can Mr. M. mean by the term “ permanent," as applied by him to the means of subsistence?

Of the Checks to Population in the different States of Modern Europe."

CHAPTER I.

"OF NORWAY.”

THROUGHOUT this chapter, Mr. Malthus confines his labours to the business of proving, that the preventive or natural check of moral restraint, (on the non-existence of which his work was originally founded, and which he still treats as merely supposititious, when its uits his purpose,) is in Norway, almost, if not altogether, the only one in actual operation, and the vices and miseries which he assumes to result from the principle of population, have no place, or are not to be found there. How far such labours conduce to prove the main propositions of his Essay we have yet to learn, as also, whether moral restraint be an effect of the

principle of population. Can a fountain at once send forth both bitter water and sweet? We are further informed, by way of corroborating the assertions already quoted from pages 246 and 248 of the Essay, &c., that the human institution known under the appellation, Danish government,—has been taking measures of which " many of the most thinking and best informed persons, express their apprehension !"

We find nothing in this chapter to alter our opinion, that the preventive or natural check would operate as regularly and happily in any other country of Europe, as it is described to do in Norway, if it were not weakened and destroyed by the pernicious measures recommended and pursued by would be philosophers, legislators, statesmen, warmakers, luxury-votaries, and hypocrites. We believe, also, en passant, that an aggregate quantity of land, (may) support a greater number of people than could be done by the sum of its component parts, if, separated from each other; and, when Mr. M. points out what are the evils resulting from the principle of population," and demonstrates the truth of his assertion, "that modern Europe would be unpeopled, but for the introduction of modern arts and manufactures," then we also will prove the truth of this our assertion.

CHAPTER II.

"OF SWEDEN."

WE learn, from this chapter, that "Sweden is, in many respects, in a state similar to that of Norway" but that the human institution, in other words, government of Sweden, by its foolish endeavours to increase population, without taking simultaneous effective measures to increase the means of subsistence, and by its frequent embarkation in foreign wars, has introduced vice and misery in full proportion. Mr. M. asserts, that "they (the registers of births, &c.,) clearly prove, that its population has a very strong tendency to increase;" and immediately tells us, that "the government has occupied itself in every measure which appeared proper to increase the population of the country!" The establishment of lying-in and foundling hospitals is not likely to be very effective for this purpose; but some of its measures, by repealing or undoing the acts of former human institutions, have been productive of