that are necessary to pregnancy. If six children be as many as a marriage of sound and healthy persons usually yields, eight is not a larger proportion for those who are diseased. I would not be meant to imply, that all numerous families are infected with disease, that is not the case; but I do contend, that an unsound constitution, in a civilized country, most commonly proves prolific.

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GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

IF the remarks in the preceding chapter be true, it is impossible that the world should ever be fully peopled by men of similar constitutions to the nobility of this country, nor can it ever be filled by savages, nor is a society very much mixed, agreeable to our notion of excellency.

Without enquiring minutely into any stage of civilization, I think it may be taken as a general fact, that a state increases in population in proportion as it becomes civilized; by civilization, I do not mean effeminacy or dissipation, but an increase in knowledge and happiness. It may appear singular, that I mention knowledge as necessary to a full population, when I have stated in another place, that the exercise of the mental faculties lessens the principle of increase; but this difficulty is easily ments, become more simple in their manners,

removed. The great bulk of mankind acquire wisdom by instruction from others, without much exertion on their part. The farmer, who bears the same rank in society his ancestors did a thousand years ago, is not like them in manners or in information, notwithstanding his rigid adherence to their maxims; the great body of the people having gone forward, he has imperceptibly moved with them; he is just above his labourers, his ancestors were the same: knowledge acquired in this way calls for no labour, produces no anxiety, but still it elevates the mind, refines the passions, and when it has made any considerable advances, it lessens the principle of increase. To benefit by the labours of others is easy, but the statesmen and philosophers, by whose incessant care and attention advances in civilization have been made, spent their lives in anxious solicitude; they gained knowledge by intense thought, and the end has been, the extinction of their families. A middle line here may easily be conceived. It may be conceived that the lower classes may gain in knowledge and refined sentiment, and that the higher classes may lose part of their inordinate ambition and restless love of fame, and, without any diminution in their useful acquire

more uniform in the temper of their minds, and more prolific; and thus a state of society be produced, in which the births and deaths shall equal each other.

But that nothing may be left to conjecture, I appeal to the history of the world, and I say, that in every age the fullest peopled states have increased the slowest, not because vice and misery have more abounded, but because the principle of increase has been lessened. China has, for many ages been of this number, and when its population became stationary its civilization did not advance; there has been a correspondence between the state of population and that of civilization. China is an agricultural country, large cities are not more in proportion than in France; war, famine, and pestilence, are even less experienced, and celibacy is contrary to the manners of the people; every circumstance, on Mr. Malthus's theory, promises the most rapidly increasing population, far surpassing that of France, or even America; yet it does not increase, it is stationary; the principle is just sufficiently strong to maintain the population. in its present state. It is consequently not so strong as in America, för no other reason, that I am acquainted with, than that the nation at

In

large feel more of that anxiety which is con-.
sequent to the middle class of this nation.
order to increase the population of China, the
rank of the common people must be elevated;
this would enable them to provide more easily
the means of subsistence, they have enough,
but it is obtained with care. Continue the
means of subsistence in the same measure, but
remove the care, and the number of children,
experience teaches, would increase.

It has been repeatedly observed that the principle of population was lessened in the two opposite states of civilization,---the highest, or the state of the greatest mental exertion; the lowest, or that state in which the baser and more depressing passions influence and direct the actions: in a word, by the savage and by the highly civilized states.

Were the government of a country, in the state in which Europe now is, to ameliorate the condition of the common people, the population would increase in proportion as the hinderances were removed which had suppressed it. On the other hand, were the condition of the common people rendered more uncomfortable, population would decrease; it decreases in Turkey, in Poland, and in Egypt in these