CONTENTS. 9 Of the Checks to Population among the American Indians Of the Checks to Population in Siberia Of the Checks to Population in Norway Of the Checks to Population in Switzerland DISSERTATION ON POPULATION. INTRODUCTION. THE publication on which I am about to make a few remarks, has gained its author some cele-. brity as a writer on political economy; but thinking, as I do, that the principles advanced are erroneous, and their tendency injurious, I need make no further apology to the public for attempting to counteract their influence. Mr. Malthus has enforced and illustrated his principles in a large quarto volume, but the principles themselves may be comprised in a few sentences, and nearly in his own words, as follows: "The principal object of the present essay," says Mr. M. "is to examine the effects of one great cause intimately united with the very nature of man, which, though it has been constantly and powerfully operating since the commencement of society, has been little noticed by the writers who have treated on this subject.*---The cause to which I allude, is the constant tendency in all animated life to increase beyond the nourishment prepared for it.---That population has this constant tendency to increase beyond the means of subsistence, will sufficiently appear from a review of the different states of society in which man has existed. But before we proceed to this review, the subject will perhaps be seen in a clearer light, if we endeavour to ascer tain what would be the natural increase of population, if left to exert itself with perfect freedom; and what might be expected to be the rate of increase in the productions of the earth, under the most favorable circumstances of human industry. A comparison of these two rates will enable us to judge of the force of that tendency in population to increase beyond the means of subsistence which has been stated to exist. "In the northern states of America, where the means of subsistence have been more ample, the manners of the people more pure, and the checks to early marriages fewer, than in any of the modern states of Europe, the population was found to double itself for some successive periods every twenty-five years; yet even during these periods, in some of the towns, the deaths exceeded the births, and they consequently re quired a continued supply from the country to support their population.*---According to a table of Euler, calculated on a mortality of 1 in 36, if the births be to the deaths in the proportion of 3 to 1, the period of doubling will be only 12 years; and these proportions are not only possible suppositions, but have actually occurred, for short periods, in more countries than one. Sir Wm. Petty supposes a doubling possible in so short a time as ten years. But to be perfectly sure that we are far within the truth, we will take the slowest of these rates of increase; a rate in which all concurring testimonies agree, and which has been repeatedly ascertained to be from procreation only. It may safely be pronounced, therefore, that population, when unchecked, goes 4 * Page 4. |