it necessarily becomes fixed to one spot; settled habitations are created, social ties formed, industry and other virtues excited, and the foundation laid of all those improvements in society which lead to more complete cultivation, to the division of labour, and to the development of those useful energies which lead to a farther progress in civilization. Now it is very evident that throughout the whole of this series of revolutions, population is kept very far within the powers of the soil to afford it subsistence; and that if in fact it presses against the actual supply of food, so as to bring a temporary inconvenience upon individuals, that effect is entirely to be ascribed to the laziness or ignorance of those individuals. It is no less evident, that this pressure is necessary to stimulate them to such exertion as would carry on the society to its next stage, and that any provision by which the pressure could be otherwise removed would be nothing less than a scheme for passing an eternal sentence of barbarism and ignorance against the unfortunate people, and for directly counteracting the ordinations of Providence for the replenishment and happiness of the world. To say, therefore, that in these conditions of society " population has a tendency to increase faster than food can be provided for its support" is evidently untrue, because the land is accessible and ready to make a tenfold return. It would be a much more tenable proposition to hold, that the wants of the people press against their own ignorance and apathy, and call aloud upon them in the name of Providence to remove the pressure. To ascribe the miseries of human life in these stages of society to the pressure of population would therefore be about as fair as to

ascribe the sufferings of a criminal who forfeits his liberty or life to the offended laws of his country, to the operation of those laws, and not to the crimes he has committed. To assert that the assumed tendency of population to exuberance can only be repressed by vice, misery, or such a modification of moral restraint as includes an involuntary abstinence from marriage, is no less untrue; because the most ordinary exertion of industry on the soil would give to every man in want more than enough for the support of himself and his family; and this exertion, when it becomes general, will carry on the community to the next step in the progress of society. Therefore although under the amended system marriages would be multiplied, industry would also be awakened; although population would increase, the produce of the soil would much more increase; and a fair attention to the new duties introduced by new habits and pursuits would always maintain the community in a state of comfort and plenty.

Such, without any great stretch of presumption, may be predicated with some certainty to have been the intentions of Providence with respect to the earliest stages of society. It appears, indeed, that a people passing through them will not be permitted to enjoy any tolerable degree of comfort and happiness, except in the road which has been marked out as leading to their further progress. For if we consult the accounts rendered by different authors who have been eye-witnesses of men's actions in the early stages of society, when no attempts were making to lead them into the paths of civilization, it is to be feared that we shall too frequently find them of a nature grossly vicious, and calculated even to repress

the population within the limits of that salutary pressure, against the actual means of subsistence which is necessary to the further development of their resources, and not only to keep it within those limits, but even to produce a gradual diminution in the scanty numbers of the people. Let us take as one example the case of the South Sea Islands;-an instance the more in point, as it has been relied upon by the advocates of the modern opinions respecting the principle of population as one of the strong holds of their argument.

It appears that in the island of Otaheite no regular cultivation has ever existed; the people have always been supported under the shade of their own forests by the almost spontaneous bounty of nature. Upon the first pressure of population against the existing supply of such food, the natives, instead of having recourse to agricultural exertion, preferred their original state of barbarism, and this against the repeated efforts of benevolence to induce them to adopt a better system. They removed the pressure of their population, necessarily arising out of such conduct, by the murder of their new-born infants, which became so regular a practice that nurses recommended themselves by their skill in the diabolical operation. But mark the effects of vice, and of the interference of human depravity with the order of nature, and the designs of Providence! The number of inhabitants, which in the year 1774, though perhaps much over stated at 200,000,* was certainly

* See Cook's Second Voyage, vol. i. p. 349. By tracing their history through the successive Voyages which have been published, a gradual diminution in the number of inhabitants is fully established.

very great, for whom nature had provided sustenance with scarcely any exertion of their own to procure it, gradually dwindled to such a degree, that at the beginning of this century it did not amount to more than 5000;* and this in a climate delightful and healthy in a very superior degree. No doubt, in short, seems to remain, that the whole of the original race of natives will soon be extinct. To complete the argument, it is only necessary to state, that in the Friendly and Sandwich Islands, where nature has done less for the inhabitants in healthiness of climate, and fertility of soil, the absence of this vice, and the adoption of trade and cultivation, have kept them in a gradual progress of improvement. The superiority of the latter too (who have derived commercial advantages and civilized intercourse from their vicinity to the north-west coast of America, and the convenience they afford to the piratical and smuggling navi gators of those seas) proves that the progress made by the two has been exactly in proportion to their industry and exertion. Nor has any inconvenience been found to arise in these two last-mentioned groups of islands from a redundant population; nor have any extraordinary checks occurred to prevent it. Yet upon them and Otaheite Mr. Malthus seems very much to rely for the exemplification of his theory. "Where," says he, "could they be disposed of in a single century, when they would amount to above three millions, supposing their numbers to double every twenty-five years?" And in a note he pro, fesses to think, that they might perhaps increase in a ratio still faster. But "proh hominum fidem!” the

* Turnbull's Voyage, vol. iii. p. 76.

island which has endeavoured to check its natural increase (for here the term check is applied correctly enough) instead of providing for it, has dwindled in 30 years from a numerous population to 5000 souls; while those who have permitted theirs to take its natural course, and have exercised their industry in the best method afforded by their circumstances and situation, have not only gradually increased in numbers, but in prosperity and happiness. Nor have they been afflicted with any extraordinary quantity of vice or misery. Diseases are upon the whole less frequent among them than in more civilized states; and though havoc has certainly been made by war among their chiefs, yet their insular situation and limited means of transporting an army must have prevented that havoc from extending widely among the lower orders.

With respect to the island of Otaheite, there is something in the mode of checking population by infanticide, which rouses a feeling of horror in the mind, and deprives it of patience to calculate in detail the political consequence of such a check. It cannot be denied that so summary a method will certainly keep down the population: but its general result we have seen; and the foregoing statement gives every reason to conclude that effects of the same nature would arise from every other method taken to interfere with the laws of Providence for the due reple nishment of the world. They all have a tendency to reduce a people to that point where the smallest exertion becomes irksome; the quantity of food, therefore, even where nature has performed nine-tenths of the task of producing it, will gradually decline, where any means, however horrid, can be found of dispensing with the trifling labour necessary to procure it.