means of subsistence which are placed within his reach. 2. That there is a power of increase in the human race, much greater than is generally exercised, always ready to exert itself as soon as it finds an opening, and appearing continually in sudden starts of population, whenever the funds for the maintenance of labour have experienced an increase, in whatever way this may have been occasioned. 3. That this power of increase is so great, and, in its nature, necessarily so different from any increase which can result from adding together different portions of a limited quantity of land, or gradually improving the cultivation of the whole, that the funds for the maintenance of labour cannot, under any system, the most favourable to human industry, be made permanently to keep pace with such an increase of population as has been observed to take place for short periods in particular countries; and consequently, as man cannot live without food, that the superior power of population cannot be kept on a level with the funds which are to support it, without the almost constant operation of considerable checks of one kind or other. These checks, according to Mr. Malthus, are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice, and misery, which may be divided into two general classes, viz. those which operate in preventing the birth of a population that cannot be supported, and those which destroy it after it has been brought into existence; or, as they are denominated by Mr. Malthus, the preventive checks, and the positive checks: The determination to defer or decline matrimony from a consideration of the inconveniences to which a large portion of the community would subject themselves by pursuing the dictates of nature, Mr. Malthus denominates the preventive check and whatever contributes to shorten the natural duration of human life, as extreme poverty, bad nursing of children, excesses of all kinds, the whole train of common diseases and epidemics, wars, pestilence, plague, and famine, are the positive checks to population.

The necessary and constant effect of some checks to popu lation being fully established, and these checks being divisible into the classes above-mentioned, one cannot for a moment hesitate in determining which of them we should wish to see put in operation: and it follows, that in order to improve the condition of the lower classes of society, to make them suffer less under any diminution of the funds for the maintenance of labour, and enjoy more under any actual state of these funds, every attempt should be made to discourage helpless and improvident habits, and to raise them as much as possible to a sense of the dignity of their nature. The causes which chiefly tend to foster helpless, indolent, and improvident habits among the lower classes, are despotism and ignorance, and whatever increases their dependence, and weakens the motives to personal exertion. Whereas the causes which principally tend to promote habits of industry and prudence, are good government and good education, and whatever has a tendency to increase their independence and respectability. Wherever the registers of a country indicate great mortality, and the general prevalence of the check arising from disease and death, over the check arising from prudential habits; there we find the people debased by oppression, and sunk in ignorance and insolence. On the other hand, wherever the registers of a country indicate a small mortality, and the prevalence of the check from prudential habits above that from premature mortality; there we as constantly find security of property established: some degrée of intelligence and knowledge, with a certain taste for cleanliness and comforts.

Mr. Malthus thinks the effect of our poor laws, is to encourage marriage between persons who have no prospect of providing for the presumptive issue of marriage. Thus, he adds, these laws create mouths, but are perfectly incompetent to provide food for them: instead of raising the real price of labour, by increasing the demand for labourers, they tend to overstock the market, to reduce the (demand, and diminish the value. They raise the price of provisions by increasing

the consumption, and by supplying the parochial pensioners with the means of obtaining them. He shews, that in a moral point of view the effects of the poor laws are equally injurious to the best interests of society: he is not, however, for an immediate and abrupt abolition: he suggests what will answer the end, viz. a gradual abolition of them, by proposing, that no child born from any marriage taking place after the expiration of a year from the date of the law, and no illegitimate child born two years from the same date, should be entitled to parish assistance. This, he thinks, would operate as a fair notice, which no man could mistake; and without pressing hard upon any individual, would at once throw off the rising generation from that wretched dependence upon the government and the wealthy, the good consequences of which are almost incalculable.

Although the good intentions of Mr. Malthus are clearly evident in every page of his work, we are not prepared to follow him in all his theories; in endeavouring to avoid one extreme, he has probably fallen into its opposite. The system of Providence, with respect to the increase of the population, does not seem to us liable to such objections as must present themselves to every reflecting person on the careful perusal of the Essay on Population. Besides, admitting that the parish funds were shut up from the poor, and the public benevolence were restrained by a fixed and undeviating law; no act of the legislature could blunt the feelings of individuals-private benevolence would undoubtedly be extended in proportion as public charity was withdrawn.

Mr. Malthus lays it down as a fundamental maxim, that in any efforts which we may make to improve the condition of the lower classes of society, we must not, on any account, do any thing which tends directly to encourage marriage. He adds, that "the precise reason why I think that more children ought not to be born than the country can support, is, that the greatest possible number of those that are born may be supported. We cannot, in the nature of things, assist the

poor, in any way, without enabling them to rear up to manhood a greater number of their children. But this is of all other things the most desirable, both with regard to individuals and the public. Every loss of a child from the consequences of poverty, must evidently be preceded and accompanied by great misery to individuals; and with respect to the public, every child that dies under ten years of age, is a loss to the nation of all that has been expended in its subsistence till that period. Consequently, in every point of view, a decrease of mortality, at all ages, is what we ought to aim at. We cannot, however, effect this object, without first crowding the population, in some degree, by making more children grow up to manhood; but we shall do no harm, in this respect, if, at the same time, we can impress these children with the idea that to possess the same advantages as their parents, they must defer marriage till they have a fair prospect of being able to maintain a family. If we cannot do this, all our former efforts will have been thrown away. It is not in the nature of things, that any permanent and general improvement in the condition of the poor can be effected without an increase in the preventive check; and unless that take place, either with or without our efforts, every thing that is done for the poor must be temporary and partial; a diminution of mortality, at present, will be balanced by an increase of mortality in future; and the improvement of their condition in one place, will proportionally depress it in another. This is a truth so important, and so little understood, that it can scarcely be too often insisted upon."

The progress of the population of the world, and its present total amount, cannot be ascertained with much precision, as there are no sufficient grounds on which such a computation can be formed. Sir W. Petty, in 1682, stated the population of the world at only 320 millions. Other writers have estimated it much higher; some, indeed, have gone so far as to suppose there were at least 1000 millions of inhabitants on the earth: and the late Mr. J. J. Grellier says, a

strong presumption that the inhabitants of the earth at present (1801) exceed considerably a thousand millions, arises from the circumstance, that, in almost every country where the people have been numbered, or sufficient data obtained for computing their number, it has been found considerably greater than it had been previously supposed. In Great Britain, for instance, the most correct estimates previously to 1801, did not make the population exceed seven or eight millions; whereas, by the enumeration in that year, it appeared to amount to nearly eleven millions; and, as will be seen hereafter, in 1811, to more than twelve millions and a half. The population of France was estimated by M. Susmilch at sixteen millions, others supposed it to be eighteen, twenty, and twentyfour millions; but at the commencement of the revolution in 1789, it appeared, from the returns of the births and burials, to contain thirty millions of inhabitants.

The following table, containing the number of inhabitants in each European country, and also the population of its chief cities, will, though it be only an approximation to the truth, afford a comparative view of the present population of the European states, and of their respective capitals.