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on doubling itself every 25 years, or increases in a geometrical ratio;* (suppose a population of one million of people, in one period of 25 years they will increase to two millions, in the second period to four millions, in the third to eight, and so on): but the increase of subsistence cannot be at the same rate; if, by good management, the quantity be doubled in 25 years, in the next period of 25 years it cannot be quadrupled. The rate of doubling in the population is geometrical, but in the subsistence it is only arithmetical.

The necessary effects of these two rates of increase, when brought together, will be striking. Let us call the population of this island 11 millions, and suppose the present produce equal to the easy support of such a number; in the first 25 years the population will be 22 millions, and the food being also doubled, the means of subsistence would be equal to this increase; in the next 25 years the population would be 44 millions, and the means of subsistence only equal to the support of 33 millions; in the next period the population would be 88 millions, and the means of subsistence just equal to the sup port of half that number; and, at the conclusion

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of the first century, the population would be 176 millions, and the means of subsistence equal only to the support of 55 millions, leaving a population of 121 millions totally unprovided for. The human species would increase as the numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256; and subsistence, as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. In this supposition no limits whatever are placed to the produce of the earth, yet still the power of population being in every period so much supe! rior, the increase of the human species can only be kept down to the level of the means of subsistence by the constant operation of the strong ław of necessity, acting as a check upon thei greater power."*

The way in which this acts may be classed: under two general heads---the preventive, and the positive: by the preventive, is understood celibacy; by the positive, is comprehended “all> unwholesome occupations, severe labour and exposure to the seasons, extreme poverty, bad nursing of children, great towns, excesses of all kinds, the whole train of common diseases and epidemics, wars, pestilence, plague, and famine; to these are added, promiscuous intercourse,

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unnatural passions, violations of the marriage bed, and improper acts to conceal the conse quences of irregular connexions."---Such are the checks which keep down the population of the world to the subsistence in it, and which may be resolved into moral restraint, vice, and misery With three such powerful agents at command, Mr. Malthus lays down the following proposi tions: “1. Population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence. (Granted.) 2. Population invariably increases where the means of subsistence increase, unless prevented by some very powerful and obvious checks. 3. These checks, and the checks which repress the superior power of population, and keep its effects on a level with the means of subsistence, are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice, and misery."

Such is a general but just view of the theory advanced by Mr. Malthus: as we go along, our author's sentiments, and his, illustrations of them, will be more developed.

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On perusing the foregoing sketch, the atten tion is roused and strongly interested by the state, ment, that the principle of increase in population

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is stronger than the possible increase of subsistence. This idea, so calculated to startle and confound---which at once seems to have its origin in nature, but is contradicted by experience---which accounts for the population of the globe by in-i crease from a single pair, but excludes the Deity from the government of it; this idea, I say, which is so important in its consequences, so plausible in its relation, and in every way so interesting, claims a fair, a full, and an impartial investigation."

To the just prosecution of this subject, it is proper some country, whose increase in population and in the means of supporting it, is known, should be mentioned, as a standard by which to compare others. Mr. M. has selected America; and at once assumes it as a fact, that the natural power of increase, in every country, in every age, and in every stage of civilization, is the same as in America; in this assumption, I apprehend, he has committed his leading error: but through his book he urges it as a fact, that the population of every state which does not increase at the rate of doubling its numbers in 25 years, is prevented by the operation of vice, misery, or moral restraint; and, consequently, that in the state in which the increase in population is the slowest,

vice, misery, and moral restraint the most prevail. But on making an impartial estimate of the degree of evil with which various nations. have been visited, such an inference does not follow: for instance, the Jews, when captives in Egypt, suffered all the miseries of slavery, their food was scanty and their labour excessive, which, doubtless, shortened the lives of some and prevented the births of others, yet they doubled their numbers, by actual increase, in 15 years. The American colonists, whom Mr. M. selects as a standard for the whole world, were not under more favorable circumstances than the generality of persons in Europe, yet in Europe a doubling is not effected in fewer than 500 years. The colonists were exposed to a climate injurious to their health, and had to contend with numerous tribes of fierce and barbarous natives, who sought their extermination; they also suffered from the injurious privations incident to a thin population and a foreign. country in Europe, evils greater than these are seldom felt; and there have been periods of 15, or 25 years, in particular states, when all the felicity, and all the plenty, America in her bestyears could boast of, were enjoyed in them, without a similar increase in population following.