and in no long time, renovate Ireland, and repay the wrongs of many generations; which would waken a nation into gladness, and spread a smile over the face of nature itself. The benevolence of the great would then be reflected in the thankful and gratified demeanour of their inferiors'. The mutual pleasure of giving and receiving favours would fill the cup of very opposite principles; it is, however, obviously impossible to animadvert upon it at present. I shall just allude to what is said upon "pauper marriages," which the author intimates ought to be placed under legal control. Independently of the immorality which such interference would inevitably occasion (if it could then be called immorality), the cruelty of such a scheme is monstrous. A being more cheerless in health, more helpless in sickness, in a word, more desolate, living or dying, than the unmarried labourer, can hardly exist concerning such, above all others, the declaration of the Creator is emphatically true, "It is not good for man to be alone." Seeing, then, the tyrannous propositions on the one hand, and the disgusting expedients on the other, to which the modern principle of population drives many of its adherents, strange is it that any one human being can be brought to believe that it is the system of nature. But the cruelty of all this interference on the part of man is nothing compared with its presumptuous ignorance. An insect on the narrow shore of time, mounted on a grain of sand, calculating from the tide of life flowing towards it, a universal deluge! and calling upon its fellow-insects to stem the restless waves! its organs meantime infinitely too minute to perceive the eternal hills by which it is bounded, or to hear the voice which proclaims "Hitherto shalt thou go and no further”—the voice of Him who is the fountain of that ocean of immortality, and who "measureth its waters in the hollow of His hand!" 1 That nothing short of this can secure the peace and happiness of any community, is no new discovery. Isocrates has a beautiful passage on the subject, the extreme appositeness of which, in reference to what I have been asserting throughout the preceding pages, will, I think, clear me from the charge of pedantry in subjoining it: Οἵ τε γὰρ πενέστεροι τῶν πολιτῶν τοσοῦτον ἀπεῖχον τοῦ φθονεῖν τοῖς πλείω κεκτημένοις, ὥστε ὁμοίως ἐκήδοντο τῶν οἴκων τῶν μετ γάλων, ὥσπερ τῶν σφετέρων αὐτῶν· ἡγούμενοι τὴν ἐκείνων εὐδαι μονίαν αὐτοῖς εὐπορίαν ὑπάρχειν· οἵ τε τὰς οὐσίας ἔχοντες, οὐχ ὅπως ὑπερεώρων τοὺς καταδεέστερον πράττοντας, ἀλλ ̓ ὑπολαμβά νοντες αἰσχύνην αὐτοῖς εἶναι τὴν τῶν πολιτῶν ἀπορίαν ἐπήμυνον Tais evdeízis.-(Isoc. Oratio Areop. pp. 290, 291. Cantab. 8vo. 1729.) human happiness, agitate and heighten its pleasures, even to the very brim. The various and too often discordant elements of society would become purified of their inherent evils by this salutary admixture. Its several classes, weak in their division, and hostile as separate from each other, would, as they were drawn closer together in the bonds of mutual interest and affection, become indissoluble: not only, as the fabled bundle of sticks, would they remain united and unbroken, but each, like the rod of Aaron, would again branch forth and blossom into all the charities and virtues of domestic and social life. Then, indeed, the different ranks of society, instead of so many steps of a dungeon, descending down to lower and still lower depths of misery and degradation, would, like Jacob's ladder, seem reaching up to Heaven, and the Angels of Mercy and Gratitude would be seen ascending and descending thereon, for ever! POSTSCRIPT. It has been suggested to me, that it would have been well to have accompanied the foregoing tables respecting Ireland with at least one or two of those referred to in the Introduction, as establishing the principle of population universally, in order to silence the objections which may be advanced, founded on the supposed prevalence of some local or peculiar habits in that country, affecting the question. It is obviously too late for me to do this at present; I will, however, so far avail myself of the suggestion as to give a synopsis of one of them, and shall purposely take that which relates to a country whose population is thin and scattered, and represented, in all other respects, as in a condition directly opposite to that of Ireland; one in which the "preventive check" is supposed hardly to exist at all, or, if it exist, is not to be sought for in the more densely peopled northern states, where, as Dr. Franklin says, they "marry in the morning of life," but in the southern, or slave-holding ones, where the population is the scantiest; there, indeed, we are told, moral restraint, unhappily, is not unknown. But, above all, I select the instance about to be given as that on which the "geometric ratio" of human increase professes to be solely founded; I allude, of course, to the United States. In this extract, then, of one of my tables, the first column expresses the relative condensation of the population, by dividing it according to the number of acres to every individual throughout; the second, the number of states and territories in each class; the third, a given number of females (100) between sixteen and forty-five; the fourth, the proportionate number of children under ten years of age to each of those hundreds. The particulars of the States, and the numbers on which the calculation is formed, will be given in the work referred to. TABLE, exhibiting the variation of Prolificness in the United States, as regulated by the Condensation of the Population throughout. But to particularize the New England States, where the inhabitants are the most stationary, and of uniform habits: In the statistics of America, as in those of Ireland, the marriages and births are wanting: this omission, however, instead of weakening the proof of the real principle of population, has actually confirmed it, by leading to an equally conclusive demonstration of its truth, calculated on totally different principles. In the rest of the tables, however, the more usual method is pursued, and not only with equal success, but with this singular advantage to the argument; they will show, at the same time, the ignorance and error which have prevailed relative to what is called the "preventive check;" taking away therefore, at once, the main support of the contrary system, and answering the sole objection, as it is conceived, by which the one now developed can be assailed. FINIS. London: Printed by W. CLOWES, 14, Charing-Cross. Speedily will be published, in 3 large vols. 8vo. THE LAW OF POPULATION; A TREATISE, IN SIX BOOKS: IN DISPROOF OF THE SUPERFECUNDITY OF HUMAN BEINGS; AND DEVELOPING THE REAL PRINCIPLE ON WHICH THEIR INCREASE IS UNIVERSALLY REGULATED. BY M. T. SADLER. That to the height of this great argument, Also, by the same Author, JURA INJURIÆQUE PAUPERUM; OR, A DEFENCE OF THE PRINCIPLE OF THE POOR LAWS OF ENGLAND; WITH Suggestions for their Essential Improvement. Safe in the love of Heav'n, an ocean flows |