Once persuade a man,' as it has been well said, against all experience, that the oak in his field bath a natural tendency to increase ad infinitum in the same ratio as during the first fifty years, and may in time overshadow his whole estate, unless checked by the axe, and his prudent course of conduct will not long be doubtful.' Our limits will not permit us to advert to what we conceive to be the origin of the mistakes and false reasonings of this school, with respect to the principle of population. It is the assump tion of a general tendency to increase in the human species, the quickest that can be proved possible in a particular state of society. In other words, to confound a possible with a probable increase, or rather a mere power with a tendency to multiply in a given proportion. Having assumed this tendency, then supposed checks are called in to make the facts of human history agree with the system. We apply the term assumed both to the tendency and the checks, because we think with Mr. Mill that the statements respecting the rate of procreation in different countries will be found to be either suppositions with respect to matters of fact, upon the conformity of which suppositions to any real matters of fact, we can have no assurance; or statements of fact of such a nature as prove nothing with regard to the points in dispute.' We only wonder that, after this remarkable concession of the ilast writer, Mr. M'Culloch and others should regard the principle of population, as first alleged by Mr. Malthus, as so great a discovery! All surely depends on the rate of procreation' being at some period or place in the argument established, and the conformity of the suppositions' of the system to real matters of fact.' The term check of course implies the prevention of that which would otherwise naturally take place; it is, therefore, very incorrectly applied to denote a relative difference, invariably fixed by the primary laws of nature, and the immutable decrees of Providence. From the deception caused by the wrong use of this term, we find writers supporting such positions as the following: civilisation does not weaken the principle of population (Monthly Review, June 1807, p. 137);' again, assuming a peopled portion of the earth, there is a point at which its produce would be a maximum; there is no point, however, at which the people upon it, however numerous, might not under advantageous circumstances go on increasing without number. Besides,, while the soil is still capable of increasing its produce, yet if it be approaching somewhere near the limit of its capacity, the increase of its produce cannot possibly keep pace with the, natural, or rather the possible, increase of the population upon it.' (Christian Observer, July 1807, p. 452). These are, in truth, but natural corollaries from Mr. Malthus's premises, who asserts of population, that 100,000,000 are just as easily doubled every twenty-five years as 1000, and population, could it be supplied with food, would go on with unexhausted vigor; and the increase of one period would furnish the power of a greater increase the next, and this without any limit.' (Malthus, vol. I. p. 8). And again, it is not · the question in England, whether by cultivating all our commons we could raise considerably more corn than at present, but whether we could raise sufficient for a population of 20,000,000 in the next twenty-five years, and 40,000,000 in the next fifty years;' as if it were possible, that the people of England, one-third of whom are asserted by this very writer to live in towns, and consequently not to keep up their own numhers, could by any possible means increase so fast as to double their total amount in twentyfive years: which is assumed as the quickest possible rate in the agricultural state of society, where the employment and situation of the people are most favorable to population. We contend that those of our readers who wish clearly to understand the principle of population, should abandon this assumed data, and proceed at once to enquire into the degree in which population naturally and really operates in the several stages of society. We will offer a few hints on the chief points of enquiry that will thus arise. In newly settled and purely agricultural countries, where the progress of population is infinitely the fastest, it can never overtake the supply of food, as long as this first state of society continues, for these plain reasons: that land will always produce, even in a very inferior state of cultivation, much more than sufficient food to support the cultivators, and the simple artisans attached to them; and that where good land can be had for nothing, the love of property and independence will find it occupiers, although no immediate demand may exist for the produce beyond the place of its production, and the family which occupies the farm. The surplus produce, however, which such a country is capable of raising, will usually find purchasers among the commercial and manufacturing nations whose wants create a demand for it. This demand will ensure its growth, and the returns from its export to those countries will afford to the growers many necessary or convenient manufactures, besides a capital which will enable them to settle their children upon fresh land. This state of society, and the rapid progress of population attending it, will continue, in the natural order of things, till all the best and most conveniently situated spots of land are occupied; and it would require the application of a large sum, on a remote prospect of return, to bring the remainder into cultivation. Till this point, a country may be said to be in the agricultural state of society, and the population is evidently far within the limits of the actual supply of food. At this period, the children of the farmers, unless their industry be violently depressed by ignorance or tyranny, will turn their views to trade and manufactures; which would then become the most profitable employment of capital. They would bring up their children also to the same occupations, and, though capital made in trade might be occasionally realised in land, it would usually be by the purchase of that already cultivated, rather than by the cultivation of the barren and more ungrateful tracts. The surplus produce of the land, before exported to manufacturing countries, will now be consumed by POPULATION. the domestic workmen; and the goods before imported will be wrought at home; at first only in sufficient quantities for the domestic demand, but at length for the purpose of exporting them to other countries, which have not yet advanced beyond the agricultural state of society. As soon as this manufacturing population is sufficiently numerous nearly to consume the surplus produce formerly exported, and it becomes difficult to procure grain for the various purposes of luxury, or convenience, to which it is applied in all commercial countries, its price will rise; and this, let it be observed, before any actual pressure of distress for a mere sufficiency of subsistence occurs. This rise in the price will tempt the capitalist to lay out his money in bringing inferior waste land into cultivation, or in undertaking agricultural improvements, by which the old lands may be made to produce somewhat more food with an equal quantity of labor. As this mode of procuring food, however, is evidently much slower in operation, and its increased quantity, in a given space of time or territory, less abundant than in the agricultural state of society, it is clear, that if the natural progress of population continued the same, it must shortly overtake the supply of food, and verify the positions just disputed. Let us see, therefore, whether the manner in which this manufacturing and commercial population arranges itself, and the moral and physical effects produced by their employments, dispositions, and spontaneous distribution, do not naturally weaken the principle of population as it originally subsisted, and reduce it as nearly to a par with the diminished power of production in the soil, as the views of Providence for a still further arrelioration will admit. It is found that the convenience of the merchant and the manufacturer is much promoted by having their residences contiguous to each other, and by collecting round them the houses of those who are employed in the various departments of their industry, and in supplying them with the necessaries and conveniences of life. They will, therefore, fix upon a favorable spot, in the midst of an extensive neighbourhood, where first a knot of houses will be formed, next a village, and at length a town, by the accession of more manufacturers, and of many of those who before carried on trades in the country, but who are tempted by the superior convenience of markets and intercourse to migrate to the town. From various other causes too, not necessary now to detail, towns will arise. In manufacturing countries the rise of many has been witnessed even in recent times; till at length the independent proprietors, the farmers and agricultural laborers, and the very simple artisans, will be the only inhabitants remaining in the country. These will convey their stock, or its produce, to the market in the town, and return thence with the manufactured goods they may want. Two descriptions of inhabitants will thus be formed, the townsman, and the countryman; and the habits, manners, and relative condition of each will naturally and spontaneously produce a very essential difference in their relative tendencies to contribute to the inVOL. XVII crease of population; while the progress of ci- This progress will indeed be retarded less 1 to be the menial servants of the higher orders, to navigate the ships, and fight the battles of the country. Of these three-fourths, at least twothirds, or one-half of the whole population, would cease to reproduce their own numbers of efficient people. This will be evident to any one who considers that in a state of society where so large a proportion of the people are merchants, manufacturers, or idle persons, at least one-third of the whole population must dwell in towns, some in very large towns; and that the remainder of those, who are calculated not to reproduce their own numbers, principally consists of soldiers, sailors, men of good families but small fortunes, servants, dependents, and emigrants to colonies, or other places. These are usually taken out of the mass of the population in the prime of life, but before they have contributed children to replace their loss, which must therefore be filled up by the chil dren of others. And, with respect to the towns, it is proved to demonstration, that, even of those of a moderate size, not one can keep up its own effective population. one family employed in tilling the earth, even in manufactures, or non-productive employments, this early stage of agricultural improvement, may be fairly accounted able to support itself, and two others: two-thirds of the whole population may therefore by degrees become engaged in manufactures and commerce, in unprofitable professions, or may be living idly on the fruits of former industry, before a demand arises for a further increase of food. But, long before a nation can have two-thirds of its people thus occupied, a great proportion of it must reside in large towns, and the introduction of luxury, and an artificial state of society, must have produced many imaginary wants among the country residents. Many of the people will be also lifted above the rank of the lower orders, and be affected by those artificial arrangements of society which, though they universally produce high mental cultivation, do very much diminish the natural powers of increase in mankind. Hence, from the diminished average of marriages and births, and the increase of premature mortality, a very great proportion of the population will cease to produce its own number; and a considerable deficiency will remain to be filled up by the peasantry, or lower order of country residents: the most productive class in every well-regulated community Thus it appears that, in proportion as the population advances towards an equality with the surplus produce, existing at the first emergence of a country from the purely agricultural state, in such, precisely, will its progress naturally become slower, by the inevitable and unalterable laws of Providence; though the people be left as perfectly at liberty to follow the dictates of their own inclinations as is consistent with a free and well-regulated government. Let it be observed, also, that this effect will be produced by certain and unerring causes, which can by no human means be very materially altered. It is as impossible to render the residents in towns more fruitful, to make the air of towns more wholesome to infants, to induce any large proportion of those who wish to abstain from marriage for their own convenience to enter into that contract, as it would be to feed the increased population that would follow, supposing the possibility of their production to exist. abatement in the progress of population is voluntary, natural, and unavoidable. It is another question, certainly, how far it necessarily produces an increase of vice and misery, and how far that species of moral restraint which consists in involuntary abstinence, be either necessary or useful to the welfare of the people. All that is here asserted is, that the abatement is the necessary consequence of the progress of society, and that to exclaim against its effects is in fact to exclaim against all advancement of a country beyond the purely agricultural state. The The result will be in an advanced state of society, by new capital being naturally thrown into agriculture, until each gradation of the soil is made productive by improved modes of culture, &c., that one family employed in agricultural pursuits will be able at least to support itself and three others. Three-fourths of the people therefore will be left at large to follow Mr. Weyland, who has adopted and ably advocated this view of the subject shows, that, 'an excess of annual deaths above annual births of seven in each 1000 of existing persons has been considered as a low average in towns even of a moderate size. Upon this datum, seven eme grants per 1000 from the country will be required to keep up the population of a town, even if the population of the town were stationary; but, if from an increase in the demand for labor it were rapidly extending itself, of cours a larger influx of settlers must take place. In a country containing a population of 9,000,000, the following is what Mr. Weyland conceives would be the distribution of the people according to the state of society sup posed : 1. One-third in towns (not reproducing their own numbers). 2. One-fourth in agriculture (reproducing their own numbers and supplying the deficiencies in the towns, &c.) . 3. A fourth of the remainder, men of rank and fortune with their families, unemployed descendants, and servants (not reproducing their own numbers). 4. Army, navy, mercantile and military, emigrants to foreign settlements with their families and attendants (almost entirely supplied from the classes reproducing their own numbers). 5. Country manufacturers, shopkeepers, small proprietors, &c., with their families (reproducing their own numbers, but affording no material supply to the deficiency of the other classes). 3,000,000 2,250,00% 937,500 46 750 2,343,75) Total 9,000,000 The three classes not reproducing their own numbers leaving a deficiency of at least a fift: of their aggregate number, or 880,000 souls in a generation, to be made up by the two other classes, principally by that marked 2. The conclusion from this argument is, that in this more advanced stage of society, such for example as we are now living in, although the powers of production yet remaining in the soil are continually decreasing, yet the natural tendency of population to press against the supply of food is also decreasing in a still greater ratio; at least, in all countries where due attention is paid to religion, morals, and rational liberty.' But there may be supposed, though as yet it is only hypothetical, a still more advanced state of society and it is evident, that if a community conducting itself even upon the most reasonable principles, is indefinitely to continue increasing its population, in however retarded a ratio, it must at length come to the end of its resources in food: the land being an absolute quantity, and only capable, when most fully cultivated, of making a definite return.' However remote and improbable this contingency may be, the author last quoted feels himself bound to provide against it; and argues, by an application of his previous calculations, that there is a point at which the sterile portion of the people becomes so numerous that the reproducing part will not be able by any natural fertility of its own to supply the deficiency; a point which must at length be reached, as the size of the towns is enlarged, and the habits of a highly advanced state of society are more widely extended through the several ranks of the people. This author argues to an extent in which we cannot follow him, in favor of our poor laws. We believe that Providence intends, we are sure that Christianity commands, that the orphan, the sick, and the aged, should be supported by charity; but we also believe it to be the intention of Providence that the young and the healthy should furnish labor to the community, according to the natural demand; and that the present system in England is a deviation from the wise and simple arrangement of Providence-that system, we mean which allows every man without reference to character, strength, or age, to clain a right to support; to what becomes in effect a gratuitous support, since the return made to the parish is commonly of no sort of value, in digging gravel which nobody wants, in making pots which nobody buys, or in levelling roads which nobody travels. We believe that we shall become a more happy, more moral, and more prosperous people, in proportion as we gradually undermine habits which cannot be taken by storm, and, by encouraging the provident banks, and inducing the poor to contribute to them by every indulgence and favor shown to those who do, return to the great law of nature, that every man's condition shall ordinarily be proportioned to his own prudence, morality, and industry. His investigation of the poor laws is followed by an enquiry into the natural order of precedence between population and food. It has been made an inference from Mr. Malthus's reasonings, that an increase of people should always follow, and never precede an increase in the produce of the soil: which when applied,' observes Mr. Weyland, to a manufacturing society, appears to be tantamount to saying that an increase in the number of backs should always follow, and never precede, an increase in the manufacture of coats; whereas, surely a previous increase of wearers and consumers is absolutely necessary to the respective production of further food and raiment,'-p. 82. Our author proves, we think, unanswerably, that when the best lands are already cultivated, farther produce can only be elicited by a rise in the article, occasioned by the demand of the already existing claimants; and the whole detail of the subject is practically and fully entered upon; but we must here refer political economists to the book itself. His last book is devoted to the moral consequence deducible from the principles for which he argues, i. e. the nature and extent of the duty of charity, and the propriety of leaving to the lower orders the free option of marriage. On these points we cordially agree with him. If it be true, as asserted,' he argues, that population has in all cases a tendency of itself to exceed the supply of food for its support; since we can scarcely assist the poor in any way without encouraging them to produce, and enabling them to rear a greater number of children, or at least without prolonging the existence of the objects of our charity; it is evident that by every exertion of it we are only increasing the quantum of human misery. While we assist some, we are proportionably depressing others, and adding to that number which is already exuberant to a fault.'—p. 334. In the face of this cheerless doctrine, he contends, that it is the poor man, who feels himself neglected, degraded, and an outcast as it were from his fellows, who becomes morose, brutish, and incorrigibly selfish in his pursuits. He it is whose natural feelings, not being softened down by intercourse with more enlightened men, nor by any sense of gratitude, yield to the first temptation offered to his passions; and who, restrained by no check, moral or natural, by no sense of respect towards others or himself, is impelled to the multiplication of his species like the brutes that perish. I am ready to acknowledge,' says our author, that the population thus raised is checked only by the rule which regulates the number of the brutes; viz. by the perpetual contest between the powers of procreation and the principle of destruction a rule which, when applied to the human species, involves almost every modification of vice and misery.' The most original of our author's observations on marriage is that which points out the injustice of expecting equal restraint on this head, in the members of the lower and the higher classes of the community. The lower orders have fewer enjoyments to substitute for it, and infinitely fewer means of avoiding the temptations to vice, which an involuntary abstinence from marriage necessarily multiplies. Their mental resources being deficient, they are more in want of other gratifications, and of the means of humanising their minds by the enjoyment of the social affections. The conclusion is thus drawn :- in unison with the apparent equity of the divine mation, to find this influential periodical at last dispensations, with our sense of natural justice, consider that Mr. Malthus has but contrived to and with the express commands and unqualified revive and elevate into popularity a theory onpermissions of Scripture on the subject. It ginally broached by a philosophical infidel of the appears then, upon the whole, that no-moral im- seventeenth century: that in the teeth, to all pediment to the progress of society, or to the appearance, of the Malthusian theory,' it is natural tendency of population to keep within proved by indisputable evidence that the present due bounds, is to be apprehended from as gene- condition of the peasantry of Ireland, however ral prevalence of matrimonial connexions as the destitute and miserable, is still much superior to existing state of society will admit; nay, that a that of the population of the same island some perfect liberty in this respect is essential to a centuries ago; though the disciples of Mr. healthy progress. We perceive that the princi- Malthus use the number of idle and unoccupied ple of population introduces no new duty, nor laborers as an argument to prove that the preany necessary increase of vice and misery as so- sent population of Ireland is redundant, &c.'ciety advances, and the land arrives nearer to its Lastly, that we are enabled to pronounce, upon point of complete cultivation. I think upon the evidence which cannot be disputed, that whatever whole that an early marriage, and a young family, increase may have taken place in the population is a strong incentive to sobriety, industry, and of Ireland within the last 200 years, the produce decency, in a poor man, wherever his moral and raised in that country for subsisting them has inreligious instructors come in aid of his natural creased in a much greater ratio. See, indeed, feelings of affection towards his wife and chil- the whole article IRELAND, 'its Evils and their dren. I have seldom seen the workings of good Remedies,' No. 75. advice upon natural affections fail in their effect, except in old and very hardened profligates; and I have very frequently beheld the combination of the two effectual in reclaiming a loose and thoughtless character. I should be sorry, however, to be so far misunderstood, as to be thought to assert that it would be consistent with the good of the state to afford to every idle and abandoned strippling the means of entering into the marriage contract, although he possess neither the will nor the intention of laboring for the support of his family, nor be in a capacity to have set before him in a forcible manner his duties in these respects. For truly I have never yet been able to discover, nor should I be very industrious in searching for, any scheme of polity which can enable the machinery of society to work freely and profitably, notwithstanding the general neglect of moral habits and precautions.'-p. 413, 414. The result of the whole is that, by the arrange ments of a wise and beneficent Creator, mankind,' as Sir William Jones has beautifully said, 'cannot long be happy without virtue, nor actively virtuous without freedom, nor securely free without rational knowledge;' but that happiness is placed within the reach, commonly of the individual, and always of the community, in proportion as honest industry flourishes, in proportion as sound religion inculcates pure morality, and the diffusion of rational knowledge secures public and private liberty. We can only observe, in conclusion, that after having seen the Essay of Mr. Malthus popular on both sides the Tweed, and occasionally shedding its baleful influence on the deliberations of the legislature, we are in no small degree edified and comforted by the disposition to retractation -politically called, we believe, ratting,' upon this subject, observable in the last number of the Quarterly Review. After having (No 51) stated Mr. Malthus's principle,' and its grand deductions' to remain unrefuted,' and that 'an inherent tendency to double in population' must be admitted, while no such tendency is found in the fertility of the earth,' it argues something for the march of intellect, in our esti 6 POPULUS, the poplar, a genus of the octandria order, and diæcia class of plants; in the natural method ranking under the fiftieth order, amentaceæ. The calyx of the amentum is a lacerated, oblong, and squamous leaf; the corolla is turbinated, oblique, and entire. The female has the calyx of the amentum and corolla the same as in the male; the stigma is quadrifid; the capsule bilocular, with many pappous seeds. It is often mentioned by the poets, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Catullus, &c. The principal species are these: 1. P. alba, the abele tree, is a large tree, and grows naturally m the temperate parts of Europe. Its leaves are large, divided into three, four, or five lobes, indented on their edges, of a very dark color on their upper side; standing upon foot-stalks an inch long. The young branches have a purple bark, and are covered with a white down; but the bark of the stem and older branches is gray. In the beginning of April, the male flowers or catkins appear, which are cylindrical, and abou three inches long. About a week after come oni the female flowers. Soon after these come out, the male catkins fall off; and in five or six weeks after the female flowers have ripe seeds in a hairy covering. The catkins will then drop, and the seeds be wafted by the winds to a great distance. The wood of all these trees, but especially of the abele, is good for laying floors, where it will last for many years; and on account of its extreme whiteness is by many preferred to oak; yet, on account of its soft contexture, being very subject to take the impression of nails, &c., it is less proper on this account than the harder woods. The abele likewise deserves particular notice, on account of the virtue of its bark in curing intermitting fevers. A dram powdered is given every four hours betwixt the fits. In obstinate cases, one-fifth part of Peruvian bark is given with it See Philosophical Transactions vol. liii. p. 195 This bark will also tan leather. M. Fougeron de Bondaroy, who made experiments on various species of poplar, reckons this the most valuable of them all, affording wood of an excellent quality. 2. P. balsamifera, the Carolina poplar, is |