pensate a people for a deficiency of food! no interest is to be put for a moment in competition with that of a full supply of the means of subsistence for the entire population.

A deficiency in the means of subsistence is acknowledged to be in the present age the only obstacle of real importance that opposes itself to the continual and increasing prosperity of the inhabitants of the more civilized parts of the world. This, then, is the great question that stands foremost in claiming the attention of the philosopher, the legislator, the statesman, and the man of humanity. What are the natural laws which determine the supply of food? Is there any reason why its increase should present greater difficulties than that of other objects of desire? Are there any artificial obstacles imposed by conventional institutions to its abundant production? For if so, they should be removed. Are there any means of encouraging and accelerating its production? For if so, they should be adopted.

Now there is nothing intricate or mysterious in the method by which man supplies himself with food, or in the natural circumstances that determine its abundance or deficiency;-nothing that can excuse or account for the extraordinary fallacies which have been put forth on this subject, and the frightful (it is difficult to refrain from saying the inhuman and impious) conclusions which have been arrived at by some who have written volumes upon it. I am anxious to preserve this little work, as far as possible, from assuming a controversial character; and would willingly therefore refrain from characterizing, as they appear to me to de

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serve, the doctrines to which I allude,—and which are so well known by the name of their leading propagator, Mr. Malthus. But to treat lightly, and as a mere venial error, the promulgation of doctrines having so pernicious a tendency as these would amount to a kind of misprision of treason against humanity. None can doubt the benevolent intentions of the gentleman I have named, and of the greater number of his followers. But good intentions are not enough to rescue from deserved reprobation those who do their utmost to spread opinions tending materially to influence the happiness of millions of their fellow-creatures, without such a severe and searching examination of their truth, as must, in the instance before us, if undertaken in a spirit of candour, have instantly detected the palpable errors which lay on the very surface of the argument.

In order to form a correct conception of the law of relation between population and subsistence, the first step, of course, should be to examine the plain and obvious circumstances on which the supply of food to an increasing people has always depended.

The sacred writings inform us that all mankind sprang from a single pair. But without recurring to the evidence of divine inspiration, all historical records unite in placing before us the fact that the numbers of men have been for many ages past continually on the increase, and lead us to believe that his race was at some former period few in number, confined within very narrow geographical limits, and endowed with a very scanty knowledge of the useful arts. His present numbers and ter

ritorial extension have been progressively reached, as his knowledge, skill, and powers of production accumulated.

Whether there ever was a time when the progenitors of the now civilized nations of the globe were ignorant of the arts of agriculture and the domestication of cattle, is a question which, though seriously mooted of late by a writer of eminence in logic and theology,* is little worthy of investigation. Many savage tribes still existing offer an example of the mode in which our ancestors must have subsisted, if, as is probable, they once did exist in this state of comparative helplessness.

* Dr. Whately, in his Introductory Lectures on Political Economy delivered at Oxford, in 1830, argues in favour of the supposition that man was created with an innate knowledge of certain of the arts of civilization; and that the. savage tribes still met with who are ignorant of these arts are not specimens of man in his primitive condition, but in a state of deterioration. This is a strange idea to have been seriously entertained by an acute reasoner. Man is certainly not born at present with any such innate knowledge. He acquires all he possesses only by instruction or invention. It is easy to conceive how this same faculty of invention may have suggested by degrees every step of the progress from the extreme of barbarism to that of civilization. But it is utterly impossible to conceive the creation of a being endowed ab initio with a knowledge of the useful arts and sciences, of any or all of them. It may be said that all creation is an inconceivable mystery. True, and therefore we refer to it only what is not to be accounted for in any other way. Where secondary causes utterly fail, there we necessarily resort to the action of the great First Cause. But to attribute to the direct energy of the Deity, not merely the creation of man with all his wondrous natural faculties, but his instruction in the arts of milking cows, sowing corn, and making ploughs and pipkins, is surely consistent neither with sound philosophy nor rational theology.

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Their sustenance must have been confined to the fruits and berries of the plain or forest, the flesh of wild animals and fish, and the water of the spring. But with the exception of the last, which alone will not support life, these spontaneous gifts of nature are very limited; and as the numbers of a society increased, there must have been felt a very inconvenient scarcity of food, such as we know to be habitually experienced by the savage tribes of America or Southern Africa. In this condition the horrors of want must have been frequent, even among a society which ranged over an extent of territory such as now could be made to support many times the number it was then incapable of sustaining. It has, indeed, been calculated,. on good authority, that one acre tilled according to good British husbandry will support as many individuals as a thousand acres of hunting ground in the wilds of savage America. The only resource by which such a people could escape the thinning of their numbers by famine would be a spreading in search of new hunting grounds. But with the feeble means they possessed for encountering the natural difficulties in the way of their migration, this resource must have often failed them. And even had they been able to extend themselves over the whole habitable surface of the globe, their numbers would soon have reached the limit which the earth was capable of supporting in this precarious manner.

When, however, a people had attained a knowledge of the art of domesticating animals, whose milk or flesh supplies a wholesome and pleasant diet, a great addition was made to their power of

providing themselves with food from a limited territory. A tract of land employed as pasturage for herds of cattle and flocks of sheep might be made to support, probably, not less than a hundred times the population which could subsist on its spontaneous supply of wild fruits and animals. This pastoral condition, accompanied, for very obvious reasons, with nomadic habits, still characterizes the population of some extensive regions of the earth.

But as the numbers of such a society increased, they might not impossibly find themselves pinched for want of a sufficient range of pasture land. We have an example of this recorded in the sacred history of the Jews. When Abraham and Lot sojourned together between Bethel and Hai,' having each large possessions of flocks and herds and tents, and a proportionately large patriarchal family, or tribe' the land,' it is said, was not able to bear them so that they might dwell together.'* Under these circumstances two resources, as before, are open to such a people,-viz. either to spread themselves over other distant lands yet unoccupied, (which was the proposal of Abraham to Lot,' If thou wilt take to the left hand, I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, I will go to the left;') or by the exercise of their ingenuity to contrive means for making the district they inhabit afford them more copious supplies of food. To these, modern political economists have added a third, namely, the keeping their numbers sedulously within the limits of their

*Genesis, chap. xii.