authenticity. To mention only one example: the Russians BOOK
may be permitted to assert that almost every year, (even in XXII.
time of war,) there are more than one million of individuals
born in the Russian empire, whilst only from 500,000 to
600,000 die. But we also must be allowed to express our
doubts as to these marvellous results, and to ascribe, in
part, this disproportion between the deaths and the births,
to the carelessness of those who keep the registers. Euler
has constructed the following table, by means of which we
may see, at a glance, in how many years the population of
a country may be doubled under certain conditions.*

In a Country of 100,000 inhabitants, the Mortality being

Table of
the in-
crease of
the species.

as,

10 to 11

277

12

555

τέσ

The same mathematician, founding on data extremely fa-
vourable to the propagation of the species, has constructed
a table, the general result of which is, that the human race
might be tripled in 24 years, and that at the end of 300
years the posterity of one couple might amount to 3,993,954
individuals.

of births

Taking the total number of the human race at 700 mil- Proportion
lions, (which is rather high,) the ratio of the deaths to and deaths
the living population as 1 to 35, and that of the births in a given
* Euler, Tables communicated to Sussmilch, Ordre divin, chap. viii. §§ 152
156. 162.

time.

BOOK to the living as 1 to 294, we shall have for the whole

Numerical

proportion

sexes.

one minute,

40

3

one second, Whence it follows, that the sum total of the human race would, in one year, be augmented by an accession of 2,516,692 individuals, were it not for wars and pestilences. This augmentation would, in 100 years, bring the number of men up to 3,216 millions. The earth might, perhaps, support a still greater number; but all the records of history seem to concur in showing that the increase of the human race has hitherto advanced at a much slower rate.

The proportion between the numbers of the two sexes is a of the two matter of great importance, both in statistics and legislation. In Europe there are always more boys born than girls, in the proportion of 21 to 20, or, according to others, of 26 to 25. On the other hand, the mortality also is greater amongst the male children, in the proportion of nearly 27 to 26; in consequence of which, about the 15th year, the numbers of the two sexes are brought almost to an equality: there is, however, still a surplus in favour of the males. But this surplus in the number of the men, even though it were three or four times greater, is carried off by wars, by dangerous voyages, and by emigration, to the casualties of which the female sex are less exposed. Thus, the final result of this is, that in our climates the women are always more numerous than the men. This difference is particularly observable at the conclusion of a long war. According to Wargentin, it amounted in France, after the seven years war, to 890,000 in 24 or 25 millions of souls; and in Sweden, after the Northern war, about 127,000 in a population of two million and a half.

At the same time the difference of numbers between the two sexes is not in Europe sufficiently great, nor indeed sufficiently steady to warrant any conclusion unfavourable

BOOK

to the system of monogamy, that is, of marriages between one man and one woman. Such marriages only are fitted XXII. to insure domestic happiness, and to maintain pure morals; they are besides sanctioned by the soundest maxims of political economy; and none can doubt that the prevalence of polygamy, or the marriage of one man to several wives, would prove fatal to the welfare of Europe.

more girls

Some travellers* have imagined that in warm climates Are there there are more girls born than boys; and as the male sex born in the is liable to more rapid destruction in such climates than in east? ours, the surplus of women must become very great; hence Montesquieu concludes that polygamy amongst those people admits of a very plausible excuse; but the position from which he sets out is altogether unfounded. The researches of Father Parennin in China, the lists of baptisms kept by the Danish missionaries of Tranquebar,‡ the various censuses taken by the Dutch at Amboyna and Batavia,§ and the observations made at Bagdad and Bombay, by the judicious Niebuhr, have demonstrated that the number of children of both sexes is not more disproportionate in the East than in Europe.

It is alleged with more reason, that there are some nations. who, being in the habit of selling a number of their women to foreigners, experience a deficiency of them at home, which has obliged them to establish polyandrism, or the marriage of one woman to several husbands.¶ Such a practice, if it does exist, is evidently the least favourable to population.

*Kæmpfer, Description du Japon, i. liv. 2, chap. 5. A Collection of the Voyages of the East India Company, i. 346.

† Lettres édifiantes, xxvi. recueil, p. 8. (Paris, 1743.)

Sussmilch, l'Ordre Divin, &c. 418.

Valentyn, Beschryving van Amboina, ii. p. 342. Struyck, Nader ontdekkingen noppens den staat van het menschelyk geslagt, p. 104, (in Dutch.) Niebuhr, Description de l'Arabie, i. 102, sqq.

¶ Duhalde, Description of China, iv. 461. Strabo (Description of Media,) ix. 798, edit. Almel, Compare Michaelis. Mosaic Right, ii. 199. (in German,)

BOOK

It has been commonly computed that a district, in which there are 10,000 infants born yearly, must contain in all, 295,022 inhabitants of both sexes, of whom 93,003 should proportion be children below 15 years, and 202,019 persons above that of sexes, age.

General

ages,

states, &c.

Amongst these individuals, there will be at the most 25,250 monogamic marriages, (the mean duration of which may be estimated at 21 years,) 5,812 widows, and 4,359 widowers, the rest single.

BOOK XXIII.

Continuation and Conclusion of the General Theory of Geography. Of Man, considered as a Moral and Political being; or, Principles of Political Geography.

We have for a long time considered the earth as a phy- BOOK sical body, having relations to other physical bodies which XXIII. surround it, or which dwell upon its surface. No sooner, Political however, had man become the subject of our inquiries, than Geograwe have seen physical geography gradually give place to po- phy.

litical.

This branch of our science considers the earth according to its political divisions, and in its relations to the different civilized societies which are established upon it. It is evident that this department of geography has, as well as the others, general principles of its own, which, taken collectively, form a theory, and the knowledge of which ought to precede the study of particular descriptions. Of these principles, however, those which, from their having a foundation in the nature of our being, do not change with the changes of human opinion, are few in number. The other relations vary, if not in different kingdoms, at least in different parts of the world; and this induces us to confine ourselves here, to a rapid view of the former class of principles, reserving for the others their proper place in our particular introductions to the description of each grand division of the globe.

Articulate language, the noble inheritance of human na- Articulate ture, forms the great bond of civil society. Few animals and rationhave language which is articulate, or possessed of distinct guage.

al lan