prolificness is the strongest amongst the higher orders, and diminishes in power as we descend towards the lower orders.

The second cause of unprolificness is the difficulty of rearing children, and a greater general mortality amongst persons of all ages. This cause is strongest amongst the poor, and diminishes in power as we ascend towards the higher orders.

A civilized community may thus be divided into three classes :

First-Those who are unprolific from deficiency of births.

Second-Those whose numbers increase. Third-Those who are unprolific from the small proportion of children that are reared, and the greater general mortality among persons of all ages. Extreme distress will also diminish the number of births. The rate at which a population increases depends of course upon the proportion that the unprolific classes bear to the prolific. But in proportion as the civilization of a country is advanced, population is restrained from undue increase, more by the unprolificness

of the higher orders, and less by the unprolificness of the poor.

But it does not appear to be possible that civilization can ever so far advance as to prevent the circumstances of the poorer classes from undergoing such fluctuations as would stimulate or retard their rate of increase.

It is this variableness in the condition of the lower classes that gives, as it were, the elasticity to population, and enables it to fill up any void that may be made in its numbers, or to reduce their amount when superabundant. Thus when increased means of support are afforded to the population, those who before, from want of employment, or inadequate remuneration, were living ill-clothed, ill-fed, in poverty and in filth, who, unprolific themselves, were only able to maintain their numbers by the distress that reduced others down to their level, are at once converted into well-paid labourers, in the enjoyment of the principal necessaries and comforts of life, and are thus translated into the most prolific class of the community.

The class of those unreproductive through

poverty may now, in a great measure, cease to exist, until the demand for labour shall be fully supplied, after which there will probably arise a slight redundancy of workmen, some of whose families may again fall back into an unprolific class, and thus society will be restored to its former condition. Augment the comforts and the supply of food to the poor, and the rapidity of their increase will be astonishing. It appears to be impossible to make any permanent reduction in the population of a country, merely by taking away a portion of its inhabitants, while the means of subsistence remain unaltered. Dr. Franklin observes, that " it would be difficult to find the gap that had been made by a hundred years' exportation of negroes, which has blackened half America."*

Take the case of a falling off in the supply of food. When from the failure of any branch of commerce or manufactures, or from defective crops, the resources of a country are inadequate to the support of its inhabitants, and a diminu

* Franklin's Miscellany, p. 9,

tion of the population is in consequence required, if this diminution be not very great, it is gradually brought about by a smaller proportion of the offspring of the poor being reared, by a greater tendency to sickness, and an increased mortality amongst those of all ages. In years of great distress there is also a diminution in the number of births.

Thus the scantier numbers of the rising generation, with the increased general mortality, will soon adapt the amount of population to its more contracted resources. It is true, that for a time this class of misery and privation may be considerably extended; nevertheless, the benevolence of this law of Nature will not be disputed, if we compare it with the condition to which the population would have been reduced had this injurious rate of increase continued in operation until people perished from actual starvation.

In some countries the food that can be procured is occasionally insufficient to afford a bare subsistence to its inhabitants. Here it is evident that their numbers must by some means be reduced; and, if we except emigration, which ap

The

pears to be practicable only under particular circumstances, this can only be effected by death. Starvation however (perhaps the most miserable of all deaths) occurs but rarely, and is never the instrument by which a numerous community is kept within the means of subsistence. manner in which this augmented mortality is developed is such as to occasion the least possible misery. The greater proportion of deaths take place among very young children; these having scarcely crossed the threshold of life, can hardly be said to have any regrets at leaving it; and although the grief of the parents may be intense, they have not had time to endear themselves to any numerous circle of friends. Next to these come the aged and infirm, those who have already enjoyed the greater part of the sum of happiness allotted to them in this world, and whose lives are clouded over by sickness and decrepitude. Dr. Villermé observes, that "while one epidemic falls heaviest upon the young, another will fall heaviest upon the aged. But among the same number of sick at each age, the chances of death will be great among children