100 On the Comparative Population of the Worlds 



millions. The latest and best authorities do not reckon the 

 whole inhabitants of the Turkish dominions at more than 18 

 millions. Yet this monarchy comprises the largest, the most 

 opulent, and populous districts of the empire of the Caesars, 

 with many countries to which the Roman sway never extended. 



It is true that, in some parts of the world, an improvement 

 even more striking than this immense deterioration has visibly 

 taken place ; but it is plain that there is nothing which ap- 

 proaches to compensation. In the two largest divisions of the 

 Old World there is perhaps scarcely a single nation which has 

 experienced any considerable increase. Northern Europe, un- 

 doubtedly, has augmented in its population to a very great 

 degree, but it is not less evident that the nations of the South 

 have, for the most part, declined: not perhaps in the same 

 proportion, but yet so considerably as to afford, upon the ba- 

 lance, no sort of compensation for the dreadful decay of Asia 

 and Africa. The improvements, though great, are unhappily 

 on a small scale : the decline is not only excessive in its de- 

 gree, but enormous in its extent. 



Here it will naturally be suggested, that there must have 

 been some great and permanent causes uniformly operating to 

 produce this constant decay of the human race through the 

 lapse of so many ages. If such an inquiry should be made, it 

 would not be very easy to give any satisfactory answer. Every 

 sudden and marked improvement in the condition of any peo- 

 ple may commonly be ascribed to visible and positive causes, 

 but a state of stagnation, or of gradual decline, is so much in 

 the course of human affairs, that it seldom excites investigation. 

 It may be sufficiently explained by the natural vis inertice of 

 man when placed in a situation that leaves untouched all the 

 great springs of human activity. Some external impulse is 

 commonly required to set forward a nation in the career of 

 amelioration. This holds particularly true with respect to 

 those regions of the earth, the most favoured by nature with a 

 benignant climate and a fertile soil. A nation thus circum- 

 stanced, when once depressed, will continue for ages without a 

 single effort to rise from its degradation. 



The more immediate causes, however, of this long and 

 profound debasement, and consequent depopulation, of the 



