1831.] Mr. Sadler and the Political Economists. 533 



ate, in consequence of the difficulties that in different countries impede 

 the collection of that sort of information. We must also take into 

 account the different habits, and the dissimilar influences of soil, climate, 

 and government, that will be found to prevail in different countries ; so 

 that this proof, as near as it can approach to correctness in facts, must 

 yet be subjected to these modifications in principle, and cannot be 

 expected to do more than indicate the theory. Yet we find, even under 

 these disadvantages, how fully the law of nature is justified by the 

 results. The following table exhibits the comparative prolificness of 

 marriages, as regulated by the density of the countries enumerated, 

 beginning with the most thinly populated, and proceeding in a gradual 

 advance to the most densely populated. 



Inhabitants Children 



on a square mile. to a marriage. 



Cape of Good Hope, 1 . 548 



North America, 4 . 5-22 



Russia in Europe, 23 . 4-94 



Denmark, 73 . 4-89 



Prussia, 100 . 4*70 



France, 140 . 4*22 



England, 160 . 3-6(5 



We perceive that as the population in a given space increases, the 

 number of births proportionably diminish. To this view there are 

 exceptions, such as those to which we have alluded ; but even they 

 still serve to vindicate the benevolence of the Deity, whose law seems 

 not to regulate human increase merely in proportion to space, but also 

 to food. As we advance into the cold latitudes, where the soil is sterile 

 and the population thin, we find the principle of human increase visibly 

 contracted. The Laplanders are pronounced by their own historian, 

 Shefferius, to be unfruitful. So that the exceptions in these instances 

 are in themselves but more convincing proofs of the important truth that 

 human beings do not propagate beyond the means of sustentation. 

 Either way it overthrows the Malthusian system. 



Third. When the inquiry descends to the examination of the relative 

 examples in different parts of the same country, where the people enjoy 

 the same advantages, natural and artificial, and suffer under the same 

 evils, the results may be expected to be more minute, accurate, and cer- 

 tain. But that accuracy and certainty expose the principle to a test out 

 of which it must come either with complete and decisive triumph, or 

 absolute defeat. Let us see how it stands this trial in reference to the 

 censuses of England. Mr. Sadler arranges the counties in the order of 

 population, beginning as before, with the most thinly populated, and 

 exhibits all the results in an elaborate table, of which the following pre- 

 sents the collected proofs : 

 No. of Inhabitants to the square mile. No. of Births to 100 Marriages. 



Under 100 (2 Counties) 420 



From 100 to 150 (9 Counties) 396 



150 to 200 (16 Counties) 390 



200 to 250 (4 Counties) 388 



250 to 300 (5 Counties) 378 



300 to 350 (3 Counties) 353 



500 to 600 (2 Counties) 331 



4000 and upwards (1 County) 246 



