538 The Population Question. [MAY, 



is not a proof only in so far as it rests on doctrines, generally received, 

 instead of demonstrable facts that cannot be denied. It is therefore a 

 confirmation of a principle already proved. We cannot hope to express 

 this confirmation in shorter terms than we find it conveyed in the lan- 

 guage of Mr. Sadler. 



" The first and lowest condition in which human beings are presented 

 to our contemplation, is that in which they are mere hunters, or little 

 more than superior animals of prey ; a state of extreme severity, whether 

 it respects the fatigue, or the privations it implies. It demands, moreover, 

 a vast extent of country, in proportion to the inhabitants, to render such 

 pursuits available for the purpose of sustaining life ; and, therefore, as 

 they multiply, a more ample and certain supply of those animals on which 

 they subsist becomes necessary, and the nomadic or pastoral must there- 

 fore succeed to the predatory condition. Numbers still increase, and the 

 agricultural state necessarily ensues, being the simplest form of civilized 

 society ; that which obviously supposes the scantiest population, and 

 unquestionably the most laborious, not ' to say necessitous habits, of any 

 with which we are in these days personally conversant, though greatly 

 superior, in all respects, to the preceding conditions.' Population still 

 enlarges ; and while all classes partake of the general benefit, multitudes 

 are liberated from the lower drudgeries of life ; many are found devot- 

 ing themselves to higher and more intellectual pursuits; and not a few 

 exist in a state of- the most luxurious refinement. 



" Such has, in many respects, been the history of almost every country 

 upon earth ; nor could a community, originally barbarous, and increas- 

 ing in numbers, continue to subsist, much less attain to a high state of 

 civilization, in any other course. Two facts, essential to the argument, 

 present themselves to our consideration in this progression of society : 

 the first is, that, at every step of it, the means of subsistence become more 

 certain in their supply, more sufficient in quantity, and, above all, 

 greatly improved in their kind. The second, that human labour is, at the 

 same time, as regularly diminished in its duration, and mitigated in its 

 intensity. In short, increase of population is, in every properly regulated 

 community, the cause of diffusing greater ease and enjoyment, and of 

 dispensing greater plenty ; and the ancient maxim, that people are the 

 riches of a country, is, in every sense of the expression, fully confirmed." 

 Fo/. 2, p. 572-3. 



This lucid retrospect brings the whole question into a very small space. 

 It distinctly shews that population precedes food, (in the sense of pro- 

 ductiveness) that food increases with and in proportion to the human 

 species ; and, which is the great object of the physiologist, that where 

 the population is scanty, poor, laborious, and inured to hardships, it is 

 most prolific ; and, vice versa, where it is densely planted, and where 

 labour and want are either mitigated or unknown, and the comforts, 

 rising upward to the luxuries of life, are enjoyed, it is least prolific ; 

 thus reversing the Malthusian doctrine, and proving that man, instead of 

 increasing beyond the supply of food, increases that supply with his own 

 increase, and by a mysterious law of nature, accommodates himself at the 

 point of luxury, to the means of subsistence Mr. Sadler gives physio- 

 logical instances to prove this latter curious fact, but we cannot afford to 

 quote them. It is sufficient for our purposes that it is satisfactorily 

 shewn that in proportion to the poverty of a people is their tendency to 

 propagate, and by that means to urge on the undeveloped bounties of 

 the earth, and that in proportion as they rise above necessity that ten- 

 dency gradually fades away. 



