1831.] Mr. Sadler and the Political Economists. 537 



that the number of conception did not decrease, which would be rela- 

 tively speaking an actual increase ; but here we find that not only did 

 the conceptions not decrease, but that they really increased, a coincidence 

 with the great law hardly to have been anticipated. 



The calculations drawn from the effects of varying mortalities are 

 equally complete. Of course, in those cases the operation of the 

 mysterious, but ever labouring law of population, is not so visible, nor 

 its sphere of evidence so extensive; and it is liable to many incidental 

 interruptions, and minor influences, that tend to render its display in 

 figures less apparently convincing than that of the phenomena that 

 breaks up the order and harmony of our system. Yet in spite of all 

 these obstacles, it developes itself clearly and unequivocally, and offers 

 so incontrovertible an auxiliary to the great argument as to leave no 

 doubt of the constant action of the principle for which Mr. Sadler con- 

 tends. From a variety of statistical tables, comprising every country in 

 Europe from whence such facts could be derived, collected from city and 

 country districts, and comprehending a period of time sufficiently exten- 

 sive to render the uniformity of the deductions of universal application, 

 Mr. Sadler derives these curious and astounding results. Taking a 

 series of mortal, average, and healthful years, here are the deductions : 

 Proportions of conceptions to 1000 Marriages. 



In the most healthy years, 4015 



In the average years, 4084 



In the mortal years, 4254 



This, we frankly admit, appears almost incredible. And when we 

 remember the fact that in the mortal years a fewer number of marriages 

 take place than in the other periods, the wise and benevolent dispensa- 

 tions of Providence in this regard will derive a still higher claim on our 

 gratitude and wonder. Of the registers of eighty-eight places enumer- 

 ated in Sir Frederick Eden's History of the Poor, here are the results of 

 a similar examination : 



Deaths. Births. 



In the most mortal years, 88,349 . . 92,052 



In the most healthy years, 65,564 . . 90,287 



The investigation is pushed into other censuses, all directly tending to 

 the same point. The importance of this very decisive argument is 

 greater than perhaps it may appear at first sight. Mr. Malthus maintains 

 the necessity of a " preventive check/' the whole of the dark purport of 

 which we cannot venture to translate into intelligible language ; but we 

 may trust ourselves so far as to explain, that a part of its object is to 

 suppress the disposition of the multitude to intermarry, affirm- 

 ing that it is necessary to keep back by that means the apprehended 

 numerical excess. Now, the moral effect of Mr. Sadler's argument in 

 this instance is to shew that the seasons of mortality, instead of being 

 sterile, in order to make room for marriages, as the Malthusian doctrines 

 assume, are actually remarkably fertile which is, as it were, a sort of 

 compensation for the ravages of death, instead of death being a punish- 

 ment for the extreme procreation of the species. If the reader will turn 

 this strong antithesis in his mind, he will have in a short compass a pretty 

 clear notion of the anti-population philosophy. 



Seventh. The comparative prolificness of marriages as determined 



upon physiological principles, affords a debateable ground which none 



of the other proofs admit. On that account we should prefer calling it 



an ingenious argument or illustration, rather than a proof, although it 



M.M. New Series. VOL. XI. No. 65. 3 Z 



