DURATION or HUMAN LIFE. 24 
As a plenitude of inhabitants is of fo much importance 
to the interefts of a nation, numerous eftimates have been 
made, of the ftate and progrefs of population in divers 
countries ; and the circumftances are defignated which oc- 
cafion its growth or declenfion, in different places and at 
particular feafons. . The refults of t eftimates, on this fub- 
jeQ, furnifh ufeful refleCtions to a contemplative mind: 
they are not only inftructive to the moralift and pleafing 
to the mere fpeculative philofopher ; but they are peculi- 
arly interefling to the ftatefman and the medical enquirer. 
In order to fhew the difference between the progrefs of 
population in thiscountry, and that in fome parts of the 
old world, as well as in the probabilities of the duration 
of life in each, refpeCtively,—I fhall offer fome remarks 
from fuch data, as, I prefume, will be fatisfatory on the 
occafion. Although the kind of documents, on which 
-calculations of this nature are ufually founded, could not, 
in relationto this country, be obtained in fo perfec a ftate, 
as to warrant very accurate inferences from them, in eve- 
ry particular,—the deductions, in general, are neverthe- 
lefs not far from the truth—lIt is greatly to be wifhed, 
that the feveral religious denominations of chriftians, 
throughout the United States,—at leaft, in our confidera- 
ble towns and well fettled parts of the country,--would be 
atthe pains of obtaining and publifhing, every year, lifts 
of the births and deaths in their refpeClive parifhes or 
congregations; together with the proportion of the fexes 
in each lift, the ages of the deceafed, their difeafes, and the 
numbers dying in each month. The number of marriages 
fhould alfo be added: and it would, moreover, be ufeful 
wei to 
} ‘* La population eftan des plns firs moyens de juger de la profpérité d’un empire. et les 
variations q’elle €prouve, comparées aux événemens qui les precedent, font la plus jufte mefure 
de influence des caufes phyfiques et morales, fur le bonheur on furle malheur de l’efpéce hu- 
maine.”---See a paper on the births, marriages and deaths, at Paris, &c. by M. de la Place, 
Hift. Royal read fciences, for 1783. 
“< La connoifiance des probabilities dela durée dela vie, eft une des chofes les plus interef= * 
fantes dans l’hiftoire naturelle de l‘homme.”---See M. de Buffon’s eflay on the probabilitics 
of the duration of life---in the fupplement to the Nat. Hiftory. 
