114 BENBECULA. HIGHLAND POPULATION. 



and in this case there can be no surplus population ; 

 no army, none of all the classes which constitute the 

 efficient parts of a state. Here then is the basis of 

 the argument as far as it respects this question. It is 

 true that the individuals living under such a system 

 may be very innocent, and very contented, but the 

 collective society cannot exist on these terms, and it 

 is equally plain that whatever portion of it is in that 

 condition, is, for the general purposes of the whole, 

 useless. Since it can furnish no food, it can supply 

 no members for that part of the society which is the 

 bond and security of the whole, that which governs, 

 thinks, and defends. Where this state also exists, 

 the limit to population must consist in distress or 

 in absolute want, since no 'one will change his place 

 from any other motive ; and thus the change of place 

 is preceded or. attended by a state of poverty or incon- 

 venience giving to the emigration that character of 

 misery which has occurred so often that the idea of dis- 

 tress is necessarily connected with the word, and in the 

 minds of the mass who are not accustomed to examine 

 the associations of their ideas, appears to be a result of it. 

 Dismissing this subject, which would otherwise ramify 

 into digressions inconsistent with the nature of this work, 

 it is interesting to examine whether the agricultural con- 

 dition of the Highland districts in question is not a prac- 

 tical illustration of the political principle just mentioned, 

 namely, that such a state admits of no surplus popu- 

 lation ; this being the great point as far as government, 

 or the general benefit of the whole empire is concerned. 

 Like many other popular opinions, repeated without 

 examination because once asserted, the Highlands, and 

 these islands among them, are represented as a nursery 

 of seamen and soldiers. Montesquieu has well remarked 

 " Qu'il y a des choses que tout le monde dit parce qu'ils ont 

 cte dites une fois." It is said even in recent writings, that 

 the islands furnish some thousands of soldiers to the service, 



