108 Checks to Population among the ancient Bk. i. 



similar ravages in Europe, the nations driven into 

 the north, and resting on the limits of the uni- 

 verse,* would there make a stand till the moment 

 when they would inundate or conquer Europe a 

 third time. In a note he observes, " we see to 

 what the famous question is reduced — why the 

 north is no longer so fully peopled as in former 

 times?" 



If the famous question, or rather the answer to 

 it, be reduced to this, it is reduced to a miracle; 

 for without some supernatural mode of obtaining 

 food, how these collected nations could support 

 themselves in such barren regions for so long a 

 period as during the vigour of the Roman empire, 

 it is a little difficult to conceive; and one can 

 hardly help smiling at the bold figure of these 

 prodigious crowds making their last determined 

 stand on the limits of the universe, and living, 

 as we must suppose, with the most patient forti- 

 tude on air and ice for some hundreds of years, 

 till they could return to their own homes and re- 

 sume their usual more substantial mode of subsis- 

 tence. 



The whole difficulty, however, is at once re- 

 moved, if we apply to the German nations at that 

 time a fact which is so generally known to have 

 occurred in America, and suppose that, when not 

 checked by wars and famine, they increased at 

 a rate that would double their numbers in twenty- 

 five or thirty years. The propriety, and even the 



* Les nations adossees aux limites de l'univers y tiendroient ferme. 

 Grandeur et Decad. des Rom. c. xvi. p. 187. 



