132 Of the Checks to Population Bk. i. 



losses of men in war, tend perhaps also to produce 

 the same effect. Niebuhr observes, that polygamy 

 multiplies families till many of their branches sink 

 into the most wretched misery.* The descendants 

 of Mahomet are found in great numbers all over 

 the east, and many of them in extreme poverty. 

 A Mahometan is in some degree obliged to poly- 

 gamy from a principle of obedience to his prophet, 

 who makes one of the greatest duties of man to 

 consist in procreating children to glorify the 

 Creator. Fortunately, individual interest corrects 

 in some degree, as in many other instances, the 

 absurdity of the legislator; and the poor Arab is 

 obliged to proportion his religious obedience to the 

 scantiness of his resources. Yet still the direct 

 encouragements to population are extraordinarily 

 great; and nothing can place in a more striking 

 point of view the futility and absurdity of such 

 encouragements than the present state of those 

 countries. It is universally agreed that, if their 

 population be not less than formerly, it is indubi- 

 tably not greater; and it follows as a direct con- 

 sequence, that the great increase of some families 

 has absolutely pushed others out of existence. 

 Gibbon, speaking of Arabia, observes, that " The 

 " measure of population is regulated by the means 

 " of subsistence; and the inhabitants of this vast 

 " peninsula might be out-numbered by the sub- 

 " jects of a fertile and industrious province. "f 



* Niebuhr's Travels, vol. ii. c. v. p. 207. 



f It is rather a curious circumstance, that a truth so important, 

 which has been stated and acknowledged by so many authors, 



