254 Of the Checks to Population Bk. i. 



against the populousness of modern nations, 

 though to these physical causes both Hume* and 

 Wallacef allow considerable weight. 



In the moral causes which they have brought 

 forward, they have fallen into a similar error. 

 Wallace introduces the positive encouragements 

 to marriage among the ancients as one of the 

 principal causes of the superior populousness of 

 the ancient world ;£ but the necessity of positive 

 laws to encourage marriage certainly rather indi- 

 cates a want than an abundance of people; and 

 in the instance of Sparta, to which he particularly 

 refers, it appears from the passage in Aristotle, 

 mentioned in the last chapter, that the laws to 

 encourage marriage were instituted for the ex- 

 press purpose of remedying a marked deficiency 

 of people. In a country with a crowded and 

 overflowing population, a legislator would never 

 think of making express laws to encourage mar- 

 riage and the procreation of children. Other 

 arguments of Wallace will be found upon ex- 

 amination to be almost equally ineffectual to his 

 purpose. 



Some of the causes which Hume produces are 

 in the same manner unsatisfactory, and rather 

 make against the inference which he has in view 

 than for it. The number of footmen, housemaids 

 and other persons remaining unmarried in mo- 

 dern states, he allows to be an argument against 



* Essay xi. p. 425. 

 t Dissertation, p. 80. 

 % Id. p. 93. 



