( 320 ) Bk. ii. 



CHAP. IV. 



Of the Checks to Population in the Middle Parts of 



Europe. 



I have dwelt longer on the northern states of 

 Europe than their relative importance might to 

 some appear to demand, because their internal 

 economy is in many respects essentially different 

 from our own, and a personal though slight ac- 

 quaintance with these countries has enabled me 

 to mention a few particulars which have not yet 

 been before the public. In the middle parts of 

 Europe the division of labour, the distribution of 

 employments and the proportion of the inhabi- 

 tants of the country, differ so little from what is 

 observable in England, that it would be in vain 

 to seek for the checks to their population in any 

 peculiarity of habits and manners sufficiently 

 marked to admit of description. I shall therefore 

 endeavour to direct the reader's attention prin- 

 cipally to some inferences drawn from the lists of 

 births, marriages and deaths in different coun- 

 tries; and these data will, in many important 

 points, give us more information respecting their 

 internal economy than we could receive from the 

 most observing traveller. 



One of the most curious and instructive points 

 of view, in which we can consider lists of this 

 kind, appears to me to be the dependence of the 



