330 Of the Checks to Population in Bk. ii. 



riages coming necessarily to a stand when the 

 food is not capable of further increase, and ex- 

 amines some countries in which the number of 

 contracted marriages is exactly measured by the 

 number dissolved by death, yet he still thinks that 

 it is one of the principal duties of government to 

 attend to the number of marriages. He cites the 

 examples of Augustus and Trajan, and thinks that 

 a prince or a statesman would really merit the 

 name of father of his people, if, from the propor- 

 tion of 1 to 120 or 125, he could increase the mar- 

 riages to the proportion of 1 to 80 or 90.* But as 

 it clearly appears, from the instances which he 

 himself produces, that, in countries which have 

 been long tolerably well peopled, death is the most 

 powerful of all the encouragements to marriage ; 

 the prince or statesman, who should succeed in 

 thus greatly increasing the number of marriages, 

 might, perhaps, deserve much more justly the title 

 of destroyer, than father, of his people. 



The proportion of yearly births to the whole po- 

 pulation must evidently depend principally upon 

 the proportion of the people marrying annually ; 

 and therefore, in countries which will not admit 

 of a great increase of population, must, like the 

 marriages, depend principally on the deaths. 

 Where an actual decrease of population is not 

 taking place, the births will always supply the 

 vacancies made by death, and exactly so much 



Sussmilch, Gbttliche Ordnung, vol. i. c. iv. sect. Ixxviii. 

 p. 151. 



