370 Of the Checks to Population Bk. ii. 



Sir Francis d'lvernois observes, " that those 

 " have yet to learn the first principles of political 

 " arithmetic, who imagine that it is in the field of 

 " battle and the hospitals that an account can be 

 " taken of the lives which a revolution or a war 

 " has cost. The number of men it has killed is of 

 " much less importance than the number of chil- 

 " dren which it has prevented, and will still pre- 

 " vent, from coming into the world. This is the 

 " deepest wound which the population of France 

 " has received." — " Supposing," he says, " that, 

 " of the whole number of men destroyed, only 

 " two millions had been united to as many fe- 

 " males : according to the calculation of Buffon, 

 " these two millions of couples ought to bring into 

 " the world twelve millions of children, in order 

 " to supply, at the age of thirty-nine, a number 

 " equal to that of their parents. This is a point 

 " of view, in which the consequences of such a 

 " destruction of men become almost incalculable ; 

 " because they have much more effect with re- 

 " gard to the twelve millions of children, which 

 " they prevent from coming into existence, than 

 " with regard to the actual loss of the two millions 

 " and a half of men for whom France mourns. It 

 " is not till a future period that she will be able 

 " to estimate this dreadful breach."* 



And yet, if the foregoing reasonings are well- 

 founded, France may not have lost a single birth 

 by the revolution. She has the most just reason 



* Tableau des Pertes, &c. c. ii. p. 13, 14. 



