( 514 ) 



CHAP. XIII. 



General Deductions from the preceding View of Society. 



That the checks which have been mentioned are 

 the immediate causes of the slow increase of po- 

 pulation, and that these checks result principally 

 from an insufficiency of subsistence, will be evi- 

 dent from the comparatively rapid increase which 

 has invariably taken place, whenever, by some 

 sudden enlargement in the means of subsistence, 

 these checks have in any considerable degree been 

 removed. 



It has been universally remarked that all new 

 colonies settled in healthy countries, where room 

 and food were abundant, have constantly made a 

 rapid progress in population. Many of the colo- 

 nies from ancient Greece, in the course of one or 

 two centuries, appear to have rivalled, and even 

 surpassed, their mother cities. Syracuse and 

 Agrigentum in Sicily, Tarentum and Locri in 

 Italy, Ephesus and Miletus in Lesser Asia, were, 

 by all accounts, at least equal to any of the cities 

 of ancient Greece. All these colonies had esta- 

 blished themselves in countries inhabited by savage 

 and barbarous nations, which easily gave place to 

 the new settlers, who had of course plenty of good 

 land. It is calculated that the Israelites, though 



