530 Central Deductions from the Bk. ii. 



we cannot for a moment doubt it. The different 

 modes which nature takes to repress a redundant 

 population, do not indeed appear to us so certain 

 and regular; but though we cannot always pre- 

 dict the mode, we may with certainty predict the 

 fact. If the proportion of the births to the deaths 

 for a few years indicates an increase of numbers 

 much beyond the proportional increased or ac- 

 quired food of the country, we may be perfectly 

 certain that, unless an emigration take place, the 

 deaths will shortly exceed the births, and that the 

 increase which had been observed for a few years 

 cannot be the real average increase of the popula- 

 tion of the country. If there were no other de- 

 populating causes, and if the preventive check 

 did not operate very strongly, every country would 

 without doubt be subject to periodical plagues and 

 famines. 



The only true criterion of a real and permanent 

 increase in the population of any country, is the 

 increase of the means of subsistence. But even 

 this criterion is subject to some slight variations, 

 which however are completely open to our obser- 

 vation. In some countries population seems to 

 have been forced; that is, the people have been 

 habituated by degrees to live almost upon the 

 smallest possible quantity of food. There must have 

 been periods in such countries, when population in- 

 creased permanently without an increase in the 

 means of subsistence. China, India and the coun- 

 tries possessed by the Bedoween Arabs, as we have 

 seen in the former part of this work, appear to an- 



