114 Of Poo7'-Laws, continued. Bk. iii. 



most inclined to it, the consequence must be in^ 

 creased poverty, increased disease, and increased 

 mortality, and not increased numbers, as long, at 

 least, as it continues to be true (which he will 

 hardly be disposed to doubt; that additional num- 

 bers cannot live without additional food. 



A moderately shrewd judgment would prompt 

 any labourer acquainted with the nature of land 

 to suspect that there must be some great diffe- 

 rence, quite independent of taxation, between a 

 country such as America, which might easily be 

 made to support fifty times as many inhabitants 

 as it contains at present, and a country such as 

 England, which could not, without extraordinary 

 exertions, be made to support two or three times 

 as many. He would, at least, see that there 

 would be a prodigious difference in the power of 

 maintaining an additional number of cattle, be- 

 tween a small farm already well stocked, and a very 

 large one which had not the fiftieth part of what 

 it might be made to maintain ; and as he would 

 know that both rich and poor must live upon the 

 produce of the earth as well as all other animals, 

 he would be disposed to conclude that what was 

 so obviously true in one case, could not be false 

 in the other. These considerations might make 

 him think it natural and probable that in those 

 countries where there was a great want of people, 

 the wages of labour would be such as to encou- 

 rage early marriages and large families, for the 

 best of all possible reasons, because all that are 

 born may be very easily and comfortably sup- 



