Ch. X. and Commerce combined. 153 



The countries which thus unite great landed 

 resources with a prosperous state of commerce 

 and manufactures, and in which the commercial 

 part of the population never essentially exceeds 

 the agricultural part, are eminently secure from 

 sudden reverses. Their increasing wealth seems 

 to be out of the reach of all common accidents ; 

 and there is no reason to say that they might not 

 go on increasing in riches and population for hun- 

 dreds, nay almost thousands of years. 



We must not, however, imagine that there is 

 no limit to this progress though it is distant, and 

 has certainly not been attained by any large 

 landed nation yet known. 



We have already seen that the limit to the po- 

 pulation of commercial nations is the period when, 

 from the actual state of foreign markets, they are 

 unable regularly to import an increasing quantity 

 of food. And the limit to the population of a 

 nation which raises the whole of its food on its 

 own territory is, when the land has been so fully 

 occupied and worked, that the employment of 

 another labourer on it will not, on an average, 

 raise an additional quantity of food sufficient to 

 support a family of such a size as will admit of 

 an increase of population. 



This is evidently the extreme practical limit to 

 the progress of population, which no nation has 

 ever yet reached, nor, indeed, ever will; since no 

 allowance has been here made either for other 

 necessaries besides food, or for the profits of 

 stock, both of which, however low, must always 

 be something not inconsiderable. 



