APPENDIX. 



483 



considered as the standard to which it might be expected 

 that the great mass would arrive, if their growth were unre- 

 stricted ? 



For what is it in fact, which we really observe with regard 

 to the different rates of increase in different countries ? Do 

 we not see that in almost every state to which we can direct 

 our attention, the natural tendency to increase is repressed 

 by the difficulty which the mass of the people find in pro- 

 curing an ample portion of the necessaries of life, which 

 shews itself more immediately in some or other of the forms 

 of moral restraint, vice, and misery ? Do we not see that in- 

 variably the rates of increase are fast or slow, according as 

 the pressure of these checks is light or heavy ; and that in 

 consequence Spain increases at one rate, France at another, 

 England at a third, Ireland at a fourth, parts of Russia at a 

 fifth, parts of Spanish America at a sixth, and the United 

 States of North America at a seventh ? Do we not see 

 that, whenever the resources of any country increase so 

 as to create a great demand for labour and give the lower 

 classes of society a greater command over the necessaries of 

 life, the population of such country, though it might before 

 have been stationary or proceeding very slowly, begins 

 immediately to make a start forwards ? And do we not see 

 that in those few countries, or districts of countries, where 

 the pressure arising from the difficulty of procuring the ne- 

 cessaries and conveniences of life is almost entirely removed, 

 and where in consequence the-checks to early marriages are 

 very few, and large families are maintained with perfect 

 facility, the rate at which the population increases is always 

 the greatest ? 



And when to these broad and glaring facts we add, that 

 neither theory nor experience will justify us in believing 

 cither that the passion between the sexes, or the natural pro- 

 lifickness of women, diminishes in the progress of society ^ 

 when we further consider that the climate of the United 

 States of America is not particularly healthy, and that the 

 qualities which mainly distinguish it from other countries, 

 are its rapid production and distribution of the means of sub- 

 sistence ; — is not the induction as legitimate and correct as 

 possible, that the varying weight of the difficulties attending 

 the maintenance of families, and the moral restraint, vice, 

 and misery which these difficulties necessarily generate, are 

 the causes of the varying rates of increase observable in 



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