484 APPENDIX. 



different countries ; and that, so far from having any reason 

 to consider the American rate of increase as peculiar, un- 

 natural, and gigantic, we are bound by every law of induc- 

 tion and analogy to conclude that there is scarcely a state in 

 Europe where, if the marriages were as early, the means of 

 maintaining large families as ample, and the employments 

 of the labouring classes as healthy, the rate of increase would 

 not be as rapid, and in some cases, I have no doubt, even, 

 more rapid than in the United States of America. 



Another of Mr. Weyland's curious illustrations is the fol- 

 lowing: — He says that the physical tendency of a people in 

 a commercial and manufacturing state to double their num- 

 ber in twenty-tive years is " as absolutely gone as the ten- 

 " dency of a bean to shoot up further into the air, after it 

 " has arrived at its full growth;" and that to assume such a 

 tendency is to build a theory upon a mere shadow, '* which, 

 " when brought to the test, is directly at variance with ex 

 " perience of the fact; and as unsafe to act upon, as woula 

 " be that of a general who should assume the force of a 

 " musket-shot to be double its actual range, and then should 

 " calculate upon the death of all his enemies as soon as he 

 " had drawn up his own men for battle within this line of 

 " assumed efficiency."* 



Now I am not in the least aware who it is that has 

 assumed the actual range of the shot, or the actual progress 

 of population in different countries, as very different from 

 what it is observed to be; and therefore cannot see how 

 the illustration, as brought forward by Mr. Weyland, ap- 

 plies, or how I can be said to resemble his miscalculating 

 general. What I have really done is this (if he will allow 

 me the use of his own metaphor): having observed that the 

 range of musket-balls, projected from similar barrels and 

 with the same quantity of powder of the same strength, was, 

 under different circumstances, very different, I applied my- 

 self to consider what these circumstances were; and, having 

 found that the range of each ball was greater or less in pro- 

 portion to the smaller or greater number of the obstacles 

 which it met with in its course, or the rarity or density of 

 the medium through which it passed, I was led to infer that 

 the variety of range observed was owing to these obstacles; 

 and I consequently thought it a more correct and legitimate 



* P. 126. , 



