To proceed,--the fecundity of a marriage in the English towns
of between 4000 and 5000 inhabitants is stated at 3.
of between 4000 and 5000 inhabitants is stated at 3.
Macaulay
Is it on the number of bad harvests,
or of volcanic eruptions, that this great question depends? Mr Sadler's
piety, it seems, would be proof against one rainy summer, but would
be overcome by three or four in succession. On the coasts of the
Mediterranean, where earthquakes are rare, he would be an optimist.
South America would make him a sceptic, and Java a decided Manichean.
To say that religion assigns a solemn office to these visitations is
nothing to the purpose. Why was man so constituted as to need such
warnings? It is equally unmeaning to say that philosophy refers these
events to benevolent general laws of nature. In so far as the laws of
nature produce evil, they are clearly not benevolent. They may produce
much good. But why is this good mixed with evil? The most subtle and
powerful intellects have been labouring for centuries to solve these
difficulties. The true solution, we are inclined to think, is that which
has been rather suggested, than developed, by Paley and Butler. But
there is not one solution which will not apply quite as well to the
evils of over-population as to any other evil. Many excellent people
think that it is presumptuous to meddle with such high questions at all,
and that, though there doubtless is an explanation, our faculties are
not sufficiently enlarged to comprehend that explanation. This mode of
getting rid of the difficulty, again, will apply quite as well to the
evils of over-population as to any other evils. We are sure that those
who humbly confess their inability to expound the great enigma act more
rationally and more decorously than Mr Sadler, who tells us, with the
utmost confidence, which are the means and which the ends,--which the
exceptions and which the rules, in the government of the universe;--who
consents to bear a little evil without denying the divine benevolence,
but distinctly announces that a certain quantity of dry weather or
stormy weather would force him to regard the Deity as the tyrant of his
creatures.
The great discovery by which Mr Sadler has, as he conceives, vindicated
the ways of Providence is enounced with all the pomp of capital letters.
We must particularly beg that our readers will peruse it with attention.
"No one fact relative to the human species is more clearly ascertained,
whether by general observation or actual proof, than that their
fecundity varies in different communities and countries. The principle
which effects this variation, without the necessity of those cruel
and unnatural expedients so frequently adverted to, constitutes what I
presume to call THE LAW OF POPULATION; and that law may be thus briefly
enunciated:--
"THE PROLIFICNESS OF HUMAN BEINGS, OTHERWISE SIMILARLY CIRCUMSTANCED,
VARIES INVERSELY AS THEIR NUMBERS.
"The preceding definition may be thus amplified and explained.
Premising, as a mere truism, that marriages under precisely similar
circumstances will, on the average, be equally fruitful everywhere,
I proceed to state, first, that the prolificness of a given number
of marriages will, all other circumstances being the same, vary
in proportion to the condensation of the population, so that that
prolificness shall be greatest where the numbers on an equal space are
the fewest, and, on the contrary, the smallest where those numbers are
the largest. "
Mr Sadler, at setting out, abuses Mr Malthus for enouncing his theory
in terms taken from the exact sciences. "Applied to the mensuration of
human fecundity," he tells us, "the most fallacious of all things is
geometrical demonstration;" and he again informs us that those "act an
irrational and irrelevant part who affect to measure the mighty depth
of God's mercies by their arithmetic, and to demonstrate, by their
geometrical ratios, that it is inadequate to receive and contain the
efflux of that fountain of life which is in Him. "
It appears, however, that it is not to the use of mathematical words,
but only to the use of those words in their right senses that Mr Sadler
objects. The law of inverse variation, or inverse proportion, is as much
a part of mathematical science as the law of geometric progression. The
only difference in this respect between Mr Malthus and Mr Sadler is,
that Mr Malthus knows what is meant by geometric progression, and
that Mr Sadler has not the faintest notion of what is meant by inverse
variation. Had he understood the proposition which he has enounced with
so much pomp, its ludicrous absurdity must at once have flashed on his
mind.
Let it be supposed that there is a tract in the back settlements of
America, or in New South Wales, equal in size to London, with only a
single couple, a man and his wife, living upon it. The population of
London, with its immediate suburbs, is now probably about a million and
a half. The average fecundity of a marriage in London is, as Mr Sadler
tells us 2. 35. How many children will the woman in the back settlements
bear according to Mr Sadler's theory? The solution of the problem is
easy. As the population in this tract in the back settlements is to
the population of London, so will be the number of children born from a
marriage in London to the number of children born from the marriage of
this couple in the back settlements. That is to say--
2 : 1,500,000 :: 2. 35 : 1,762,500.
The lady will have 1,762,500 children: a large "efflux of the fountain
of life," to borrow Mr Sadler's sonorous rhetoric, as the most
philoprogenitive parent could possibly desire.
But let us, instead of putting cases of our own, look at some of those
which Mr Sadler has brought forward in support of his theory. The
following table, he tells us, exhibits a striking proof of the truth of
his main position. It seems to us to prove only that Mr Sadler does not
know what inverse proportion means.
Countries Inhabitants on a Children to a
Square Mile, about Marriage
Cape of Good Hope 1 5. 48
North America 4 5. 22
Russia in Europe 23 4. 94
Denmark 73 4. 89
Prussia 100 4. 70
France 140 4. 22
England 160 3. 66
Is 1 to 160 as 3. 66 to 5. 48? If Mr Sadler's principle were just, the
number of children produced by a marriage at the Cape would be, not
5. 48, but very near 600. Or take America and France. Is 4 to 140 as
4. 22 to 5. 22? The number of births to a marriage in North America ought,
according to this proportion, to be about 150.
Mr Sadler states the law of population in England thus:--
"Where the inhabitants are found to be on the square mile,
From To Counties Number of births to 100 marriages
50 100 2 420
100 150 9 396
150 200 16 390
200 250 4 388
250 300 5 378
300 350 3 353
500 600 2 331
4000 and upwards 1 246
"Now, I think it quite reasonable to conclude, that, were there not
another document in existence relative to this subject, the facts thus
deduced from the census of England are fully sufficient to demonstrate
the position, that the fecundity of human beings varies inversely as
their numbers. How, I ask, can it be evaded? "
What, we ask, is there to evade? Is 246 to 420 as 50 to 4000? Is 331 to
396 as 100 to 500? If the law propounded by Mr Sadler were correct, the
births to a hundred marriages in the least populous part of England,
would be 246 x 4000 / 50, that is 19,680,--nearly two hundred children
to every mother. But we will not carry on these calculations. The
absurdity of Mr Sadler's proposition is so palpable that it is
unnecessary to select particular instances. Let us see what are the
extremes of population and fecundity in well-known countries. The space
which Mr Sadler generally takes is a square mile. The population at the
Cape of Good Hope is, according to him, one to the square mile. That
of London is two hundred thousand to the square mile. The number of
children at the Cape, Mr Sadler informs us, is 5. 48 to a marriage. In
London, he states it at 2. 35 to a marriage. Now how can that of which
all the variations lie between 2. 35 and 5. 48 vary, either directly or
inversely, as that which admits of all the variations between one and
two hundred thousand? Mr Sadler evidently does not know the meaning of
the word proportion. A million is a larger quantity than ten. A hundred
is a larger quantity than five. Mr Sadler thinks, therefore, that there
is no impropriety in saying that a hundred is to five as a million is to
ten, or in the inverse ratio of ten to a million. He proposes to prove
that the fecundity of marriages varies in inverse proportion to the
density of the population. But all that he attempts to prove is that,
while the population increases from one to a hundred and sixty on the
square mile, the fecundity will diminish from 5. 48 to 3. 66; and that
again, while the population increases from one hundred and sixty to two
hundred thousand on the square mile, the fecundity will diminish from
3. 66 to 2. 35.
The proposition which Mr Sadler enounces, without understanding the
words which he uses, would indeed, if it could be proved, set us at ease
as to the dangers of over-population. But it is, as we have shown, a
proposition so grossly absurd that it is difficult for any man to keep
his countenance while he repeats it. The utmost that Mr Sadler has
ever attempted to prove is this,--that the fecundity of the human
race diminishes as population becomes more condensed,--but that the
diminution of fecundity bears a very small ratio to the increase
of population,--so that, while the population on a square mile is
multiplied two hundred-thousand-fold, the fecundity decreases by little
more than one half.
Does this principle vindicate the honour of God? Does it hold out any
new hope or comfort to man? Not at all. We pledge ourselves to
show, with the utmost strictness of reasoning, from Mr Sadler's own
principles, and from facts of the most notorious description, that every
consequence which follows from the law of geometrical progression, laid
down by Mr Malthus, will follow from the law, miscalled a law of inverse
variation, which has been laid down by Mr Sadler.
London is the most thickly peopled spot of its size in the known world.
Therefore the fecundity of the population of London must, according
to Mr Sadler, be less than the fecundity of human beings living on
any other spot of equal size. Mr Sadler tells us, that "the ratios
of mortality are influenced by the different degrees in which the
population is condensated; and that, other circumstances being similar,
the relative number of deaths in a thinly-populated, or country
district, is less than that which takes place in towns, and in towns of
a moderate size less again than that which exists in large and populous
cities. " Therefore the mortality in London must, according to him, be
greater than in other places. But, though, according to Mr Sadler, the
fecundity is less in London than elsewhere, and though the mortality is
greater there than elsewhere, we find that even in London the number of
births greatly exceeds the number of deaths. During the ten years which
ended with 1820, there were fifty thousand more baptisms than burials
within the bills of mortality. It follows, therefore, that, even within
London itself, an increase of the population is taking place by internal
propagation.
Now, if the population of a place in which the fecundity is less and
the mortality greater than in other places still goes on increasing
by propagation, it follows that in other places the population will
increase, and increase still faster. There is clearly nothing in Mr
Sadler's boasted law of fecundity which will keep the population from
multiplying till the whole earth is as thick with human beings as St
Giles's parish. If Mr Sadler denies this, he must hold that, in places
less thickly peopled than London, marriages may be less fruitful than
in London, which is directly contrary to his own principles; or that in
places less thickly peopled than London, and similarly situated, people
will die faster than in London, which is again directly contrary to his
own principles. Now, if it follows, as it clearly does follow, from Mr
Sadler's own doctrines, that the human race might be stowed together
by three or four hundred to the acre, and might still, as far as the
principle of propagation is concerned, go on increasing, what advantage,
in a religious or moral point of view, has his theory over that of
Mr Malthus? The principle of Mr Malthus, says Mr Sadler, leads to
consequences of the most frightful description. Be it so. But do not
all these consequences spring equally from his own principle? Revealed
religion condemns Mr Malthus. Be it so. But Mr Sadler must share in the
reproach of heresy. The theory of Mr Malthus represents the Deity as a
Dionysius hanging the sword over the heads of his trembling slaves. Be
it so. But under what rhetorical figure are we to represent the Deity of
Mr Sadler?
A man who wishes to serve the cause of religion ought to hesitate long
before he stakes the truth of religion on the event of a controversy
respecting facts in the physical world. For a time he may succeed in
making a theory which he dislikes unpopular by persuading the public
that it contradicts the Scriptures and is inconsistent with the
attributes of the Deity. But, if at last an overwhelming force of
evidence proves this maligned theory to be true, what is the effect of
the arguments by which the objector has attempted to prove that it is
irreconcilable with natural and revealed religion? Merely this, to make
men infidels. Like the Israelites, in their battle with the Philistines,
he has presumptuously and without warrant brought down the ark of God
into the camp as a means of ensuring victory:--and the consequence of
this profanation is that, when the battle is lost, the ark is taken.
In every age the Church has been cautioned against this fatal and
impious rashness by its most illustrious members,--by the fervid
Augustin, by the subtle Aquinas, by the all-accomplished Pascal. The
warning has been given in vain. That close alliance which, under
the disguise of the most deadly enmity, has always subsisted between
fanaticism and atheism is still unbroken. At one time, the cry was,--"If
you hold that the earth moves round the sun, you deny the truth of the
Bible. " Popes, conclaves, and religious orders, rose up against the
Copernican heresy. But, as Pascal said, they could not prevent the
earth from moving, or themselves from moving along with it. One thing,
however, they could do, and they did. They could teach numbers to
consider the Bible as a collection of old women's stories which the
progress of civilisation and knowledge was refuting one by one. They
had attempted to show that the Ptolemaic system was as much a part of
Christianity as the resurrection of the dead. Was it strange, then, that
when the Ptolemaic system became an object of ridicule to every man of
education in Catholic countries, the doctrine of the resurrection should
be in peril? In the present generation, and in our own country, the
prevailing system of geology has been, with equal folly, attacked on the
ground that it is inconsistent with the Mosaic dates. And here we have
Mr Sadler, out of his especial zeal for religion, first proving that the
doctrine of superfecundity is irreconcilable with the goodness of God,
and then laying down principles, and stating facts, from which the
doctrine of superfecundity necessarily follows. This blundering piety
reminds us of the adventures of a certain missionary who went to convert
the inhabitants of Madagascar. The good father had an audience of the
king, and began to instruct his majesty in the history of the human race
as given in the Scriptures. "Thus, sir," said he, "was woman made out
of the rib of man, and ever since that time a woman has had one rib
more than a man. " "Surely, father, you must be mistaken there," said the
king. "Mistaken! " said the missionary. "It is an indisputable fact.
My faith upon it! My life upon it! " The good man had heard the fact
asserted by his nurse when he was a child,--had always considered it as
a strong confirmation of the Scriptures, and fully believed it without
having ever thought of verifying it. The king ordered a man and woman,
the leanest that could be found, to be brought before him, and desired
his spiritual instructor to count their ribs. The father counted over
and over, upward and downward, and still found the same number in both.
He then cleared his throat, stammered, stuttered, and began to assure
the king that though he had committed a little error in saying that a
woman had more ribs than a man, he was quite right in saying that the
first woman was made out of the rib of the first man. "How can I tell
that? " said the king. "You come to me with a strange story which you say
is revealed to you from heaven. I have already made you confess that
one half of it is a lie: and how can you have the face to expect that I
shall believe the other half? "
We have shown that Mr Sadler's theory, if it be true, is as much a
theory of superfecundity as that of Mr Malthus. But it is not true. And
from Mr Sadler's own tables we will prove that it is not true.
The fecundity of the human race in England Mr Sadler rates as follows:--
"Where the inhabitants are found to be on the square mile--
From To Counties Number of births per 100 marriages
50 100 2 420
100 150 9 396
150 200 16 390
200 250 4 388
250 300 5 378
300 350 3 353
500 600 2 331
4000 and upwards 1 246
Having given this table, he begins, as usual, to boast and triumph.
"Were there not another document on the subject in existence," says he,
"the facts thus deduced from the census of England are sufficient to
demonstrate the position, that the fecundity of human beings varies
inversely as their numbers. " In no case would these facts demonstrate
that the fecundity of human beings varies inversely as their numbers
in the right sense of the words inverse variation. But certainly
they would, "if there were no other document in existence," appear
to indicate something like what Mr Sadler means by inverse variation.
Unhappily for him, however, there are other documents in existence; and
he has himself furnished us with them. We will extract another of his
tables:--
TABLE LXIV.
Showing the Operation of the Law of Population in the different Hundreds
of the County of Lancaster.
(In the following table the name of the Hundred is followed in order by:
Population on each Square Mile.
Square Miles.
Population in 1821, exclusive of Towns of separate Jurisdiction.
Marriages from 1811 to 1821.
Baptisms from 1811 to 1821.
Baptisms to 100 Marriages. )
Lonsdale : 96 : 441 : 42,486 : 3,651 : 16,129 : 442
Almondness : 267 : 228 : 60,930 : 3,670 : 15,228 : 415
Leyland : 354 : 126 : 44,583 : 2,858 : 11,182 : 391
West Derby : 409 : 377 : 154,040 : 24,182 : 86,407 : 357
Blackburn : 513 : 286 : 146,608 : 10,814 : 31,463 : 291
Salford : 869 : 373 : 322,592 : 40,143 : 114,941 : 286
Mr Sadler rejoices much over this table. The results, he says, have
surprised himself; and, indeed, as we shall show, they might well have
done so.
The result of his inquiries with respect to France he presents in the
following table:
"In those departments where there are to each inhabitant--
Hectares Departments Legitimate births to
every 1000 marriages
4 to 5 2 5130
3 to 4 3 4372
2 to 3 30 4250
1 to 2 44 4234
. 06 to 1 5 4146
. 06 1 2557
Then comes the shout of exaltation as regularly as the Gloria Patri
at the end of a Psalm. "Is there any possibility of gainsaying the
conclusions these facts force upon us; namely that the fecundity of
marriages is regulated by the density of the population, and inversely
to it? "
Certainly these tables, taken separately, look well for Mr Sadler's
theory. He must be a bungling gamester who cannot win when he is
suffered to pack the cards his own way. We must beg leave to shuffle
them a little; and we will venture to promise our readers that some
curious results will follow from the operation. In nine counties of
England, says Mr Sadler, in which the population is from 100 to 150
on the square mile, the births to 100 marriages are 396. He afterwards
expresses some doubt as to the accuracy of the documents from which this
estimate has been formed, and rates the number of births as high as 414.
Let him take his choice. We will allow him every advantage.
In the table which we have quoted, numbered lxiv. , he tells us that in
Almondness, where the population is 267 to the square mile, there are
415 births to 100 marriages. The population of Almondness is twice as
thick as the population of the nine counties referred to in the other
table. Yet the number of births to a marriage is greater in Almondness
than in those counties.
Once more, he tells us that in three counties, in which the population
was from 300 to 350 on the square mile, the births to 100 marriages were
353. He afterwards rates them at 375. Again we say, let him take his
choice. But from his table of the population of Lancashire it appears
that, in the hundred of Leyland, where the population is 354 to the
square mile, the number of births to 100 marriages is 391. Here again
we have the marriages becoming more fruitful as the population becomes
denser.
Let us now shuffle the censuses of England and France together. In two
English counties which contain from 50 to 100 inhabitants on the square
mile, the births to 100 marriages are, according to Mr Sadler, 420. But
in forty-four departments of France, in which there are from one to two
hecatares to each inhabitant, that is to say, in which the population is
from 125 to 250 or rather more, to the square mile, the number of births
to 100 marriages is 423 and a fraction.
Again, in five departments of France in which there is less than one
hecatare to each inhabitant, that is to say, in which the population is
more than 250 to the square mile, the number of births to 100 marriages
is 414 and a fraction. But in the four counties of England in which the
population is from 200 to 250 on the square mile, the number of births
to 100 marriages is, according to one of Mr Sadler's tables, only 388,
and by his very highest estimate no more than 402.
Mr Sadler gives us a long table of all the towns of England and Ireland,
which, he tells us, irrefragably demonstrates his principle. We assert,
and will prove, that these tables are alone sufficient to upset his
whole theory.
It is very true that, in the great towns the number of births to a
marriage appears to be smaller than in the less populous towns. But we
learn some other facts from these tables which we should be glad to know
how Mr Sadler will explain. We find that the fecundity in towns of
fewer than 3000 inhabitants is actually much greater than the average
fecundity of the kingdom, and that the fecundity in towns of between
3000 and 4000 inhabitants is at least as great as the average fecundity
of the kingdom. The average fecundity of a marriage in towns of fewer
than 3000 inhabitants is about four; in towns of between 3000 and 4000
inhabitants it is 3. 60. Now, the average fecundity of England, when it
contained only 160 inhabitants to a square mile, and when, therefore,
according to the new law of population, the fecundity must have been
greater than it now is, was only, according to Mr Sadler, 3. 66 to a
marriage.
To proceed,--the fecundity of a marriage in the English towns
of between 4000 and 5000 inhabitants is stated at 3. 56. But, when
we turn to Mr Sadler's table of counties, we find the fecundity of a
marriage in Warwickshire and Staffordshire rated at only 3. 48, and in
Lancashire and Surrey at only 3. 41.
These facts disprove Mr Sadler's principle; and the fact on which he
lays so much stress--that the fecundity is less in the great towns than
in the small towns--does not tend in any degree to prove his principle.
There is not the least reason to believe that the population is more
dense, ON A GIVEN SPACE, in London or Manchester than in a town of 4000
inhabitants. But it is quite certain that the population is more dense
in a town of 4000 inhabitants than in Warwickshire or Lancashire. That
the fecundity of Manchester is less than the fecundity of Sandwich or
Guildford is a circumstance which has nothing whatever to do with Mr
Sadler's theory. But that the fecundity of Sandwich is greater than the
average fecundity of Kent,--that the fecundity of Guildford is greater
than the average fecundity of Surrey,--as from his own tables appears to
be the case,--these are facts utterly inconsistent with his theory.
We need not here examine why it is that the human race is less fruitful
in great cities than in small towns or in the open country. The fact has
long been notorious. We are inclined to attribute it to the same causes
which tend to abridge human life in great cities,--to general sickliness
and want of tone, produced by close air and sedentary employments. Thus
far, and thus far only, we agree with Mr Sadler, that, when population
is crowded together in such masses that the general health and energy of
the frame are impaired by the condensation, and by the habits attending
on the condensation, then the fecundity of the race diminishes. But this
is evidently a check of the same class with war, pestilence, and famine.
It is a check for the operation of which Mr Malthus has allowed.
That any condensation which does not affect the general health will
affect fecundity, is not only not proved--it is disproved--by Mr
Sadler's own tables.
Mr Sadler passes on to Prussia, and sums up his information respecting
that country as follows:--
(In the following table numbers appear in the order: Inhabitants on a
Square Mile, German.
Number of Provinces.
Births to 100 Marriages, 1754.
Births to 100 Marriages, 1784.
Births to 100 Marriages, Busching. )
Under 1000 : 2 : 434 : 472 : 503
1000 to 2000 : 4 : 414 : 455 : 454
2000 to 3000 : 6 : 384 : 424 : 426
3000 to 4000 : 2 : 365 : 408 : 394
After the table comes the boast as usual:
"Thus is the law of population deduced from the registers of Prussia
also: and were the argument to pause here, it is conclusive. The
results obtained from the registers of this and the preceding countries,
exhibiting, as they do most clearly, the principle of human increase,
it is utterly impossible should have been the work of chance; on the
contrary, the regularity with which the facts class themselves in
conformity with that principle, and the striking analogy which the whole
of them bear to each other, demonstrate equally the design of Nature,
and the certainty of its accomplishment. "
We are sorry to disturb Mr Sadler's complacency. But, in our opinion,
this table completely disproves his whole principle. If we read the
columns perpendicularly, indeed, they seem to be in his favour. But how
stands the case if we read horizontally? Does Mr Sadler believe that,
during the thirty years which elapsed between 1754 and 1784, the
population of Prussia had been diminishing? No fact in history is better
ascertained than that, during the long peace which followed the seven
years' war, it increased with great rapidity. Indeed, if the fecundity
were what Mr Sadler states it to have been, it must have increased with
great rapidity. Yet, the ratio of births to marriages is greater in 1784
than in 1754, and that in every province. It is, therefore, perfectly
clear that the fecundity does not diminish whenever the density of the
population increases.
We will try another of Mr Sadler's tables:
TABLE LXXXI.
Showing the Estimated Prolificness of Marriages in England at the close
of the Seventeenth Century.
(In the following table the name of the Place is followed in order by:
Number of Inhabitants.
One Annual Marriage, to.
Number of Marriages.
Children to one Marriage.
Total Number of Births.
London : 530,000 : 106 : 5,000 : 4. : 20,000
Large Towns : 870,000 : 128 : 6,800 : 4. 5 : 30,000
Small Towns and
Country Places : 4,100,000 : 141 : 29,200 : 4. 8 : 140,160
-------------------------------------------
: 5,500,000 : 134 : 41,000 : 4. 65 : 190,760
Standing by itself, this table, like most of the others, seems to
support Mr Sadler's theory. But surely London, at the close of the
seventeenth century, was far more thickly peopled than the kingdom
of England now is. Yet the fecundity in London at the close of the
seventeenth century was 4; and the average fecundity of the whole
kingdom now is not more, according to Mr Sadler, than 3 1/2. Then again,
the large towns in 1700 were far more thickly peopled than Westmoreland
and the North Riding of Yorkshire now are. Yet the fecundity in those
large towns was then 4. 5. And Mr Sadler tells us that it is now only 4. 2
in Westmoreland and the North Riding.
It is scarcely necessary to say anything about the censuses of
the Netherlands, as Mr Sadler himself confesses that there is some
difficulty in reconciling them with his theory, and helps out his
awkward explanation by supposing, quite gratuitously, as it seems to us,
that the official documents are inaccurate. The argument which he has
drawn from the United States will detain us but for a very short time.
He has not told us,--perhaps he had not the means of telling us,--what
proportion the number of births in the different parts of that country
bears to the number of marriages. He shows that in the thinly peopled
states the number of children bears a greater proportion to the number
of grown-up people than in the old states; and this, he conceives, is a
sufficient proof that the condensation of the population is unfavourable
to fecundity. We deny the inference altogether. Nothing can be more
obvious than the explanation of the phenomenon. The back settlements
are for the most part peopled by emigration from the old states; and
emigrants are almost always breeders. They are almost always vigorous
people in the prime of life. Mr Sadler himself, in another part of
his book, in which he tries very unsuccessfully to show that the
rapid multiplication of the people of America is principally owing to
emigration from Europe, states this fact in the plainest manner:
"Nothing is more certain, than that emigration is almost universally
supplied by 'single persons in the beginning of mature life;' nor,
secondly, that such persons, as Dr Franklin long ago asserted, 'marry
and raise families. '
"Nor is this all. It is not more true, that emigrants, generally
speaking, consist of individuals in the prime of life, than that 'they
are the most active and vigorous' of that age, as Dr Seybert describes
them to be. They are, as it respects the principle at issue, a select
class, even compared with that of their own age, generally considered.
Their very object in leaving their native countries is to settle in
life, a phrase that needs no explanation; and they do so. No equal
number of human beings, therefore, have ever given so large or rapid an
increase to a community as 'settlers' have invariably done. "
It is perfectly clear that children are more numerous in the back
settlements of America than in the maritime states, not because
unoccupied land makes people prolific, but because the most prolific
people go to the unoccupied land.
Mr Sadler having, as he conceives, fully established his theory of
population by statistical evidence, proceeds to prove, "that it is
in unison, or rather required by the principles of physiology. " The
difference between himself and his opponents he states as follows:--
"In pursuing this part of my subject, I must begin by reminding the
reader of the difference between those who hold the superfecundity of
mankind and myself, in regard to those principles which will form the
basis of the present argument. They contend, that production precedes
population; I, on the contrary, maintain that population precedes, and
is indeed the cause of, production. They teach that man breeds up to the
capital, or in proportion to the abundance of the food, he possesses: I
assert, that he is comparatively sterile when he is wealthy, and that
he breeds in proportion to his poverty; not meaning, however, by that
poverty, a state of privation approaching to actual starvation, any more
than, I suppose, they would contend, that extreme and culpable excess
is the grand patron of population. In a word, they hold that a state
of ease and affluence is the great promoter of prolificness. I maintain
that a considerable degree of labour, and even privation, is a more
efficient cause of an increased degree of human fecundity. "
To prove this point, he quotes Aristotle, Hippocrates, Dr Short, Dr
Gregory, Dr Perceval, M. Villermi, Lord Bacon, and Rousseau. We will not
dispute about it; for it seems quite clear to us that if he succeeds in
establishing it he overturns his own theory. If men breed in proportion
to their poverty, as he tells us here,--and at the same time breed
in inverse proportion to their numbers, as he told us before,--it
necessarily follows that the poverty of men must be in inverse
proportion to their numbers. Inverse proportion, indeed, as we have
shown, is not the phrase which expresses Mr Sadler's meaning. To
speak more correctly, it follows, from his own positions, that, if one
population be thinner than another, it will also be poorer. Is this the
fact? Mr Sadler tells us, in one of those tables which we have already
quoted, that in the United States the population is four to a square
mile, and the fecundity 5. 22 to a marriage, and that in Russia the
population is twenty-three to a square mile, and the fecundity 4. 94 to
a marriage. Is the North American labourer poorer than the Russian boor?
If not, what becomes of Mr Sadler's argument?
The most decisive proof of Mr Sadler's theory, according to him, is that
which he has kept for the last. It is derived from the registers of the
English Peerage. The peers, he says, and says truly, are the class with
respect to whom we possess the most accurate statistical information.
"Touching their NUMBER, this has been accurately known and recorded ever
since the order has existed in the country. For several centuries past,
the addition to it of a single individual has been a matter of public
interest and notoriety: this hereditary honour conferring not personal
dignity merely, but important privileges, and being almost always
identified with great wealth and influence. The records relating to
it are kept with the most scrupulous attention, not only by heirs and
expectants, but they are appealed to by more distant connections, as
conferring distinction on all who can claim such affinity. Hence there
are few disputes concerning successions to this rank, but such as go
back to very remote periods. In later times, the marriages, births, and
deaths, of the nobility, have not only been registered by and known to
those personally interested, but have been published periodically, and,
consequently, subject to perpetual correction and revision; while many
of the most powerful motives which can influence the human mind conspire
to preserve these records from the slightest falsification. Compared
with these, therefore, all other registers, or reports, whether of sworn
searchers or others, are incorrectness itself. "
Mr Sadler goes on to tell us that the peers are a marrying class, and
that their general longevity proves them to be a healthy class. Still
peerages often become extinct;--and from this fact he infers that they
are a sterile class. So far, says he, from increasing in geometrical
progression, they do not even keep up their numbers. "Nature interdicts
their increase. "
"Thus," says he, "in all ages of the world, and in every nation of it,
have the highest ranks of the community been the most sterile, and
the lowest the most prolific. As it respects our own country, from the
lowest grade of society, the Irish peasant, to the highest, the British
peer, this remains a conspicuous truth; and the regulation of the degree
of fecundity conformably to this principle, through the intermediate
gradations of society, constitutes one of the features of the system
developed in these pages. "
We take the issue which Mr Sadler has himself offered. We agree with
him, that the registers of the English Peerage are of far higher
authority than any other statistical documents. We are content that
by those registers his principle should be judged. And we meet him by
positively denying his facts. We assert that the English nobles are not
only not a sterile, but an eminently prolific, part of the community.
Mr Sadler concludes that they are sterile, merely because peerages often
become extinct. Is this the proper way of ascertaining the point? Is
it thus that he avails himself of those registers on the accuracy and
fulness of which he descants so largely? Surely his right course would
have been to count the marriages, and the number of births in the
Peerage. This he has not done;--but we have done it. And what is the
result?
It appears from the last edition of Debrett's "Peerage", published in
1828, that there were at that time 287 peers of the United Kingdom,
who had been married once or oftener. The whole number of marriages
contracted by these 287 peers was 333. The number of children by these
marriages was 1437,--more than five to a peer,--more than 4. 3 to a
marriage,--more, that is to say, than the average number in those
counties of England in which, according to Mr Sadler's own statement,
the fecundity is the greatest.
But this is not all. These marriages had not, in 1828, produced their
full effect. Some of them had been very lately contracted. In a very
large proportion of them there was every probability of additional
issue. To allow for this probability, we may safely add one to the
average which we have already obtained, and rate the fecundity of a
noble marriage in England at 5. 3;--higher than the fecundity which Mr
Sadler assigns to the people of the United States. Even if we do not
make this allowance, the average fecundity of marriages of peers is
higher by one-fifth than the average fecundity of marriages throughout
the kingdom. And this is the sterile class! This is the class which
"Nature has interdicted from increasing! " The evidence to which Mr
Sadler has himself appealed proves that his principle is false,--utterly
false,--wildly and extravagantly false. It proves that a class, living
during half of every year in the most crowded population in the world,
breeds faster than those who live in the country;--that the class which
enjoys the greatest degree of luxury and ease breeds faster than the
class which undergoes labour and privation. To talk a little in Mr
Sadler's style, we must own that we are ourselves surprised at the
results which our examination of the peerage has brought out. We
certainly should have thought that the habits of fashionable life, and
long residence even in the most airy parts of so great a city as London,
would have been more unfavourable to the fecundity of the higher orders
than they appear to be.
Peerages, it is true, often become extinct. But it is quite clear, from
what we have stated, that this is not because peeresses are barren.
There is no difficulty in discovering what the causes really are. In the
first place, most of the titles of our nobles are limited to heirs male;
so that, though the average fecundity of a noble marriage is upwards
of five, yet, for the purpose of keeping up a peerage, it cannot be
reckoned at much more than two and a half. Secondly, though the peers
are, as Mr Sadler says, a marrying class, the younger sons of peers are
decidedly not a marrying class; so that a peer, though he has at least
as great a chance of having a son as his neighbours, has less chance
than they of having a collateral heir.
We have now disposed, we think, of Mr Sadler's principle of population.
Our readers must, by this time, be pretty well satisfied as to his
qualifications for setting up theories of his own. We will, therefore,
present them with a few instances of the skill and fairness which he
shows when he undertakes to pull down the theories of other men. The
doctrine of Mr Malthus, that population, if not checked by want,
by vice, by excessive mortality, or by the prudent self-denial of
individuals, would increase in a geometric progression, is, in Mr
Sadler's opinion, at once false and atrocious.
"It may at once be denied," says he, "that human increase proceeds
geometrically; and for this simple but decisive reason, that the
existence of a geometrical ratio of increase in the works of nature
is neither true nor possible. It would fling into utter confusion all
order, time, magnitude, and space. "
This is as curious a specimen of reasoning as any that has been offered
to the world since the days when theories were founded on the principle
that nature abhors a vacuum. We proceed a few pages further, however;
and we then find that geometric progression is unnatural only in those
cases in which Mr Malthus conceives that it exists; and that, in all
cases in which Mr Malthus denies the existence of a geometric ratio,
nature changes sides, and adopts that ratio as the rule of increase.
Mr Malthus holds that subsistence will increase only in an arithmetical
ratio. "As far as nature has to do with the question," says Mr Sadler,
"men might, for instance, plant twice the number of peas, and breed
from a double number of the same animals, with equal prospect of their
multiplication. " Now, if Mr Sadler thinks that, as far as nature is
concerned, four sheep will double as fast as two, and eight as fast as
four, how can he deny that the geometrical ratio of increase does
exist in the works of nature? Or has he a definition of his own for
geometrical progression, as well as for inverse proportion?
Mr Malthus, and those who agree with him, have generally referred to
the United States, as a country in which the human race increases in a
geometrical ratio, and have fixed on thirty-five years as the term in
which the population of that country doubles itself. Mr Sadler contends
that it is physically impossible for a people to double in twenty-five
years; nay, that thirty-five years is far too short a period,--that
the Americans do not double by procreation in less than forty-seven
years,--and that the rapid increase of their numbers is produced by
emigration from Europe.
Emigration has certainly had some effect in increasing the population of
the United States. But so great has the rate of that increase been that,
after making full allowance for the effect of emigration, there will be
a residue, attributable to procreation alone, amply sufficient to double
the population in twenty-five years.
Mr Sadler states the results of the four censuses as follows:--
"There were, of white inhabitants, in the whole of the United States in
1790, 3,093,111; in 1800, 4,309,656; in 1810, 5,862,093; and in 1820,
7,861,710. The increase, in the first term, being 39 per cent. ; that in
the second, 36 per cent. ; and that in the third and last, 33 per cent.
It is superfluous to say, that it is utterly impossible to deduce
the geometric theory of human increase, whatever be the period of
duplication, from such terms as these. "
Mr Sadler is a bad arithmetician. The increase in the last term is
not as he states it, 33 per cent. , but more than 34 per cent. Now, an
increase of 32 per cent. in ten years, is more than sufficient to double
the population in twenty-five years. And there is, we think, very strong
reason to believe that the white population of the United States does
increase by 32 per cent. every ten years.
Our reason is this. There is in the United States a class of persons
whose numbers are not increased by emigration,--the negro slaves. During
the interval which elapsed between the census of 1810 and the census
of 1820, the change in their numbers must have been produced by
procreation, and by procreation alone. Their situation, though much
happier than that of the wretched beings who cultivate the sugar
plantations of Trinidad and Demerara, cannot be supposed to be more
favourable to health and fecundity than that of free labourers. In
1810, the slave-trade had been but recently abolished; and there were
in consequence many more male than female slaves,--a circumstance, of
course, very unfavourable to procreation. Slaves are perpetually passing
into the class of freemen; but no freeman ever descends into servitude;
so that the census will not exhibit the whole effect of the procreation
which really takes place.
We find, by the census of 1810, that the number of slaves in the Union
was then 1,191,000. In 1820, they had increased to 1,538,000. That is
to say, in ten years, they had increased 29 per cent. --within three
per cent. of that rate of increase which would double their numbers
in twenty-five years. We may, we think, fairly calculate that, if the
female slaves had been as numerous as the males, and if no manumissions
had taken place, the census of the slave population would have exhibited
an increase of 32 per cent. in ten years.
If we are right in fixing on 32 per cent. as the rate at which the white
population of America increases by procreation in ten years, it will
follow that, during the last ten years of the eighteenth century, nearly
one-sixth of the increase was the effect of emigration; from 1800 to
1810, about one-ninth; and from 1810 to 1820, about one-seventeenth.
This is what we should have expected; for it is clear that, unless the
number of emigrants be constantly increasing, it must, as compared with
the resident population, be relatively decreasing. The number of persons
added to the population of the United States by emigration, between 1810
and 1820, would be nearly 120,000. From the data furnished by Mr Sadler
himself, we should be inclined to think that this would be a fair
estimate.
"Dr Seybert says, that the passengers to ten of the principal ports of
the United States, in the year 1817, amounted to 22,235; of whom 11,977
were from Great Britain and Ireland; 4164 from Germany and Holland; 1245
from France; 58 from Italy, 2901 from the British possessions in North
America; 1569 from the West Indies; and from all other countries, 321.
These, however, we may conclude, with the editor of Styles's Register,
were far short of the number that arrived. "
We have not the honour of knowing either Dr Seybert or the editor of
Styles's Register. We cannot, therefore, decide on their respective
claims to our confidence so peremptorily as Mr Sadler thinks fit to do.
Nor can we agree to what Mr Sadler very gravely assigns as a reason for
disbelieving Dr Seyberts's testimony. "Such accounts," he says, "if not
wilfully exaggerated, must always fall short of the truth. " It would be
a curious question of casuistry to determine what a man ought to do in a
case in which he cannot tell the truth except by being guilty of
wilful exaggeration. We will, however, suppose, with Mr Sadler, that Dr
Seybert, finding himself compelled to choose between two sins, preferred
telling a falsehood to exaggerating; and that he has consequently
underrated the number of emigrants. We will take it at double of the
Doctor's estimate, and suppose that, in 1817, 45,000 Europeans crossed
to the United States. Now, it must be remembered that the year 1817 was
a year of the severest and most general distress all over Europe,--a
year of scarcity everywhere, and of cruel famine in some places. There
can, therefore, be no doubt that the emigration of 1817 was very far
above the average, probably more than three times that of an ordinary
year. Till the year 1815, the war rendered it almost impossible to
emigrate to the United States either from England or from the Continent.
If we suppose the average emigration of the remaining years to have been
16,000, we shall probably not be much mistaken. In 1818 and 1819,
the number was certainly much beyond that average; in 1815 and 1816,
probably much below it. But, even if we were to suppose that, in every
year from the peace to 1820, the number of emigrants had been as high as
we have supposed it to be in 1817, the increase by procreation among the
white inhabitants of the United States would still appear to be about 30
per cent. in ten years.
Mr Sadler acknowledges that Cobbett exaggerates the number of emigrants
when he states it at 150,000 a year. Yet even this estimate, absurdly
great as it is, would not be sufficient to explain the increase of the
population of the United States on Mr Sadler's principles. He is, he
tells us, "convinced that doubling in 35 years is a far more rapid
duplication than ever has taken place in that country from procreation
only. " An increase of 20 per cent. in ten years, by procreation, would
therefore be the very utmost that he would allow to be possible. We have
already shown, by reference to the census of the slave population, that
this doctrine is quite absurd.
or of volcanic eruptions, that this great question depends? Mr Sadler's
piety, it seems, would be proof against one rainy summer, but would
be overcome by three or four in succession. On the coasts of the
Mediterranean, where earthquakes are rare, he would be an optimist.
South America would make him a sceptic, and Java a decided Manichean.
To say that religion assigns a solemn office to these visitations is
nothing to the purpose. Why was man so constituted as to need such
warnings? It is equally unmeaning to say that philosophy refers these
events to benevolent general laws of nature. In so far as the laws of
nature produce evil, they are clearly not benevolent. They may produce
much good. But why is this good mixed with evil? The most subtle and
powerful intellects have been labouring for centuries to solve these
difficulties. The true solution, we are inclined to think, is that which
has been rather suggested, than developed, by Paley and Butler. But
there is not one solution which will not apply quite as well to the
evils of over-population as to any other evil. Many excellent people
think that it is presumptuous to meddle with such high questions at all,
and that, though there doubtless is an explanation, our faculties are
not sufficiently enlarged to comprehend that explanation. This mode of
getting rid of the difficulty, again, will apply quite as well to the
evils of over-population as to any other evils. We are sure that those
who humbly confess their inability to expound the great enigma act more
rationally and more decorously than Mr Sadler, who tells us, with the
utmost confidence, which are the means and which the ends,--which the
exceptions and which the rules, in the government of the universe;--who
consents to bear a little evil without denying the divine benevolence,
but distinctly announces that a certain quantity of dry weather or
stormy weather would force him to regard the Deity as the tyrant of his
creatures.
The great discovery by which Mr Sadler has, as he conceives, vindicated
the ways of Providence is enounced with all the pomp of capital letters.
We must particularly beg that our readers will peruse it with attention.
"No one fact relative to the human species is more clearly ascertained,
whether by general observation or actual proof, than that their
fecundity varies in different communities and countries. The principle
which effects this variation, without the necessity of those cruel
and unnatural expedients so frequently adverted to, constitutes what I
presume to call THE LAW OF POPULATION; and that law may be thus briefly
enunciated:--
"THE PROLIFICNESS OF HUMAN BEINGS, OTHERWISE SIMILARLY CIRCUMSTANCED,
VARIES INVERSELY AS THEIR NUMBERS.
"The preceding definition may be thus amplified and explained.
Premising, as a mere truism, that marriages under precisely similar
circumstances will, on the average, be equally fruitful everywhere,
I proceed to state, first, that the prolificness of a given number
of marriages will, all other circumstances being the same, vary
in proportion to the condensation of the population, so that that
prolificness shall be greatest where the numbers on an equal space are
the fewest, and, on the contrary, the smallest where those numbers are
the largest. "
Mr Sadler, at setting out, abuses Mr Malthus for enouncing his theory
in terms taken from the exact sciences. "Applied to the mensuration of
human fecundity," he tells us, "the most fallacious of all things is
geometrical demonstration;" and he again informs us that those "act an
irrational and irrelevant part who affect to measure the mighty depth
of God's mercies by their arithmetic, and to demonstrate, by their
geometrical ratios, that it is inadequate to receive and contain the
efflux of that fountain of life which is in Him. "
It appears, however, that it is not to the use of mathematical words,
but only to the use of those words in their right senses that Mr Sadler
objects. The law of inverse variation, or inverse proportion, is as much
a part of mathematical science as the law of geometric progression. The
only difference in this respect between Mr Malthus and Mr Sadler is,
that Mr Malthus knows what is meant by geometric progression, and
that Mr Sadler has not the faintest notion of what is meant by inverse
variation. Had he understood the proposition which he has enounced with
so much pomp, its ludicrous absurdity must at once have flashed on his
mind.
Let it be supposed that there is a tract in the back settlements of
America, or in New South Wales, equal in size to London, with only a
single couple, a man and his wife, living upon it. The population of
London, with its immediate suburbs, is now probably about a million and
a half. The average fecundity of a marriage in London is, as Mr Sadler
tells us 2. 35. How many children will the woman in the back settlements
bear according to Mr Sadler's theory? The solution of the problem is
easy. As the population in this tract in the back settlements is to
the population of London, so will be the number of children born from a
marriage in London to the number of children born from the marriage of
this couple in the back settlements. That is to say--
2 : 1,500,000 :: 2. 35 : 1,762,500.
The lady will have 1,762,500 children: a large "efflux of the fountain
of life," to borrow Mr Sadler's sonorous rhetoric, as the most
philoprogenitive parent could possibly desire.
But let us, instead of putting cases of our own, look at some of those
which Mr Sadler has brought forward in support of his theory. The
following table, he tells us, exhibits a striking proof of the truth of
his main position. It seems to us to prove only that Mr Sadler does not
know what inverse proportion means.
Countries Inhabitants on a Children to a
Square Mile, about Marriage
Cape of Good Hope 1 5. 48
North America 4 5. 22
Russia in Europe 23 4. 94
Denmark 73 4. 89
Prussia 100 4. 70
France 140 4. 22
England 160 3. 66
Is 1 to 160 as 3. 66 to 5. 48? If Mr Sadler's principle were just, the
number of children produced by a marriage at the Cape would be, not
5. 48, but very near 600. Or take America and France. Is 4 to 140 as
4. 22 to 5. 22? The number of births to a marriage in North America ought,
according to this proportion, to be about 150.
Mr Sadler states the law of population in England thus:--
"Where the inhabitants are found to be on the square mile,
From To Counties Number of births to 100 marriages
50 100 2 420
100 150 9 396
150 200 16 390
200 250 4 388
250 300 5 378
300 350 3 353
500 600 2 331
4000 and upwards 1 246
"Now, I think it quite reasonable to conclude, that, were there not
another document in existence relative to this subject, the facts thus
deduced from the census of England are fully sufficient to demonstrate
the position, that the fecundity of human beings varies inversely as
their numbers. How, I ask, can it be evaded? "
What, we ask, is there to evade? Is 246 to 420 as 50 to 4000? Is 331 to
396 as 100 to 500? If the law propounded by Mr Sadler were correct, the
births to a hundred marriages in the least populous part of England,
would be 246 x 4000 / 50, that is 19,680,--nearly two hundred children
to every mother. But we will not carry on these calculations. The
absurdity of Mr Sadler's proposition is so palpable that it is
unnecessary to select particular instances. Let us see what are the
extremes of population and fecundity in well-known countries. The space
which Mr Sadler generally takes is a square mile. The population at the
Cape of Good Hope is, according to him, one to the square mile. That
of London is two hundred thousand to the square mile. The number of
children at the Cape, Mr Sadler informs us, is 5. 48 to a marriage. In
London, he states it at 2. 35 to a marriage. Now how can that of which
all the variations lie between 2. 35 and 5. 48 vary, either directly or
inversely, as that which admits of all the variations between one and
two hundred thousand? Mr Sadler evidently does not know the meaning of
the word proportion. A million is a larger quantity than ten. A hundred
is a larger quantity than five. Mr Sadler thinks, therefore, that there
is no impropriety in saying that a hundred is to five as a million is to
ten, or in the inverse ratio of ten to a million. He proposes to prove
that the fecundity of marriages varies in inverse proportion to the
density of the population. But all that he attempts to prove is that,
while the population increases from one to a hundred and sixty on the
square mile, the fecundity will diminish from 5. 48 to 3. 66; and that
again, while the population increases from one hundred and sixty to two
hundred thousand on the square mile, the fecundity will diminish from
3. 66 to 2. 35.
The proposition which Mr Sadler enounces, without understanding the
words which he uses, would indeed, if it could be proved, set us at ease
as to the dangers of over-population. But it is, as we have shown, a
proposition so grossly absurd that it is difficult for any man to keep
his countenance while he repeats it. The utmost that Mr Sadler has
ever attempted to prove is this,--that the fecundity of the human
race diminishes as population becomes more condensed,--but that the
diminution of fecundity bears a very small ratio to the increase
of population,--so that, while the population on a square mile is
multiplied two hundred-thousand-fold, the fecundity decreases by little
more than one half.
Does this principle vindicate the honour of God? Does it hold out any
new hope or comfort to man? Not at all. We pledge ourselves to
show, with the utmost strictness of reasoning, from Mr Sadler's own
principles, and from facts of the most notorious description, that every
consequence which follows from the law of geometrical progression, laid
down by Mr Malthus, will follow from the law, miscalled a law of inverse
variation, which has been laid down by Mr Sadler.
London is the most thickly peopled spot of its size in the known world.
Therefore the fecundity of the population of London must, according
to Mr Sadler, be less than the fecundity of human beings living on
any other spot of equal size. Mr Sadler tells us, that "the ratios
of mortality are influenced by the different degrees in which the
population is condensated; and that, other circumstances being similar,
the relative number of deaths in a thinly-populated, or country
district, is less than that which takes place in towns, and in towns of
a moderate size less again than that which exists in large and populous
cities. " Therefore the mortality in London must, according to him, be
greater than in other places. But, though, according to Mr Sadler, the
fecundity is less in London than elsewhere, and though the mortality is
greater there than elsewhere, we find that even in London the number of
births greatly exceeds the number of deaths. During the ten years which
ended with 1820, there were fifty thousand more baptisms than burials
within the bills of mortality. It follows, therefore, that, even within
London itself, an increase of the population is taking place by internal
propagation.
Now, if the population of a place in which the fecundity is less and
the mortality greater than in other places still goes on increasing
by propagation, it follows that in other places the population will
increase, and increase still faster. There is clearly nothing in Mr
Sadler's boasted law of fecundity which will keep the population from
multiplying till the whole earth is as thick with human beings as St
Giles's parish. If Mr Sadler denies this, he must hold that, in places
less thickly peopled than London, marriages may be less fruitful than
in London, which is directly contrary to his own principles; or that in
places less thickly peopled than London, and similarly situated, people
will die faster than in London, which is again directly contrary to his
own principles. Now, if it follows, as it clearly does follow, from Mr
Sadler's own doctrines, that the human race might be stowed together
by three or four hundred to the acre, and might still, as far as the
principle of propagation is concerned, go on increasing, what advantage,
in a religious or moral point of view, has his theory over that of
Mr Malthus? The principle of Mr Malthus, says Mr Sadler, leads to
consequences of the most frightful description. Be it so. But do not
all these consequences spring equally from his own principle? Revealed
religion condemns Mr Malthus. Be it so. But Mr Sadler must share in the
reproach of heresy. The theory of Mr Malthus represents the Deity as a
Dionysius hanging the sword over the heads of his trembling slaves. Be
it so. But under what rhetorical figure are we to represent the Deity of
Mr Sadler?
A man who wishes to serve the cause of religion ought to hesitate long
before he stakes the truth of religion on the event of a controversy
respecting facts in the physical world. For a time he may succeed in
making a theory which he dislikes unpopular by persuading the public
that it contradicts the Scriptures and is inconsistent with the
attributes of the Deity. But, if at last an overwhelming force of
evidence proves this maligned theory to be true, what is the effect of
the arguments by which the objector has attempted to prove that it is
irreconcilable with natural and revealed religion? Merely this, to make
men infidels. Like the Israelites, in their battle with the Philistines,
he has presumptuously and without warrant brought down the ark of God
into the camp as a means of ensuring victory:--and the consequence of
this profanation is that, when the battle is lost, the ark is taken.
In every age the Church has been cautioned against this fatal and
impious rashness by its most illustrious members,--by the fervid
Augustin, by the subtle Aquinas, by the all-accomplished Pascal. The
warning has been given in vain. That close alliance which, under
the disguise of the most deadly enmity, has always subsisted between
fanaticism and atheism is still unbroken. At one time, the cry was,--"If
you hold that the earth moves round the sun, you deny the truth of the
Bible. " Popes, conclaves, and religious orders, rose up against the
Copernican heresy. But, as Pascal said, they could not prevent the
earth from moving, or themselves from moving along with it. One thing,
however, they could do, and they did. They could teach numbers to
consider the Bible as a collection of old women's stories which the
progress of civilisation and knowledge was refuting one by one. They
had attempted to show that the Ptolemaic system was as much a part of
Christianity as the resurrection of the dead. Was it strange, then, that
when the Ptolemaic system became an object of ridicule to every man of
education in Catholic countries, the doctrine of the resurrection should
be in peril? In the present generation, and in our own country, the
prevailing system of geology has been, with equal folly, attacked on the
ground that it is inconsistent with the Mosaic dates. And here we have
Mr Sadler, out of his especial zeal for religion, first proving that the
doctrine of superfecundity is irreconcilable with the goodness of God,
and then laying down principles, and stating facts, from which the
doctrine of superfecundity necessarily follows. This blundering piety
reminds us of the adventures of a certain missionary who went to convert
the inhabitants of Madagascar. The good father had an audience of the
king, and began to instruct his majesty in the history of the human race
as given in the Scriptures. "Thus, sir," said he, "was woman made out
of the rib of man, and ever since that time a woman has had one rib
more than a man. " "Surely, father, you must be mistaken there," said the
king. "Mistaken! " said the missionary. "It is an indisputable fact.
My faith upon it! My life upon it! " The good man had heard the fact
asserted by his nurse when he was a child,--had always considered it as
a strong confirmation of the Scriptures, and fully believed it without
having ever thought of verifying it. The king ordered a man and woman,
the leanest that could be found, to be brought before him, and desired
his spiritual instructor to count their ribs. The father counted over
and over, upward and downward, and still found the same number in both.
He then cleared his throat, stammered, stuttered, and began to assure
the king that though he had committed a little error in saying that a
woman had more ribs than a man, he was quite right in saying that the
first woman was made out of the rib of the first man. "How can I tell
that? " said the king. "You come to me with a strange story which you say
is revealed to you from heaven. I have already made you confess that
one half of it is a lie: and how can you have the face to expect that I
shall believe the other half? "
We have shown that Mr Sadler's theory, if it be true, is as much a
theory of superfecundity as that of Mr Malthus. But it is not true. And
from Mr Sadler's own tables we will prove that it is not true.
The fecundity of the human race in England Mr Sadler rates as follows:--
"Where the inhabitants are found to be on the square mile--
From To Counties Number of births per 100 marriages
50 100 2 420
100 150 9 396
150 200 16 390
200 250 4 388
250 300 5 378
300 350 3 353
500 600 2 331
4000 and upwards 1 246
Having given this table, he begins, as usual, to boast and triumph.
"Were there not another document on the subject in existence," says he,
"the facts thus deduced from the census of England are sufficient to
demonstrate the position, that the fecundity of human beings varies
inversely as their numbers. " In no case would these facts demonstrate
that the fecundity of human beings varies inversely as their numbers
in the right sense of the words inverse variation. But certainly
they would, "if there were no other document in existence," appear
to indicate something like what Mr Sadler means by inverse variation.
Unhappily for him, however, there are other documents in existence; and
he has himself furnished us with them. We will extract another of his
tables:--
TABLE LXIV.
Showing the Operation of the Law of Population in the different Hundreds
of the County of Lancaster.
(In the following table the name of the Hundred is followed in order by:
Population on each Square Mile.
Square Miles.
Population in 1821, exclusive of Towns of separate Jurisdiction.
Marriages from 1811 to 1821.
Baptisms from 1811 to 1821.
Baptisms to 100 Marriages. )
Lonsdale : 96 : 441 : 42,486 : 3,651 : 16,129 : 442
Almondness : 267 : 228 : 60,930 : 3,670 : 15,228 : 415
Leyland : 354 : 126 : 44,583 : 2,858 : 11,182 : 391
West Derby : 409 : 377 : 154,040 : 24,182 : 86,407 : 357
Blackburn : 513 : 286 : 146,608 : 10,814 : 31,463 : 291
Salford : 869 : 373 : 322,592 : 40,143 : 114,941 : 286
Mr Sadler rejoices much over this table. The results, he says, have
surprised himself; and, indeed, as we shall show, they might well have
done so.
The result of his inquiries with respect to France he presents in the
following table:
"In those departments where there are to each inhabitant--
Hectares Departments Legitimate births to
every 1000 marriages
4 to 5 2 5130
3 to 4 3 4372
2 to 3 30 4250
1 to 2 44 4234
. 06 to 1 5 4146
. 06 1 2557
Then comes the shout of exaltation as regularly as the Gloria Patri
at the end of a Psalm. "Is there any possibility of gainsaying the
conclusions these facts force upon us; namely that the fecundity of
marriages is regulated by the density of the population, and inversely
to it? "
Certainly these tables, taken separately, look well for Mr Sadler's
theory. He must be a bungling gamester who cannot win when he is
suffered to pack the cards his own way. We must beg leave to shuffle
them a little; and we will venture to promise our readers that some
curious results will follow from the operation. In nine counties of
England, says Mr Sadler, in which the population is from 100 to 150
on the square mile, the births to 100 marriages are 396. He afterwards
expresses some doubt as to the accuracy of the documents from which this
estimate has been formed, and rates the number of births as high as 414.
Let him take his choice. We will allow him every advantage.
In the table which we have quoted, numbered lxiv. , he tells us that in
Almondness, where the population is 267 to the square mile, there are
415 births to 100 marriages. The population of Almondness is twice as
thick as the population of the nine counties referred to in the other
table. Yet the number of births to a marriage is greater in Almondness
than in those counties.
Once more, he tells us that in three counties, in which the population
was from 300 to 350 on the square mile, the births to 100 marriages were
353. He afterwards rates them at 375. Again we say, let him take his
choice. But from his table of the population of Lancashire it appears
that, in the hundred of Leyland, where the population is 354 to the
square mile, the number of births to 100 marriages is 391. Here again
we have the marriages becoming more fruitful as the population becomes
denser.
Let us now shuffle the censuses of England and France together. In two
English counties which contain from 50 to 100 inhabitants on the square
mile, the births to 100 marriages are, according to Mr Sadler, 420. But
in forty-four departments of France, in which there are from one to two
hecatares to each inhabitant, that is to say, in which the population is
from 125 to 250 or rather more, to the square mile, the number of births
to 100 marriages is 423 and a fraction.
Again, in five departments of France in which there is less than one
hecatare to each inhabitant, that is to say, in which the population is
more than 250 to the square mile, the number of births to 100 marriages
is 414 and a fraction. But in the four counties of England in which the
population is from 200 to 250 on the square mile, the number of births
to 100 marriages is, according to one of Mr Sadler's tables, only 388,
and by his very highest estimate no more than 402.
Mr Sadler gives us a long table of all the towns of England and Ireland,
which, he tells us, irrefragably demonstrates his principle. We assert,
and will prove, that these tables are alone sufficient to upset his
whole theory.
It is very true that, in the great towns the number of births to a
marriage appears to be smaller than in the less populous towns. But we
learn some other facts from these tables which we should be glad to know
how Mr Sadler will explain. We find that the fecundity in towns of
fewer than 3000 inhabitants is actually much greater than the average
fecundity of the kingdom, and that the fecundity in towns of between
3000 and 4000 inhabitants is at least as great as the average fecundity
of the kingdom. The average fecundity of a marriage in towns of fewer
than 3000 inhabitants is about four; in towns of between 3000 and 4000
inhabitants it is 3. 60. Now, the average fecundity of England, when it
contained only 160 inhabitants to a square mile, and when, therefore,
according to the new law of population, the fecundity must have been
greater than it now is, was only, according to Mr Sadler, 3. 66 to a
marriage.
To proceed,--the fecundity of a marriage in the English towns
of between 4000 and 5000 inhabitants is stated at 3. 56. But, when
we turn to Mr Sadler's table of counties, we find the fecundity of a
marriage in Warwickshire and Staffordshire rated at only 3. 48, and in
Lancashire and Surrey at only 3. 41.
These facts disprove Mr Sadler's principle; and the fact on which he
lays so much stress--that the fecundity is less in the great towns than
in the small towns--does not tend in any degree to prove his principle.
There is not the least reason to believe that the population is more
dense, ON A GIVEN SPACE, in London or Manchester than in a town of 4000
inhabitants. But it is quite certain that the population is more dense
in a town of 4000 inhabitants than in Warwickshire or Lancashire. That
the fecundity of Manchester is less than the fecundity of Sandwich or
Guildford is a circumstance which has nothing whatever to do with Mr
Sadler's theory. But that the fecundity of Sandwich is greater than the
average fecundity of Kent,--that the fecundity of Guildford is greater
than the average fecundity of Surrey,--as from his own tables appears to
be the case,--these are facts utterly inconsistent with his theory.
We need not here examine why it is that the human race is less fruitful
in great cities than in small towns or in the open country. The fact has
long been notorious. We are inclined to attribute it to the same causes
which tend to abridge human life in great cities,--to general sickliness
and want of tone, produced by close air and sedentary employments. Thus
far, and thus far only, we agree with Mr Sadler, that, when population
is crowded together in such masses that the general health and energy of
the frame are impaired by the condensation, and by the habits attending
on the condensation, then the fecundity of the race diminishes. But this
is evidently a check of the same class with war, pestilence, and famine.
It is a check for the operation of which Mr Malthus has allowed.
That any condensation which does not affect the general health will
affect fecundity, is not only not proved--it is disproved--by Mr
Sadler's own tables.
Mr Sadler passes on to Prussia, and sums up his information respecting
that country as follows:--
(In the following table numbers appear in the order: Inhabitants on a
Square Mile, German.
Number of Provinces.
Births to 100 Marriages, 1754.
Births to 100 Marriages, 1784.
Births to 100 Marriages, Busching. )
Under 1000 : 2 : 434 : 472 : 503
1000 to 2000 : 4 : 414 : 455 : 454
2000 to 3000 : 6 : 384 : 424 : 426
3000 to 4000 : 2 : 365 : 408 : 394
After the table comes the boast as usual:
"Thus is the law of population deduced from the registers of Prussia
also: and were the argument to pause here, it is conclusive. The
results obtained from the registers of this and the preceding countries,
exhibiting, as they do most clearly, the principle of human increase,
it is utterly impossible should have been the work of chance; on the
contrary, the regularity with which the facts class themselves in
conformity with that principle, and the striking analogy which the whole
of them bear to each other, demonstrate equally the design of Nature,
and the certainty of its accomplishment. "
We are sorry to disturb Mr Sadler's complacency. But, in our opinion,
this table completely disproves his whole principle. If we read the
columns perpendicularly, indeed, they seem to be in his favour. But how
stands the case if we read horizontally? Does Mr Sadler believe that,
during the thirty years which elapsed between 1754 and 1784, the
population of Prussia had been diminishing? No fact in history is better
ascertained than that, during the long peace which followed the seven
years' war, it increased with great rapidity. Indeed, if the fecundity
were what Mr Sadler states it to have been, it must have increased with
great rapidity. Yet, the ratio of births to marriages is greater in 1784
than in 1754, and that in every province. It is, therefore, perfectly
clear that the fecundity does not diminish whenever the density of the
population increases.
We will try another of Mr Sadler's tables:
TABLE LXXXI.
Showing the Estimated Prolificness of Marriages in England at the close
of the Seventeenth Century.
(In the following table the name of the Place is followed in order by:
Number of Inhabitants.
One Annual Marriage, to.
Number of Marriages.
Children to one Marriage.
Total Number of Births.
London : 530,000 : 106 : 5,000 : 4. : 20,000
Large Towns : 870,000 : 128 : 6,800 : 4. 5 : 30,000
Small Towns and
Country Places : 4,100,000 : 141 : 29,200 : 4. 8 : 140,160
-------------------------------------------
: 5,500,000 : 134 : 41,000 : 4. 65 : 190,760
Standing by itself, this table, like most of the others, seems to
support Mr Sadler's theory. But surely London, at the close of the
seventeenth century, was far more thickly peopled than the kingdom
of England now is. Yet the fecundity in London at the close of the
seventeenth century was 4; and the average fecundity of the whole
kingdom now is not more, according to Mr Sadler, than 3 1/2. Then again,
the large towns in 1700 were far more thickly peopled than Westmoreland
and the North Riding of Yorkshire now are. Yet the fecundity in those
large towns was then 4. 5. And Mr Sadler tells us that it is now only 4. 2
in Westmoreland and the North Riding.
It is scarcely necessary to say anything about the censuses of
the Netherlands, as Mr Sadler himself confesses that there is some
difficulty in reconciling them with his theory, and helps out his
awkward explanation by supposing, quite gratuitously, as it seems to us,
that the official documents are inaccurate. The argument which he has
drawn from the United States will detain us but for a very short time.
He has not told us,--perhaps he had not the means of telling us,--what
proportion the number of births in the different parts of that country
bears to the number of marriages. He shows that in the thinly peopled
states the number of children bears a greater proportion to the number
of grown-up people than in the old states; and this, he conceives, is a
sufficient proof that the condensation of the population is unfavourable
to fecundity. We deny the inference altogether. Nothing can be more
obvious than the explanation of the phenomenon. The back settlements
are for the most part peopled by emigration from the old states; and
emigrants are almost always breeders. They are almost always vigorous
people in the prime of life. Mr Sadler himself, in another part of
his book, in which he tries very unsuccessfully to show that the
rapid multiplication of the people of America is principally owing to
emigration from Europe, states this fact in the plainest manner:
"Nothing is more certain, than that emigration is almost universally
supplied by 'single persons in the beginning of mature life;' nor,
secondly, that such persons, as Dr Franklin long ago asserted, 'marry
and raise families. '
"Nor is this all. It is not more true, that emigrants, generally
speaking, consist of individuals in the prime of life, than that 'they
are the most active and vigorous' of that age, as Dr Seybert describes
them to be. They are, as it respects the principle at issue, a select
class, even compared with that of their own age, generally considered.
Their very object in leaving their native countries is to settle in
life, a phrase that needs no explanation; and they do so. No equal
number of human beings, therefore, have ever given so large or rapid an
increase to a community as 'settlers' have invariably done. "
It is perfectly clear that children are more numerous in the back
settlements of America than in the maritime states, not because
unoccupied land makes people prolific, but because the most prolific
people go to the unoccupied land.
Mr Sadler having, as he conceives, fully established his theory of
population by statistical evidence, proceeds to prove, "that it is
in unison, or rather required by the principles of physiology. " The
difference between himself and his opponents he states as follows:--
"In pursuing this part of my subject, I must begin by reminding the
reader of the difference between those who hold the superfecundity of
mankind and myself, in regard to those principles which will form the
basis of the present argument. They contend, that production precedes
population; I, on the contrary, maintain that population precedes, and
is indeed the cause of, production. They teach that man breeds up to the
capital, or in proportion to the abundance of the food, he possesses: I
assert, that he is comparatively sterile when he is wealthy, and that
he breeds in proportion to his poverty; not meaning, however, by that
poverty, a state of privation approaching to actual starvation, any more
than, I suppose, they would contend, that extreme and culpable excess
is the grand patron of population. In a word, they hold that a state
of ease and affluence is the great promoter of prolificness. I maintain
that a considerable degree of labour, and even privation, is a more
efficient cause of an increased degree of human fecundity. "
To prove this point, he quotes Aristotle, Hippocrates, Dr Short, Dr
Gregory, Dr Perceval, M. Villermi, Lord Bacon, and Rousseau. We will not
dispute about it; for it seems quite clear to us that if he succeeds in
establishing it he overturns his own theory. If men breed in proportion
to their poverty, as he tells us here,--and at the same time breed
in inverse proportion to their numbers, as he told us before,--it
necessarily follows that the poverty of men must be in inverse
proportion to their numbers. Inverse proportion, indeed, as we have
shown, is not the phrase which expresses Mr Sadler's meaning. To
speak more correctly, it follows, from his own positions, that, if one
population be thinner than another, it will also be poorer. Is this the
fact? Mr Sadler tells us, in one of those tables which we have already
quoted, that in the United States the population is four to a square
mile, and the fecundity 5. 22 to a marriage, and that in Russia the
population is twenty-three to a square mile, and the fecundity 4. 94 to
a marriage. Is the North American labourer poorer than the Russian boor?
If not, what becomes of Mr Sadler's argument?
The most decisive proof of Mr Sadler's theory, according to him, is that
which he has kept for the last. It is derived from the registers of the
English Peerage. The peers, he says, and says truly, are the class with
respect to whom we possess the most accurate statistical information.
"Touching their NUMBER, this has been accurately known and recorded ever
since the order has existed in the country. For several centuries past,
the addition to it of a single individual has been a matter of public
interest and notoriety: this hereditary honour conferring not personal
dignity merely, but important privileges, and being almost always
identified with great wealth and influence. The records relating to
it are kept with the most scrupulous attention, not only by heirs and
expectants, but they are appealed to by more distant connections, as
conferring distinction on all who can claim such affinity. Hence there
are few disputes concerning successions to this rank, but such as go
back to very remote periods. In later times, the marriages, births, and
deaths, of the nobility, have not only been registered by and known to
those personally interested, but have been published periodically, and,
consequently, subject to perpetual correction and revision; while many
of the most powerful motives which can influence the human mind conspire
to preserve these records from the slightest falsification. Compared
with these, therefore, all other registers, or reports, whether of sworn
searchers or others, are incorrectness itself. "
Mr Sadler goes on to tell us that the peers are a marrying class, and
that their general longevity proves them to be a healthy class. Still
peerages often become extinct;--and from this fact he infers that they
are a sterile class. So far, says he, from increasing in geometrical
progression, they do not even keep up their numbers. "Nature interdicts
their increase. "
"Thus," says he, "in all ages of the world, and in every nation of it,
have the highest ranks of the community been the most sterile, and
the lowest the most prolific. As it respects our own country, from the
lowest grade of society, the Irish peasant, to the highest, the British
peer, this remains a conspicuous truth; and the regulation of the degree
of fecundity conformably to this principle, through the intermediate
gradations of society, constitutes one of the features of the system
developed in these pages. "
We take the issue which Mr Sadler has himself offered. We agree with
him, that the registers of the English Peerage are of far higher
authority than any other statistical documents. We are content that
by those registers his principle should be judged. And we meet him by
positively denying his facts. We assert that the English nobles are not
only not a sterile, but an eminently prolific, part of the community.
Mr Sadler concludes that they are sterile, merely because peerages often
become extinct. Is this the proper way of ascertaining the point? Is
it thus that he avails himself of those registers on the accuracy and
fulness of which he descants so largely? Surely his right course would
have been to count the marriages, and the number of births in the
Peerage. This he has not done;--but we have done it. And what is the
result?
It appears from the last edition of Debrett's "Peerage", published in
1828, that there were at that time 287 peers of the United Kingdom,
who had been married once or oftener. The whole number of marriages
contracted by these 287 peers was 333. The number of children by these
marriages was 1437,--more than five to a peer,--more than 4. 3 to a
marriage,--more, that is to say, than the average number in those
counties of England in which, according to Mr Sadler's own statement,
the fecundity is the greatest.
But this is not all. These marriages had not, in 1828, produced their
full effect. Some of them had been very lately contracted. In a very
large proportion of them there was every probability of additional
issue. To allow for this probability, we may safely add one to the
average which we have already obtained, and rate the fecundity of a
noble marriage in England at 5. 3;--higher than the fecundity which Mr
Sadler assigns to the people of the United States. Even if we do not
make this allowance, the average fecundity of marriages of peers is
higher by one-fifth than the average fecundity of marriages throughout
the kingdom. And this is the sterile class! This is the class which
"Nature has interdicted from increasing! " The evidence to which Mr
Sadler has himself appealed proves that his principle is false,--utterly
false,--wildly and extravagantly false. It proves that a class, living
during half of every year in the most crowded population in the world,
breeds faster than those who live in the country;--that the class which
enjoys the greatest degree of luxury and ease breeds faster than the
class which undergoes labour and privation. To talk a little in Mr
Sadler's style, we must own that we are ourselves surprised at the
results which our examination of the peerage has brought out. We
certainly should have thought that the habits of fashionable life, and
long residence even in the most airy parts of so great a city as London,
would have been more unfavourable to the fecundity of the higher orders
than they appear to be.
Peerages, it is true, often become extinct. But it is quite clear, from
what we have stated, that this is not because peeresses are barren.
There is no difficulty in discovering what the causes really are. In the
first place, most of the titles of our nobles are limited to heirs male;
so that, though the average fecundity of a noble marriage is upwards
of five, yet, for the purpose of keeping up a peerage, it cannot be
reckoned at much more than two and a half. Secondly, though the peers
are, as Mr Sadler says, a marrying class, the younger sons of peers are
decidedly not a marrying class; so that a peer, though he has at least
as great a chance of having a son as his neighbours, has less chance
than they of having a collateral heir.
We have now disposed, we think, of Mr Sadler's principle of population.
Our readers must, by this time, be pretty well satisfied as to his
qualifications for setting up theories of his own. We will, therefore,
present them with a few instances of the skill and fairness which he
shows when he undertakes to pull down the theories of other men. The
doctrine of Mr Malthus, that population, if not checked by want,
by vice, by excessive mortality, or by the prudent self-denial of
individuals, would increase in a geometric progression, is, in Mr
Sadler's opinion, at once false and atrocious.
"It may at once be denied," says he, "that human increase proceeds
geometrically; and for this simple but decisive reason, that the
existence of a geometrical ratio of increase in the works of nature
is neither true nor possible. It would fling into utter confusion all
order, time, magnitude, and space. "
This is as curious a specimen of reasoning as any that has been offered
to the world since the days when theories were founded on the principle
that nature abhors a vacuum. We proceed a few pages further, however;
and we then find that geometric progression is unnatural only in those
cases in which Mr Malthus conceives that it exists; and that, in all
cases in which Mr Malthus denies the existence of a geometric ratio,
nature changes sides, and adopts that ratio as the rule of increase.
Mr Malthus holds that subsistence will increase only in an arithmetical
ratio. "As far as nature has to do with the question," says Mr Sadler,
"men might, for instance, plant twice the number of peas, and breed
from a double number of the same animals, with equal prospect of their
multiplication. " Now, if Mr Sadler thinks that, as far as nature is
concerned, four sheep will double as fast as two, and eight as fast as
four, how can he deny that the geometrical ratio of increase does
exist in the works of nature? Or has he a definition of his own for
geometrical progression, as well as for inverse proportion?
Mr Malthus, and those who agree with him, have generally referred to
the United States, as a country in which the human race increases in a
geometrical ratio, and have fixed on thirty-five years as the term in
which the population of that country doubles itself. Mr Sadler contends
that it is physically impossible for a people to double in twenty-five
years; nay, that thirty-five years is far too short a period,--that
the Americans do not double by procreation in less than forty-seven
years,--and that the rapid increase of their numbers is produced by
emigration from Europe.
Emigration has certainly had some effect in increasing the population of
the United States. But so great has the rate of that increase been that,
after making full allowance for the effect of emigration, there will be
a residue, attributable to procreation alone, amply sufficient to double
the population in twenty-five years.
Mr Sadler states the results of the four censuses as follows:--
"There were, of white inhabitants, in the whole of the United States in
1790, 3,093,111; in 1800, 4,309,656; in 1810, 5,862,093; and in 1820,
7,861,710. The increase, in the first term, being 39 per cent. ; that in
the second, 36 per cent. ; and that in the third and last, 33 per cent.
It is superfluous to say, that it is utterly impossible to deduce
the geometric theory of human increase, whatever be the period of
duplication, from such terms as these. "
Mr Sadler is a bad arithmetician. The increase in the last term is
not as he states it, 33 per cent. , but more than 34 per cent. Now, an
increase of 32 per cent. in ten years, is more than sufficient to double
the population in twenty-five years. And there is, we think, very strong
reason to believe that the white population of the United States does
increase by 32 per cent. every ten years.
Our reason is this. There is in the United States a class of persons
whose numbers are not increased by emigration,--the negro slaves. During
the interval which elapsed between the census of 1810 and the census
of 1820, the change in their numbers must have been produced by
procreation, and by procreation alone. Their situation, though much
happier than that of the wretched beings who cultivate the sugar
plantations of Trinidad and Demerara, cannot be supposed to be more
favourable to health and fecundity than that of free labourers. In
1810, the slave-trade had been but recently abolished; and there were
in consequence many more male than female slaves,--a circumstance, of
course, very unfavourable to procreation. Slaves are perpetually passing
into the class of freemen; but no freeman ever descends into servitude;
so that the census will not exhibit the whole effect of the procreation
which really takes place.
We find, by the census of 1810, that the number of slaves in the Union
was then 1,191,000. In 1820, they had increased to 1,538,000. That is
to say, in ten years, they had increased 29 per cent. --within three
per cent. of that rate of increase which would double their numbers
in twenty-five years. We may, we think, fairly calculate that, if the
female slaves had been as numerous as the males, and if no manumissions
had taken place, the census of the slave population would have exhibited
an increase of 32 per cent. in ten years.
If we are right in fixing on 32 per cent. as the rate at which the white
population of America increases by procreation in ten years, it will
follow that, during the last ten years of the eighteenth century, nearly
one-sixth of the increase was the effect of emigration; from 1800 to
1810, about one-ninth; and from 1810 to 1820, about one-seventeenth.
This is what we should have expected; for it is clear that, unless the
number of emigrants be constantly increasing, it must, as compared with
the resident population, be relatively decreasing. The number of persons
added to the population of the United States by emigration, between 1810
and 1820, would be nearly 120,000. From the data furnished by Mr Sadler
himself, we should be inclined to think that this would be a fair
estimate.
"Dr Seybert says, that the passengers to ten of the principal ports of
the United States, in the year 1817, amounted to 22,235; of whom 11,977
were from Great Britain and Ireland; 4164 from Germany and Holland; 1245
from France; 58 from Italy, 2901 from the British possessions in North
America; 1569 from the West Indies; and from all other countries, 321.
These, however, we may conclude, with the editor of Styles's Register,
were far short of the number that arrived. "
We have not the honour of knowing either Dr Seybert or the editor of
Styles's Register. We cannot, therefore, decide on their respective
claims to our confidence so peremptorily as Mr Sadler thinks fit to do.
Nor can we agree to what Mr Sadler very gravely assigns as a reason for
disbelieving Dr Seyberts's testimony. "Such accounts," he says, "if not
wilfully exaggerated, must always fall short of the truth. " It would be
a curious question of casuistry to determine what a man ought to do in a
case in which he cannot tell the truth except by being guilty of
wilful exaggeration. We will, however, suppose, with Mr Sadler, that Dr
Seybert, finding himself compelled to choose between two sins, preferred
telling a falsehood to exaggerating; and that he has consequently
underrated the number of emigrants. We will take it at double of the
Doctor's estimate, and suppose that, in 1817, 45,000 Europeans crossed
to the United States. Now, it must be remembered that the year 1817 was
a year of the severest and most general distress all over Europe,--a
year of scarcity everywhere, and of cruel famine in some places. There
can, therefore, be no doubt that the emigration of 1817 was very far
above the average, probably more than three times that of an ordinary
year. Till the year 1815, the war rendered it almost impossible to
emigrate to the United States either from England or from the Continent.
If we suppose the average emigration of the remaining years to have been
16,000, we shall probably not be much mistaken. In 1818 and 1819,
the number was certainly much beyond that average; in 1815 and 1816,
probably much below it. But, even if we were to suppose that, in every
year from the peace to 1820, the number of emigrants had been as high as
we have supposed it to be in 1817, the increase by procreation among the
white inhabitants of the United States would still appear to be about 30
per cent. in ten years.
Mr Sadler acknowledges that Cobbett exaggerates the number of emigrants
when he states it at 150,000 a year. Yet even this estimate, absurdly
great as it is, would not be sufficient to explain the increase of the
population of the United States on Mr Sadler's principles. He is, he
tells us, "convinced that doubling in 35 years is a far more rapid
duplication than ever has taken place in that country from procreation
only. " An increase of 20 per cent. in ten years, by procreation, would
therefore be the very utmost that he would allow to be possible. We have
already shown, by reference to the census of the slave population, that
this doctrine is quite absurd.
