“Where the inhabitants are found to be on the square mile, From 50 to
100 (2 counties) the births to 100 marriages are 420
--100 to 150 (9 counties).... 396
--150 to 200 (16 counties)... 390
--200 to 250 (4 counties).... 388
--250 to 300 (5 counties).... 378
--300 to 350 (3 counties).... 353
--500 to 600 (2 counties).... 331
--4000 and upwards (1 county) 246
“Now, I think it quite reasonable to conclude, that, were there {225}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 {226}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. Mal-thus, 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, {227}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 {228}to
his own principles. Now, if it follows, as it clearly does follow, from
Mr. Sadler’s own doctrines, that the human race might he 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.
{229}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 Bing, 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 {230}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 saving 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:--
[Illustration: 0237]
{231}"Where the inhabitants are found to be on the square mile--From 50
to 100 (2 counties) the births to 100 marriages are 420
-- 100 to 150 (9 counties) ....396
-- 150 to 200 (16 counties) ...390
-- 200 to 250 (4 counties) ....388
-- 250 to 300 (5 counties).....378
-- 300 to 350 (3 counties) ....353
-- 500 to 600 (2 counties) ....331
-- 4000 and upwards (1 county).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:--
The result of his inquiries with respect to France he presents in the
following table:--
[Illustration: 0238]
Then comes the shout of exultation 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 doubts 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. {233}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 Ley-land, 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 fifty 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 sav, 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, {234}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 3,000 inhabitants is actually much greater than the average
fecundity of the kingdom, and that the fecundity in towns of between
3,000 and 4,000 inhabitants is at least as great as the average
fecundity of the kingdom. The average fecundity of a marriage in towns
of fewer than 3,000 inhabitants is about four; in towns of between 3,000
and 4,000 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 4,000 and 5,000 inhabitants is stated at 3.56.
But, when we turn to Mr. Sadler’s table of the 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 {235}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 4,000 inhabitants. But it is quite certain that the population
is more dense in a town of 4,000 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. {236}Mr. Sadler passes on to Prussia, and sums up
his information respecting that country as follows:--
[Illustration: 0242]
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 {237}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:
[Illustration: 0243]
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 3.5 Then, again,
the large towns in 1700 were far more thickly peopled than Westmorland
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 Westmorland and the North Riding.
It is scarcely necessary to say any thing about the {238}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 armament 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. Sey-bert 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 {239}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 laud.
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
{240}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 {241}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. W 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 principles 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 {242}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 388. 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 sav, 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 the 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.
{243}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 null down the theories of other men. The
doctrine {244}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 farther, 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 {245}generally referred
to the United States, as a country in which the human race increases in
a ‘geometrical ratio, and have fixed on twenty-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 frill allowance for the effect of emigration, there win be
a residue, attributable to procreation alone, amply sufficient to double
the population in twenty-five years.