“The legitimate births are, in those departments where there are to each
inhabitant--
[Illustration: 0290]
These tables, as we said in our former article, certainly look well
for Mr. Sadler’s theory. “Do they?” says he. “Assuredly they do; and in
admitting this, the Reviewer has admitted the theory to be proved.” We
cannot absolutely agree to this. A theory is not proved, we must tell
Mr. Sadler, merely because the {285}evidence in its favour looks well
at first sight. There is an old proverb, very homely in expression, but
well deserving to be had in constant remembrance by all men, engaged
either in action or in speculation--“One story is good till another is
told!”
We affirm, then, that the results which these tables present, and which
seem so favourable to Mr. Sadler’s theory, are produced by packing, and
by packing alone.
In the first place, if we look at the departments singly, the whole is
in disorder. About the department in which Paris is situated there is
no dispute: Mr. Malthas distinctly admits that great cities prevent
propagation. There remain eighty-four departments; and of these there
is not, we believe, a single one in the place which, according to Mr.
Sadler’s principle, it ought to occupy.
That which ought to be highest in fecundity is tenth in one table,
fourteenth in another, and only thirty-first according to the third.
That which ought to be third is twenty-second by the table, which places
it highest. That which ought to be fourth is fortieth by the table,
which places it highest. That which ought to be eighth is fiftieth or
sixtieth. That which ought to be tenth from the top is at about the same
distance from the bottom. On the other hand, that which, according to
Mr. Sadler’s principle, ought to be last but two of all the eighty-four
is third in two of the tables, and seventh in that which places it
lowest; and that which ought to be last is, in one of Mr. Sadler’s
tables, above that which ought to be first, in two of them, above that
which ought to be third, and, in all of them, above that which ought to
be fourth.
By dividing the departments in a particular manner, {286}Mr. Sadler has
produced results which he contemplates with great satisfaction. But, if
we draw the lines a little higher up or a little lower down, we shall
find that all his calculations are thrown into utter confusion; and
that the phenomena, if they indicate any thing, indicate a law the very
reverse of that which he has propounded.
Let us take, for example, the thirty-two departments, as they stand in
Mr. Sadler’s table, from Lozère to Meuse inclusive, and divide them into
two sets of sixteen departments each. The set from Lozère and Loiret
inclusive consists of those departments in which the space to each
inhabitant is from 3.8 hecatares to 2.42. The set from Cantal to Meuse
inclusive consists of those departments in which the space to each
inhabitant is from 2.42 hecatares to 2.07. That is to say, in the
former set the inhabitants are from 68 to 107 on the square mile, or
thereabouts. In the latter they are from 107 to 125. Therefore, on Mr.
Sadler’s principle, the fecundity ought to be smaller in the latter set
than in the former. It is, however, greater, and that in every one of
Mr. Sadler’s three tables.
Let us now go a little lower down, and take another set of sixteen
departments--those which lie together in Mr. Sadler’s tables, from
Hérault to Jura inclusive. Here the population is still thicker than
in the second of those sets which we before compared. The fecundity,
therefore, ought, on Mr. Sadler’s principle, to be less than in that
set. But it is again greater, and that in all Mr. Sadler’s three tables.
We have a regularly ascending series, where, if his theory had any truth
in it, we ought to have a regularly descending series. We will give the
results of our calculation.