Table X. Shewing the Bills of Mortality of the Cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston, for 1821. XI. Shewing the Mortality in the Cities of New York, Phila delphia, Baltimore, and Boston, during a period of Seven وو XII. Shewing comparatively the Mortality in Carlisle, from 1774 to 1787, of London in 1814 and 1822, and of the princi- pal Cities in North America in 1814, 1821, and Seven Years XIII. Shewing the Expectation of Life in sundry Parts of Europe, and in America, at the Ages specified. Table XIV. Shewing the Increase of a Community in which the Marriages are as 1 in 108 individuals, the Births 4.38 to each Marriage, and the Deaths half the number of the Births. XIV. Of Emigration to America: calculated on the admission of those who assert it to be "immaterial" Of the Population of China: the general Arguments XVI. Of China: the assertion that Infanticide regulates its XVII. Of China: the Argument of its excessive Population, founded on the supposed Indigence and Distress of CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. (1) THE Law of Nature, or, to speak more intelligibly, of the Deity, which regulates the increase of mankind, has ever been regarded as one of the most momentous subjects open to human research; not merely as a highly interesting question of abstract science, but as of the greatest practical importance, necessarily involving the interests and happiness of the universal species, whether considered in their individual or collective сараcity: this law, therefore, patriots and legislators have ever regarded as indicating their most essential duties; duties, indeed, which the voice of nature and reason dictates, and the sanctions of religion have rendered still more sacred. (2) This principle of population has, it is true, like all other subjects, been occasionally contemplated in very different, and indeed opposite, points of view; when the various opinions touching its nature have led to the most adverse conclusions. In some of the theoretic speculations in which the ancient philosophers so much indulged, it was, perhaps, imagined as a possible source of future evil, for which, as some have supposed, remedies were anticipated, which modern philosophy, too often unconscious of the source of her superior illumination, is now taught to regard with horror. But, in justice to human nature, it must be confessed that the subject has been generally seen in the lights of benevo lence and truth, and, consequently, it has been the study of almost all nations, in every age of the world, how to multiply, rather than repress the numbers of their people. Since the Christian era, more especially, wherever the religion of civilization has been spread and established, such have been the principle and policy on which all nations have professed to act; notwithstanding the occasional murmurings and opposition of individual selfishness and ignorance; while all those mighty intellects which have arisen during this long period, destined to correct the past, and influence the future opinions of mankind, and amongst these, more especially, our own unrivalled countrymen, have, as with one voice, given witness to the same cheering view of this important question, and have recognized, in the growing numbers of mankind, not the signs or the instruments merely, but the very elements of human prosperity. The multitude, meantime, have arrived at the same conclusion, by the simple guidance of their feelings and observation; and have pronounced and perpetuated in their national proverbs, which may be regarded as the oracles of human experience, their stedfast faith in the sufficiency of eternal Providence. The question, therefore, seemed settled for ever upon these sacred foundations. Without dreaming of the necessity of any further inquiries or demonstrations, mankind, or at least the civilized part of them, beheld in the operation of this law, their affections, duties, and interests identified; and the attributes and operations of the Deity, as their creator and preserver, in perfect and everlasting harmony. (3) Such, up to a late period, is the simple history of the question before us: and it were superfluous to add, that the doctrine of population thus founded upon public interest, as well as religious principle, became |