aim at liberty of confcience, with means of inftruction; the progrefs of truth, with the peace of fociety; the right of private judgment, with the care of the public fafety."

Chapter XI.

OF POPULATION AND PROVISION; AND
OF AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE,
AS SUBSERVIENT THERETO.

THE final view of all rational politics is to produce the greateft quantity of happiness in a given tract of country. The riches, ftrength, and glory of nations; the topics which hiftory celebrates, and which alone almoft engage the praises, and poffefs the admiration of mankind, have no value farther than as they contribute to this end. When they interfere with it, they are evils, and not the lefs real for the fplendour that furrounds them.

Secondly, although we fpeak of communities as of fentient beings; although we afcribe to them happinefs and mifery, defires, interefts, and paffions, nothing really exifts or feels but individuals. The happinefs of a people is made up of the happiness of fingle perfons; and the quantity of happiness can only be augmented by increafing the number of the percipients, or the pleasure of their perceptions.

Thirdly, notwithstanding that diverfity of condition, especially different degrees of plenty, freedom, and fecurity, greatly vary the quantity of happiness enjoyed by the fame number of individuals; and notwithstanding that extreme cafes may be found, of human beings fo galled by the rigours of flavery, that the increase of numbers is only the amplification of mifery; yet, within certain limits, and within thofe limits to which civil life is diverfified under the temperate governments that obtain in Europe, it may be

affirmed, I think, with certainty, that the quantity of happiness produced in any given diftrict, fo far depends upon the number of inhabitants, that in comparing adjoining periods in the fame country, the collective happiness will be nearly in the exact proportion of the numbers, that is, twice the number of inhabitants will produce double the quantity of happinefs; in diftant periods, and different countries, under great changes or great diffimilitude of civil condition, although the proportion of enjoyment may fall much fhort of that of the numbers, yet ftill any confiderable excefs of numbers will usually carry with it a preponderation of happiness; that, at least, it may, and ought to be affumed in all political de liberations, that a larger portion of happiness is enjoyed amongst ten perfons, poffeffing the means of healthy fubfiftence, that can be produced by five perfons, under every advantage of power, affluence, and luxury.

From these principles it follows, that the quantity of happiness in a given diftrict, although it is poffible it may be increased, the number of inhabitants remaining the fame, is chiefly and moft naturally af fected by alteration of the numbers: that, confequently, the decay of population is the greatest evil that a ftate can fuffer; and the improvement of it the object which ought, in all countries, to be aimed at in preference to every other political purpose whatsoever.

The importance of population, and the fuperiority of it to every other national advantage, are points neceffary to be inculcated, and to be understood; inafmuch as false estimates, or fantastic notions of national grandeur, are perpetually drawing the attention of statesmen and legiflators from the care of this, which is, at all times, the true and abfolute interest of a country for which reason, we have ftated these points with unufual formality. We will confefs, however, that a competition can feldom arise between the advancement of population and any measure of fober utility; because, in the ordinary progress of human affairs, whatever, in any way, contributes to

make a people happier, tends to render them more

numerous.

In the fecundity of the human, as of every other fpecies of animals, nature has provided for an indefinite multiplication. Mankind have increased to their prefent number from a single pair: the offspring of early marriages, in the ordinary courfe of procreation, do more than replace the parents: in countries, and under circumftances very favourable to fubfiftence, the population has been doubled in the space of twenty years; the havoc occafioned by wars, earthquakes, famine, or peftilence, is ufually repaired in a fhort time. Thefe indications fufficiently demonftrate the tendency of nature in the human fpecies to a continual increase of its numbers. It becomes therefore a question that may reasonably be propounded, what are the caufes which confine or check the nat ural progrefs of this multiplication? And the answer which firft prefents itself to the thoughts of the inquirer is, that the population of a country muft ftop when the country can maintain no more, that is, when the inhabitants are already fo numerous as to exhauft all the provifion which the foil can be made to produce. This, however, though an infuperable bar, will feldom be found to be that which actually checks the progrefs of population in any country of the world; because the number of the people have feldom, in any country, arrived at this limit, or even approached to it. The fertility of the ground, in temperate regions, is capable of being improved by cultivation to an extent which is unknown: much, however, beyond the ftate of improvement in any country in Europe. In our own, which holds almoft the first place in the knowledge and encouragement of agriculture, let it only be fuppofed that every field in England of the fame original quality with thofe in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, and confequently capable of the fame fertility, were by a like management made to yield an equal produce; and it may be afferted, I believe, with truth, that the quantity of human provision raised in the island would be in

creafed five fold. The two principles, therefore, up, on which population feems primarily to depend, the fecundity of the fpecies, and the capacity of the foil, would in moft, perhaps in all countries, enable it to proceed much farther than it has yet advanced. The number of marriageable women, who, in each country, remain unmarried, afford a computation how much the agency of nature in the diffufion of human life is cramped and contracted; and the quantity of wafte, neglected, or mismanaged furface-together with a comparifon, like the preceding, of the crops raifed from the foil in the neighbourhood of populous cities, and under a perfect ftate of cultivation, with those which lands of equal or fuperior quality yield in different fituations--will fhew in what proportion the indigenous productions of the earth are capable of being farther augmented.

The fundamental propofition upon the fubject of population, which muft guide every endeavour to im prove it, and from which every conclufion concerning it may be deduced, is this: "Wherever the commerce between the fexes is regulated by marriage, and a provifion for that mode of fubfiftence, to which each clafs of the community is accustomed, can be procured with eafe and certainty, there the number of the people will increase; and the rapidity, as well as the extent of the increase, will be propor tioned to the degree in which thefe caufes exift.'

This propofition we will draw out into the several principles which it contains.

I. First, the propofition afferts the "neceffity of confining the intercourfe of the fexes to the marriage union." It is only in the marriage union that this intercourfe is fufficiently prolific. Befide which, family establishments alone are fitted to perpetuate a fucceffion of generations. The offspring of a vague and promifcuous concubinage are not only few, and liable to perish by neglect, but are feldom prepared for, or introduced into fituations fuited to the raifing of families of their own. Hence the advantages of marriage. Now nature, in the conftitution of the

fexes, has provided a ftimulus which will infallibly fecure the frequency of marriages, with all their beneficial effects upon the ftate of population, provided the male part of the fpecies be prohibited from irregular gratifications. This impulfe, which is fufficient to furmount almost every impediment to marriage, will operate in proportion to the difficulty, expenfe, danger, or infamy, the fenfe of guilt, or the fear of punishment, which attend licentious indulgencies. Wherefore, in countries in which fubfift. ence is become scarce, it behoves the state to watch over the public morals with increased folicitude: for nothing but the instinct of nature, under the restraint of chastity, will induce men to undertake the labour, or confent to the facrifice of perfonal liberty and in. dulgence, which the fupport of a family, in such circumftances, requires.

II. The fecond requifite which our propofition ftates, as neceffary to the fuccefs of population, is, "The cafe and certainty with which a provifion can be procured for that mode of fubfiftence to which each clafs of the community is accuftomed." It is not enough that men's natural wants be fupplied, that a provifion adequate to the real exigencies of human life be attainable: habitual fuperfluities become actual wants; opinion and fashion convert articles of ornament and luxury into neceffaries of life. And it must not be expected from men in general, at leaft in the prefent relaxed state of morals and difcipline, that they will enter into marriages which degrade their condition, reduce their mode of living, deprive them of the accommodations to which they have been accuftomed, or even of those ornaments or appendages of rank and ftation, which they have been taught to regard as belonging to their birth, or class, or profeffion, or place in fociety. The fame confideration, namely, a view to their accustomed mode of life, which is fo apparent in the fuperior orders of the people, has no lefs influence upon thofe ranks which compofe the mafs of the community. The kind and quality of food and liquor, the fpecies of