the weaker starve; or an agreement among them to enlarge the means of their subsistence by domesticating some of the wild animals, thereby emerging from the savage state, and making the first step in the progress of civilization. It is impossible for a society to exist for many generations without making this transition, unless repressed by their own vices, or the selfish and cruel interference of others; for naturally the pressure introduced by the increase of mankind, though it might at first produce contests for the existing supply of food, yet, considering the inconveniences attending them, would soon produce another arrangement, unless it were artificially prevented. Some of the most acute among the savages, observing the docile nature of many animals, and that their docility is perhaps proportioned to their domestic utility when tamed, would set about the task of reducing them to a state in which, without further diminishing the relative proportion of their numbers to mankind, they might afford a continual supply to their wants. Milk, and its various combinations, the changes of aliment to which it is convertible, and the slaughter only of the superfluous increase of the herds and flocks, with occasional assistance derived from the wild animals still escaped from extermination, would be the regimen of this second stage of society in all widely-extended tracts of country; and it may be called the pastoral state of society. Upon this system it is evident that a much larger number of persons can be supported on the same extent of territory; the animals become more numerous and healthy by being reduced under the management of those who apportion to each herd and flock its requisite extent of pasture, and

prevent the waste and accidents to which their erratic state is liable. The soil itself becomes capable of supporting a larger number; the less wasteful method of supplying man with food by the extraction of other nutriment from animals than mere flesh, creates a smaller demand upon the increased stock; and the progressive power of the country is improved in the double ratio of augmented force and removed obstruction. But as in land in a state of nature the capability of supporting herds and flocks is absolute, and determinable in no very long period of time, and as people increase at least as fast in a pastoral as in a savage state, the pressure of population will soon come to operate upon this increased supply; and the same necessity for contention, or rather perhaps for farther production, will occur. Observation quickened by necessity will have pointed out to some of the shepherds the vegetables most suited to their taste or climate; and the step from that observation to the cultivation of a small portion of the earth with rude instruments of agriculture, such as, first, a stake from a tree, next, one sharpened at the end with a flint, &c. is but a trifling advance in human intellect. But the increase it gives to the supply of food by introducing an enlarged supply of vegetable without materially reducing animal sustenance, greatly enlarges the power of the earth to support mankind; and a third stage in the progress of society ensues, that of the early and rude agricultural state-a change accompanied with this very important circumstance, that as it becomes the interest of the society that every man should be secure of the soil he cultivates, and that the whole society should ensure the whole collected produce by their protection,

it necessarily becomes fixed to one spot; settled habitations are created, social ties formed, industry and other virtues excited, and the foundation laid of all those improvements in society which lead to more complete cultivation, to the division of labour, and to the development of those useful energies which lead to a farther progress in civilization. Now it is very evident that throughout the whole of this series of revolutions, population is kept very far within the powers of the soil to afford it subsistence; and that if in fact it presses against the actual supply of food, so as to bring a temporary inconvenience upon individuals, that effect is entirely to be ascribed to the laziness or ignorance of those individuals. It is no less evident, that this pressure is necessary to stimulate them to such exertion as would carry on the society to its next stage, and that any provision by which the pressure could be otherwise removed would be nothing less than a scheme for passing an eternal sentence of barbarism and ignorance against the unfortunate people, and for directly counteracting the ordinations of Providence for the replenishment and happiness of the world. To say, therefore, that in these conditions of society "population has a tendency to increase faster than food can be provided for its support" is evidently untrue, because the land is accessible and ready to make a tenfold return. It would be a much more tenable proposition to hold, that the wants of the people press against their own ignorance and apathy, and call aloud upon them in the name of Providence to remove the pressure. To ascribe the miseries of human life in these stages of society to the pressure of population would therefore be about as fair as to

ascribe the sufferings of a criminal who forfeits his liberty or life to the offended laws of his country, to the operation of those laws, and not to the crimes he has committed. To assert that the assumed tendency of population to exuberance can only be repressed by vice, misery, or such a modification of moral restraint as includes an involuntary abstinence from marriage, is no less untrue; because the most ordinary exertion of industry on the soil would give to every man in want more than enough for the support of himself and his family; and this exertion, when it becomes general, will carry on the community to the next step in the progress of society. Therefore although under the amended system marriages would be multiplied, industry would also be awakened; although population would increase, the produce of the soil would much more increase; and a fair attention to the new duties introduced by new habits and pursuits would always maintain the community in a state of comfort and plenty.

Such, without any great stretch of presumption, may be predicated with some certainty to have been the intentions of Providence with respect to the earliest stages of society. It appears, indeed, that a people passing through them will not be permitted to enjoy any tolerable degree of comfort and happiness, except in the road which has been marked out as leading to their further progress. For if we consult the accounts rendered by different authors who have been eye-witnesses of men's actions in the early stages of society, when no attempts were making to lead them into the paths of civilization, it is to be feared that we shall too frequently find them of a nature grossly vicious, and calculated even to repress

the population within the limits of that salutary pressure, against the actual means of subsistence which is necessary to the further development of their resources, and not only to keep it within those limits, but even to produce a gradual diminution in the scanty numbers of the people. Let us take as one example the case of the South Sea Islands;-an instance the more in point, as it has been relied upon by the advocates of the modern opinions respecting the principle of population as one of the strong holds of their argument.

It appears that in the island of Otaheite no regular cultivation has ever existed; the people have always been supported under the shade of their own forests by the almost spontaneous bounty of nature. Upon the first pressure of population against the existing supply of such food, the natives, instead of having recourse to agricultural exertion, preferred their original state of barbarism, and this against the repeated efforts of benevolence to induce them to adopt a better system. They removed the pressure of their population, necessarily arising out of such conduct, by the murder of their new-born infants, which became so regular a practice that nurses recommended themselves by their skill in the diabolical operation. But mark the effects of vice, and of the interference of human depravity with the order of nature, and the designs of Providence! The number of inhabitants, which in the year 1774, though perhaps much over stated at 200,000,* was certainly

* See Cook's Second Voyage, vol. i. p. 349. By tracing their history through the successive Voyages which have been published, a gradual diminution in the number of inhabitants is fully established.