they are anxious to represent it, "immaterial." The fallacy of such a method is evident to the computist as soon as it is mentioned; it is hoped that it can hardly be less so to the less practised inquirer. For example, the sinking fund of this country, had it not been sacrilegiously broken in upon, would, ere long, have annihilated the national incumbrances, though the additional interest upon its annual accession of capital might have been pronounced by similar arguers, "immaterial." Or, to illustrate the deception still more familiarly; the sophism is as glaring, indeed it is quite the same, as though, in comparing the accumulation from two sums at usage, one should be calculated on the principle of compound, and the other on that of simple interest. But I will put the case in the very terms in which it is expressed by the principal advocate of the geometric theory, as founded upon American increase.

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(4) "From a return to Congress in 1782," says Mr. Malthus, "the population appeared to be 2,389,000, and in the census of 1790, 4,000,000 : "increase in 9 years 1,610,700: from which deduct 10,000 per annum for European settlers, which will "be 90,000; and allow for their increase at 5 per cent. "for 4 years, which will be 20,500, the remaining "increase during these nine years, from procreation only, will be 1,500,450, which is very nearly 7 per "cent., and consequently the period of doubling at "this rate, would be less than 16 years." He goes on to say "that the period of doubling has, in particular "districts, been actually shorter, often less than even "15 years1.

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(5) As the presumed fact on which these calcula

1 Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 339, note.

tions are founded, is, as Dr. Seybert has himself de clared, utterly fallacious', and as it will be shewn hereafter, that the periods of doubling pretended to be deduced from them, and far more extended ones, are impossibilities, involving a series of suppositions of the most absurd nature, the passage would not have been noticed, only that it affords an example of the method by which this class of reasoners satisfy themselves and many others, respecting the effects of emigration. The principle of the above calculation is not, indeed, very clear, but what is meant is sufficiently apparent, namely, that emigrants multiply not only in a much slower ratio than natives, but that even that increase, be it whatever it may, is to be estimated by calculating it on short terms only, to the rejection of the effect, present and future, which all previous accessions are producing, and will still continue to produce upon the general increase. Such a method of computation contrives almost to lose sight even of the arithmetical additions which emigrations make to the community to which they are added: it entirely gets rid of their "geometrical ratio" of increase. Truth is indeed reversed in the whole of these suppositions, and in no case so glaringly, as when it is assumed, that the natural multiplication of a body of emigrants is less than that of an equal number of the entire population. The contrary of this is evidently the fact. But these delusions continue to be persisted in, as the following quotations from the same pen, taken from a scientific work recently published, will testify.

(6) "Although," says the article upon population, in the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica, we can hardly err in defect, if we allow 10,000 a year for the average increase from emigration,

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VOL. I.

1 Dr. Seybert, Statist. Annals of the U. States, pp. 26 and 27.

20

during the 25 years, from 1795 to 1820; and ap"plying this number to the slowest period of increase “when the rate was such as to double the population "in 23 years and seven months, it may be easily cal"culated that, in the additional year and five months, "a population of 5,862,000 would have increased to “an amount much more than sufficient to cover an “ annual emigration of 10,000 persons with the increase from them at the same rate."

"Such an increase from them, however, would not "take place. It appears from an account in the Na"tional Calendar of the United States, for the year “1821, that of the 7001 persons who had arrived in "America, from the 30th of September, 1819, to the "30th September, 1820, 1959 only were females, "and the rest, 5042, were males; a proportion "which, if it approaches towards representing the "average, must very greatly reduce the number from “which any increase ought to be calculated.” The writer, notwithstanding, in proceeding, allows with great shew of candour, "to all these emigrants an increase during the whole period, at the fullest rate, which "he afterwards fixes at three per cent., a rate which "would double a population in less than 24 years?."

(7) As the above extract from the laboured article in question is supposed to embody the modern theory of population, it is necessary to notice its positions somewhat at large; when it will be seen, that a greater mass of absurdities has been rarely compressed in a like space. In what it denies, and what it admits, it not only equally controverts matter of fact, but entirely subverts the system it defends. The prolificness assigned with an air of liberality to emigrants,

1 For proof of the incorrectness of 2 Encyc. Brit. Supplement, vol. vi, this statement, see conclusion of Chap. p. 310, Art. Population.

III. of this Book.

consisting, as the great mass of them unquestionably do, of the reproductive class of society, transferred to the same class throughout the country and the world, would doom the human race to speedy decay and extinction; but, given to the entire community, would multiply mankind into unsustainable numbers, a position, indeed, sought to be demonstrated by the article in question; but the admission made in this very paragraph will, on due examination, be found to subvert the supposition altogether. But, of all the mistakes. in the whole statement, the conceiving that, because a great majority of emigrants are males, they would add to the general prolificness less than had they been of the other sex, is the most ludicrous, as well as erroneous. We shall attend to each of the foregoing points, though as shortly as possible, because the subject will be partially resumed in a part of the present work more particularly appropriated to the detection of the numerical errors involved in the principle of population now controverted; when it will be shewn, that the accession of a comparatively small number of individuals has an effect upon the general increase hardly supposable by those who have not attended to the subject.

(8) It is obviously true, in the first place, that the period at which emigration takes place is, in a great plurality of cases, that of the prime of life. None become "settlers," to use the word which, of itself, almost amounts to a proof of the fact, in advanced age; and as to the few children that leave with entire families, they have survived the first great peril of existence, infancy, and are, therefore, more likely to live to the reproductive age, and are, indeed, nearer entering upon it than had an equal number been taken promiscuously from the general community.

But, to recur to the main fact, 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 2.'

دو

(9) 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. Seybert 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 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.

(10) But, to identify them merely with the general class to which, in point of age, they belong, or, in other words, with the prolific portion of the community, and to calculate the effect of their addition to a general population accordingly :-Dr. Price has computed that "the prolific part of the community may very well be a fourth of the whole number;" a proportion which, from his own subsequent remarks, it is quite clear he exaggerated. Allowing, however, his supposition to stand, it may be very safely transferred to the emigrant body, in as much as so great a majority of these remove at the early stages of the prolific period, as to fully counterbalance any instances which may occur amongst them of some who have not yet attained to, or who have even survived it; and what, then, is the state

'Price, Revers. Payments, vol. i., p. 332.

2 Franklin, Works, vol, ii., p. 157.

3 Price, Revers. Payments, vol. i., p. 279.