of every inquiring mind.  It accords with the most liberal spirit of philosophy to suppose that not a stone can fall, or a plant rise, without the immediate agency of divine power.  But we know from experience that these operations of what we call nature have been conducted almost invariably according to fixed laws.  And since the world began, the causes of population and depopulation have probably been as constant as any of the laws of nature with which we are acquainted.

The passion between the sexes has appeared in every age to be so nearly the same that it may always be considered, in algebraic language, as a given quantity.  The great law of necessity which prevents population from increasing in any country beyond the food which it can either produce or acquire, is a law so open to our view, so obvious and evident to our understandings, and so completely confirmed by the experience of every age, that we cannot for a moment doubt it.  The different modes which nature takes to prevent or repress a redundant population do not appear, indeed, to us so certain and regular, but though we cannot always predict the mode we may with certainty predict the fact.  If the proportion of births to deaths for a few years indicate an increase of numbers much beyond the proportional increased or acquired produce of the country, we may be perfectly certain that unless an emigration takes place, the deaths will shortly exceed the births; and that the increase that had taken place for a few years cannot be the real average increase of the population of the country.  Were there no other depopulating causes, every country would, without doubt, be subject to periodical pestilences or famine.

The only true criterion of a real and permanent increase in the population of any country is the increase of the means of subsistence.  But even, this criterion is subject to some slight variations which are, however, completely open to our view and observations.  In some countries population appears to have been forced, that is, the people have been habituated by degrees to live almost upon the smallest possible quantity of food.  There must have been periods in such counties when population increased permanently, without an increase in the means of subsistence.  China seems to answer to this description.  If the accounts we have of it are to be trusted, the lower classes of people are in the habit of living almost upon the smallest possible quantity of food and are glad to get any putrid offals that European labourers would rather starve than eat.  The law in China which permits parents to expose their children has tended principally thus to force the population.  A nation in this state must necessarily be subject to famines.  Where a country is so populous in proportion to the means of subsistence that the average produce of it is but barely sufficient to support the lives of the inhabitants, any deficiency from the badness of seasons must be fatal.  It is probable that the very frugal manner in which the Gentoos are in the habit of living contributes in some degree to the famines of indostan.