EMIGRATION. • TH5 natural propensity of mankind is to settle ment and rest, and this principle is still farther strengthened by the influence of local associations over the mind. Every one is strongly attached to the place of his birth, or to the place where he has passed his earlier years, and it may be generally re marked, that, in whatever spot man fixes his abode, there he takes root. Habits and sympathies are created, strong attachments are formed, and the longer he remains in any particular place, his aver sion to change grows upon him. The power of early associations over the mind is exemplified by constant experience. How many of those adven turers who, at an early age, had quitted their home and their country in pursuit of fame or fortune, do we see daily returning to revive those local affections which, being deeply impressed on the heart while it was yet warm and susceptible, neither time nor dis tance has been able to efface ? and to the powerful influence of the same tender recollections, are we to ascribe that painful longing and deep despondency to which the Swiss and other nations are liable when they have been long absent from their country and their home. Such being the general dispositionof man kind to rest where their lot is cast—such the various and powerful ties by which they are attached to-parti cular spots—and so general their aversion to change, we may fairly conclude, when we see the inhabitants of any country eagerly engaging in projects of emi gration, in opposition to their natural attachment to their native land, and in defiance of all the uncer tainty and peril of a new settlement on a distant and unknown shore, that their conduct is not the result of choice but of necessity, and that, in thus leaving their kindred and their country, they are flying from the pressure of some great and general mi sery.
The great and radical evil which afflicts society is the want of food, which necessarily arises from the tendency of mankind to increase faster than the means of subsistence can be provided. The import ance of this great law of nature, under which the want of food is every where found to be the grand obstacle to the multiplication of the species, was first duly appreciated by Mr Malthus, who, in his pro found and invaluable work On iopulation, has ex plained and enforced the principle with such elemen tary clearness and force, and with such various and striking illustrations, that it is now uhiversally adopt ed as an indisputable maxim of political science. According to the simple view of this interesting subject, contained in the work of Mr Malthus, it has been ascertained, from the history of the American and other newly settled colonies, that where there is abundance of food the population has been doubled in some cases in twenty-five, in others in fifteen years; and it is obvious that if 10,000, or any other number of inhabitants can be doubled within fifteen or twenty five years, 20,000 or 100,000, or any greater num ber, may be doubled in the same pariod with equal facility. The increase of population takes place,
therefore, according to a geometrical ratio ; every successive addition affording the means of a still greater increase, until the earth being at length re plenished with inhabitants, room and food are alike wanting for any farther addition to the human species.
It is not easy to determine the rate according to which the productions of the earth may be supposed to increase. This will in a great measure depend on accidental circumstances. Where there are exten sive tracks of fertile and unoccupied land, food will be produced in great abundance ; but after these are all cultivated, and the less fertile parts of the coun try begin to be settled by its increasing inhabitants, subsistence will be produced at a slower rate, and with greater toil. In this manner we find the popula tion continues to advance according to an accelerat ed process, the increase of one period only affording the means of a still greater increase during the next, and this without any limit; while the subsistence for this rapidly increasing population, in place of being produced with the same facility, in place of increasing m proportion to the growing wants of the communi ty, is necessarily produced at a slower rate, and with greater toil, at the period when it is most wanted. While the principle of population is yet in full vigour, and is every day acquiring new powers of increase, the produce of the earth is daily procured with greater difficulty. The same causes, therefore, which oc casion a continual multiplication of inhabitants, pre vent any progressive increase in the supply of provi sions. By a long process of skilful cultivation, the earth may at last reach the utmost limits of its pro ductive powers. This state of things, it is supposed, has already taken place in China. No efforts of hu man industry, however judiciously directed, could ever probably double the produce of this highly cul tivated country. But the population could still be doubled in fifteen or twenty years with the same fa cility as before. All countries which have been long settled and cultivated, are in some measure in a similar condition. No efforts of human skill could possibly draw from Great Britain double its present produce within the period during which its popula tion could be doubled, and in all such countries, therefore, the farther increase of inhabitants is checked by the want of food. It is manifest, in deed, that the number of people in any country, or in the world at Urge, must be limited by the quantity of subsistence provided for their support.