MIL ALISON'S PRINCIPLES Or POPULATION.

TUE "first draft " of this work was commenced in 1809 : from 1812 to 1819 was spent in accumulating materials, by reading, study, and 0 repeated and extensive travelling over the British Islands and the Continent " : the distractions of " official and professional en- gagements" prevented, till 1828, the inevitable rewriting of the whole, which the accumulation of such extensive stores involved ; and then the political excitement of that period seemed unfit for its publication. The fever of the Reform Bill and of the subse- quent struggle for ascendancy between the Lords and Commons, Mr. :Wise's deemed still more unpropitious for a quiet discussion of the first principles of society ; and he had made up his mind to reserve its perusal for a better age, and devolve its publication upon his executors. But the calm, the lassitude, the indifference, or whatever. .else it may be, which has come over the political world, appearing favourable to its consideration, the author has published it himself. The main object of Mr. ALISON is to refute the doctrine of MALTIIUS, that there is a natural tendency in population to press

upon subsistence, because whilst the increase of mouths goes on in

geometrical ratio, the increase of provisions can only be effected its arithmetical ratio. Without denying the abstract possibility of a nation reaching the extreme limits of production, Mr. ALISON'S

researches have led him to a contrary conclusion. He maintains, in opposition to Ms.cruus, that we can double the produce of the soil of a country, and then redouble the last quantity, within the same time as a similar result can be effected on the population. This, however, he admits to be an extreme case and we may say, as

unlikely as his oracle Dr. PRICE'S products (on paper) of compound interest. Mr. ALISON'S own and most important proposition is, that the principles of population are as effective, and as beautifully adapted to all the varying circumstances of society, as any of the

other laws of nature : calculated to stimulate the increase of man- kind when increase is necessary—producing efficient checks as soon as checks are desirable.

Those who have critically considered the Mstory r■f Europe by Mr. ALISON, will be prepared to learn that the logic ot' the Prieci- ples of Population is not of a compact and conclusive nature, and

its basis none of the soundest. Avowedly written to overturn the theory of Mamatus, it seems to us to support sonic of its main points. Mr. Ausos admits that a tune may arrive in every country when the verge of productiveness is reached, and no more food can be produced. He alleges, what Mr. MALTHUS would scarcely

have denied, that it would be pi s.,11)11' with strflicicaey of " labour

and capital," to double the produce of Great Britain in twenty years, and, with a like supply of men and money, to double it again ; only the political economist would have doubted, whether the natural laws of profit would permit the "capital" to be expended for any such purpose, whilst it could more ad- vantageously be invested ill foreign countries. And Mr. ALISON

actually adduces wars, pestilence, and premature deaths from the misery of the people, as some of the chief means of Nature for

checking an improvident or vicious increase of population ; which is one of the principal arguments of M t Lriirs. The main difference between MaLritus and Amsox appears to us to be, that the latter differs from his predecessor in the practical conclusions drawn front the premises, especially as to the poor-rate ; and that lie takes a larger and perhaps a loftier view of the subject. Notwithstanding its radical deficiency in logical conclusion, visible in secondary as well as principal points, Mr. ALISON'S work must be welcomed as a considerable acquisition to political philo- sophy. The author takes a comprehensive survey of human society, from its origin in savage life, through the hunter, the pastoral, and the agricultural states, up to the efflorescence of civilization, both Oriental and European. He rapidly traces the leading historical changes that have taken place in the annals of mankind ; investigating their causes, and how far the prin- ciple of' population has contributed to produce them. Ile ex- amines the ratio of the increase of mankind in the East, in Europe, and in the United States; and he analyzes the concomitants which accompany a dense population, in order to deduce from them the causes that have overthrown the states of t he ancient and the Eastern world, and which may finally be destined to work the downfal of those of modern Europe. Besides these lofty and extended specu- lations, he considers a variety of subjects having a more directly practical bearing,—as Colonization, Corn-laws, and Reciprocity ; Church Establishments, and the Voluntary system ; a Legal Pro- vision for the Poor; Popular Education ; and a few other topics, which bear less, perhaps, upon the principles of population in general, than upon the wellbeing of the actual population of Great Britain and Ireland.

In so large a survey, often involving the consideration of scientific questions, Mr. ALISON sometimes appears in the character of a compiler, as in his abridgment of ADAM SMITH'S exposition of the different channels into which capital successively flows as a nation advances in wealth. But as a whole, his work possesses a large fund of matter derived from reading and reflection, professional experience, and personal observation; the two latter having not merely enabled hint to accumulate original materials, but to im- pregnate those which he has acquired by study. That all Mr. ALISON'S propositions are to be received implicitly, no one will suppose after the remarks we have made upon his fundamental deficiency ; but. those who attentively peruse his volumes will have their minds expanded by curious and enlarged speculation, and in- structed by the new light in which existing knowledge is presented. The style of the work, though still florid, is more subdued than in the History of Europe, as if the author had adapted it to a philo- sophical treatise : perhaps, too, it has gained something by its frequent remodellings, and by a delay more than treble that of the Horatian precept. •

Although it would be impossible to follow Mr. ArasoN through all his views, yet it may be well to give a general outline of his principle of population—that it has been formed by Nature with unerring wisdom, not only to sustain the race of man, but to con- tribute to his progression. The difficulty of rearing children is so great, and the causes of the destruction of the species are so numerous, says Mr. AmsoN, in the primitive or savage state, that mankind would very probably have become extinct had they not been induced to propagate their race by a blind unrea- soning impulse, alike disregardful of' future consequences to them- selves or their offspring. It is not by merely maintaining the species, however, but also by increasing its numbers for an ulterior purpose, that this unrestrained appetite is given to primitive man. As numbers increase, supposing that the circumstances of the country permit of their increase, the mere savage is driven by com- petition to rise into the huntsman, mid from the huntsman into the shepherd, or at last to the agriculturist. And, by a survey of geography and history, we may see how the formation of the world itself has furthered these two last occupations.

" It. is worthy of observation in this view, how singular the physical quali- ties of the earth, in the immediate vicinity of the regions where man was first created, were adapted for his infant necessities, and the means of the early and rapid increase of his race, both in the tents of the herdsmen and the fields of the plain. To the 'North of the sunny slopes of Armenia, where profane not less than sacred history assigns the first appearance of the destined lords of the earth, extend the boundless grassy wilds of Tartary and Scythia, where not a tree ivas to he seen, nor a range of impassable mountains intervened, from the banks of the Danube to the frontiers of China; and where mankind, multiply- hug with the herbage which grew beneath their feet and the herds which in- creased around them, biund every possible facility for the rapid extension of their numbers in the shepherd State. At the foot of the same mountains, to the South, lay extended the noble plain of alesepotamia, with a natural irriga- tion unparallelnd in the world, furnishing the means of ample subsistence under

the prolific sun of Asia ; and teeming with a luxuriance of natural riches

which in every age has excited the astonishment of mankind, and %Odell all the labour of subsequent ages has been unable to exhaust. Ilad either been

awanting, the species must have perished in its cradle: had the plain of Shiner

not offered to his hand unhou»ded natural riches, the cities of the plain could never have arisen ; had the wilds of Tartary been as sterile as the rocks of I Arabia, or as thickly wooded as the American forests, the shepherds of the could DeVer have formed the fathers of mankind, But the boundless riches of the Babylonian fields gave birth even in the first ages to those stu- pendous cities, from whence the enterprise of commerce dispersed the human race in eviiry direction through Central Asia; while the uniform pasturage of the Scythian wilds spread before them a vast highway stored with food, by means of which they could penetrate with case to the remotest extremities of the old world; and where those countless swarms of inen have sprung from the unlaboured bounty of Nature, who in every age have exercised so great an in- fluence on the fortunes of mankind."

Thus far the view of Mr. Armors is congruous and distinct. His next stage is equally based upon fret, but the reason of it is not so obvious to human perceptions. Whether by an uncontrollable ne- cessity, or for a reason whose object we cannot discern, it appears that great prosperity' leads to great corruption ; and this corruption is more rapid and more thorough in a people newly advanced from a primitive state, than amongst nations of at mixed pedigree, of va- rious gradations of society, and fbrmed by a long course of time. In the earlier stages of floriculture on the teeming soil of the East, the rapid increase of mankind was necessary to develop the full riches of time land ; but had the society this richness called into existence continued without change; it would have exhibited no- thing but a crowded and cowardly country of tyrants and slaves, in whom sensuality was the object and end of life. The. corrective was at hand in the principle of population ; which, impelling the Tartar herdsmen to increase their numbers till they became too numerous for the pasturage, drove them in various ages upon the weak and effeminate inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Gaul, and Spain ; the physical formation of the former countries at least contributing to this means of improving the race by crossing the breed.

"The physical conformation of the globe is singularly adapted to facilitate this incessant regeneration of mankind. The human species might have been placed in situations where no such revolutions could affect it. Impassable mountains or arms of the ocean might have separated the rude from the civi- lized inhabitants of the world ; the empires of the East might have been se- cured by their situation from hostile invasion ; and human wickedness might have continued undisturbed in the places where its career first commenced. If the forests of Burmak or America had stretched along the North of the East- ern world, the inhabitants of Scythia would have been chained to the hunter life ; and the citizens of the Roman or Persian monarchies, how effeminate so- ever, might have beheld with contempt a few naked savages ememing from tk woods on their frontier. The corruption incident to early civilization would then have been without a remedy, and the channels of human felicity choked by the magnitude of early population. It was the vast and open plains of Tartary and Arabia, lying in the immediate vicinity of the spot where it was first cradled, which, in the infancy of the species, led to the pastoral life, and made the tents of the desert coeval with the cities of the plain on the first dis- persion of mankind. While the wanderinglife of shepherds spread the race of -man far and wide over the globe in the first ages of the world, the rapid multi- plication of the species in the pastoral state prepared, in later times, those pc- siodical and dreadful irruptions which were destined to punish and regenerate the stationary part of mankind. The same wilds which first served as a high- way to the dispersion, afterwards became the channel which led to the rep- neration of the species. When the vices of the South called fur the infusion -of barbarian valour, it was not a few scattered savages who answered the sum- mons, but Timour at the head of the Tartar horse, or Gcnghiskhun with the hordes of Scythian cavalry."

These irruptions, however, arc terrible only when they are ne- cessary. A civilized nation, which retains its courage and its mili- tary discipline, can bid defiance to the barbarians : the common arts, when favoured by circumstances, and a modicum of prudence, may be a sufficient protection. Timout, in the words of GinnoN, " touched the utmost verge of the land; but an insuperable though narrow sea rolled between the two continents of Europe and Asia ; and the lord of so many tomcats, or myriads of horse, was not master of a single galley." "'The Cimbri," says Mr. ALISoN, 4' whom Marius destroyed on the plains of Lombardy, and the Helvetii, whom Ceesar vanquished in the defiles of the Jura, were not less formidable than the armies which, under Marie and Totila, overthrew the Empire." The fact is true and consolatory ; but, seeing that if the invaders limit they are themselves annihilated, and if they succeed the destruction of life amongst. the invaded is tremendous, we think that Alr. MAranus himself could scarcely have desired a better argument in favour of the truth of his proposition—that so strong is the tendency of popu- lation to advance before the means of subsistence, that wars, cala- mitous as they are, are a necessary evil, to prevent the still greater .evil of a superabundant and wretched population. How effectually they work to this purpose, let Mr. ALIs0N himself tell.

DESTRUCTION or rarE IN ANCIENT WADS.

Accustomed as we are to the effects of war in civilized times, when the most bloody contests are followed by au increase in the numbers of the people, it is difficult to form a conception of the desolation which it produces in barbarous ages, when the void produced by the sword is not supplied by the impulse of subsequent tranquillity. A few filets hill show its prodigious influence in former ages. It is ascertained by au exact computation, that when the three great capitals of Khorassan were destroyed by Tiniour, 4,347,000 persons were put to the sword. At the sometime, seven hundred thousand people were slain in the city of 3Ionsul, which had risen in the neighbourhood of the ancient Nineveh; and the desolation produced a century and a half before by the sack of Genghisklum, had been at least as greats Such were the ravages of this mighty conqueror, aud his Mogul followers, in the country between the Caspian and the Indus, that they almost exterminated the inhabitants ; oust five sub- sequent centuries have been unable to repair the ravages of four years. An army of 500,000 Moguls, under the sons of Ginghis, so completely laid waste the provinces to the north of the Danube, that they have never since regained their former numbers ; and in the hotline consequent upon the irruption of the same barbarians into the Chinese empire, thirteen millions are computed to have perished. During the great invasion of Titoism., twelve of the most flourishing cities of Asia, including Delhi, Ispahan, llsghol, and Damascus, were utterly destroyed ; and pyramids of human heads, one of which contained 90,000 skulls, erected on their ruins.

Nor was another of the instruments of MALTIMS—pestilence- quiescent.

" During thirty-two years of the reign of Justinian, the barbarians annually made tm incursion into the Grecian empire, and they curried off or destroyed at an average on each occasion 200,000 persons. Nor was the depopulation of the Southern and Western provinces less during the same disastrous period. In the wars of Belisarius in Africa, five millions of its inhabitants ate computed by a contemporary writer to have perished; and during the contests between that illustrious warrior and his successor Nurses, and the barbarian armies in Italy, the ?Auk Gothic notion, and neowlyAfteen millions of the natives of Italy, disappeared. The plague which followed these sanguinary contests carried off still greater numbers than the sword ; and during the fifty-two years that it desolated the Roman empire, it is said to have destroyed a hundred millions of inhabitants."

We will not pursue Mr. AmsoN's views into the counteracting causes which operate to check population in civilized life ; because the subject is more minute and complicated, possesses less attrac- tion for general readers, and is proper to be examined in the volumes themselves by those who take an interest in the question. Before quitting the work, however, we extract a few of its passages which bear upon the larger views of the author. Here is an eloquent argument in opposition to MAtmaus, that misgovernment and bad institutions cause very many of the evils which afflict mankind.

TILE TEST OF NATURAL AND INSTITUTIONAL EVILS.

The true test of misery, arising from the laws of Providence, is when it exists equally in all circumstances. Thus the uncertainty of life, the anguish arising from the loss of friends, the vicissitudes of fortune, or the pains of sickness, may fairly lie ascribed to the laws of our being, because they remain unchanged in all ages of the world. For the sante reason, the existence of a certain degree of guilt in the ioaiviaual, and of a certain portion of suffering in the cominu- nay, can be imputed only to the operation of these causes. But where misery is tumid 'unusually tlynsed, and exists in a very great degree in some situations, and comparatheiy to a small extent in others, it is wholly unreasonable to ascribe it to the principle of Nature. We pardon certain indiscretions in the individual, and consider theta as owing to the common frailty of our nature; but when either vice or virtue rises to a very high degree, we cease to speak of the laws of humanity, and consider the individual us either responsible or bunted le for such deviations from its ordinary standard. It; therefore, the suffering in the political worldis permanent and universal— if forms of government have no influence upon it, and the progress of society leaves it unchanged—the only conclusion is, that it arises from some cause beyond the reach of human control, and that fur some inscrutable cause it forms part of the destiny of man in this world. But if; on the other hand, the distress of mankind is in the highest degree variable and uncertain—if it prevails to a most distressing extent itt some situ- ations, and in others is comparatively unknown—if it is found to be dependent on the form of government, time prevailing institutions, the religious instruction and virtuous habits of the people—then the fair conclusion is, that it arises, in part at least, from causes within the reach of control ; and that, although it can never be wholly removed, it may to a very great extent be alleviated by human means.

And upon this question issue is joined with those who maintain that "the misery produced by government is slight and superficial compared with those deep-rooted seeds of evil which have their origiu in the principles of human nature." (Mulihus, 2d edit.)

DEFENCE 01 THE l'OOR.

" When the poor man," it has been said, " yields to the impulse of nature, and contracts an imprudent marriage, he blames, at a later period of life, the unjust institutions of man which have involved his family in want and wretch. edness; he laments the unequal distribution of property and earthly blessings and perhaps charges the Author of his mauve with the origin of his sufferings, Ile never considers that lie hue himself, awl not his government litsiiii.ndheisd,Gtitlbe, to blame for the harden with which he is oppressed." (Mitithils l'opulation' 2d edit.) If time preceding observations are in one degree well- complaints of the poor man are often better foundeif than have been generally imagined. Granting that the immediate causes of the (link tittles which ha experiences inny be the imprudent marriage in which he is involved, the ques- tion remains, what %vas the ultimate, or, as physicians would say, the predis- posing cause? What induced him to contract this imprudent marriage, when there tens no detnand for an increasing population and no outlet for additional numbers ? It is no answer to this to say it was his own passions ; for if these passions had had fair play, they might possibly have been counteracted and controlled by other desires, equally provided by the Author of Nature, and specially adapted for the circumstances in which he is placed. Instead of a thoughtless peasant, haviug nothing to lose, awake only to the impulse of his desires, and totally regardless or the future hi all his actions, he might have been a frugal labourer, accustomed to habits of romfort, having it rank in society to implant, and increasing artificial wants to gratify. It is in reality, therefore, the institutions under whirl he lives s !deli are often to bionic, be, cause, but for some oppression to which lie or Lis country has been subjected, lie would probably litre acquired the habit of self-command, and been led, in following his own inclinations, to have acted in a way continuable to his own and the public wellitre. If a parent deprives leis child of the advantages of religion or talticat hot. he has no right to impeach either the Author of Nature for the principles which he has implanted, or his child for the weakness of degeneracy which lie exhibits. let him blame himself for the vicious habits which he has encouraged; and the fittai ascendansy of the passions which they have occasioned.

It is a most remarkable fact, totally at variance with what might ti priori be expected, but confirmed by time universal experience of mankind, that the dominion of reason over the passitAis, the 1)31),.t of foresi,glit, and the power of forming a system:0hc plan for the eundo..t of lire, are just in proportion In tie degree in tchich time drIngtv. inwityli.ite wont or lime pressure of actual suffering hare been remoreil fr.on norni;imul. The savage who has no sleek whatever for his support—who is in danger of immediate starvation if his wonted supplies from the chase or his herds were to titil—is totally regardless of flue future in every part of the world; while the rich 1.1:11I, whose 6:1b31:itellee and :111111CliCe are almost beyond the reach of chance, incessantly disquieted about the manner in which leis subseo;mnt life is to bo spont. The tyrtain prospect of instant death to himself and nil that are tle.tr to him, from the 'see:lir:nee of a very probable eves t, is unable to draw the attention of the one front the en- joyments of the motneut ; while tole sligh. and improbable chance of a diminu- tion in the smallest articles of fo'nrs r,mlas time other iamlifferent to the means of snswest enjoyinsst wbielt arc st ifititt his reach.

III:SEMIILANcr. or LORDS AND SAVAGES.

There is often, in fact, no material dilference between the enjoyments oldie highest rooks and those of the rudest stages of society. If the life of many yoking English noblemen antl an fro pedse in the forest or an .tr.tb in the desert are compared, it will he fini lid that their re d sources of happiness are nearly the same. The tremotres of science, the refinements of taste, the luxu- ries of wealth, are ill Malty CaSt`f, (11SITgarl,i1 Or forgotten, and the real excita- tion of life depends open the disqrtietios of wild animals or the management of impetuous steeds. This is a tact which is :natter of daily observation ; audit fund-dies it most instructive lesson as to proportion established by Nature between the ;ten ive and tile speculative part oi mankind. The great majority in every class of society are incapable of receiving happiness from any other source hitt physical excitation : and every plan human improvement which

is founded um ally other sup:fit:Ott...1 necessarily :ail. Nor is it without

good reas.o. that Nature has established this disproportion between the studious and the act:. e part of ;its sjoe:•.:. The great mass of undertalsing.s esecidial to the exist.. tee and the weiliti olerml on physical exertien ; end. unless the greatle• pint our fellow •creatnres were disposed to flea species of labour, and gratified with the enjoyments that attend it, the race would speedily perish, and the speculations of science disappear with the individuals who formed thelll.

EQUALITY or nApetNr.ss

Nor is it to be imagined that the happiness of the individuals who are sub- jected to despotic government is IleCeSSarily sacrificed during the ellort of Nature to throw MT the load which oppresses it. The same improvidence and disregard ot' the col ure, which is the immediate cause of the growth of a re- dundant population, ;Ilford sources of enjoyment to the individual unknown in civilized life, aml no: tees the stroke of suffering to a degree whirl; (.1111 hardly be coneci% ed in more pre-psseus states. It is by scpposing the subjects of such govttnenebts at huded w ith cur dorsire:, mid habits, that their condi- tion appears s.i mohappy. We fa•got thet Nature has accommodated the human mind to all the circumstances in which niatikind can be p'need, under the varied physical and polities! eiremestanecs of the species, and that instincts and gratifications to us unknown meals:melte to them for the want of those enjoyments witielt to us appear iasii•to ti:able. The country of' Enrols. where distress appears in its more tos•gravated form is Ireland ; and Pt ;sift is the dynasty or ac where desolation and misrule laves longest metalled: yet every person who hes visited the former sanitary lets observed the uniform cheerfulness anti j..■ ow: habits of the peasantry ; a very competent observer lass expressed a l'anolot vol.:tiler the people ef Persia do not enjoy life as much es in the more civilized and lobo; loos stales of Europe; and the std.! author, who has denmnsl.stted that it is in time purity of domestic life and simplicity of manners in the Last that the rm-al antidote to the whole political evils to which they have so long beet] subjected is to be found, has confidently asserted the opinion, that the average amount of human happiness and virtue is not less rut the East than the West. The French peasantry danced with sung in the mast of the political evils which led to the Revolution ; and even under the horrors of West Indian slavery, the evening assemblies of the Negroes present a spe- cimen of temporary felicity rarely witnessed amidst the freedom or luxury of their oppressors. The freedom front anxiety, the sweetness of momentary gra- tification, the relaxation from labour which result from the prevalence of habits of improvidence, frequently compensate to the individual fbr the dear-bought comforts of prosperous life, while suffering loses half its bitterness by never being foreseen, and misfortune half its severity by being speedily forgot. " In

peace of mind and case of body," says Mr. Smith, " all ranks of men are nearly upon a level; and the beggar who suns himself by the highway possesses the security that kings are fighting for."

The perusal of Mr. ALISON'S volumes will tend strongly to im-

press upon the mind of the reader the all-pervading influence of the law of consequences, and that poetical justice is not merely a critical canon, but a stern and ever-living truth. We do not of course mean that good and evil will be punished other than by their own laws. The virtuous man cannot by his virtue resist an invasion, or escape from an earthquake; nor will vicious courses be punished by such means. "When the loose mountain trembles from on ]sigh, Shall gravitation cease if you go by Or some old temple, nodding to it s For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall:" But if we could trace in real life, the whole of any character, or any course of conduct, as the poet can display it in the dranin, we should be startled to wonder at witnessing the manner in which the indulgence of evil dispositions and the perpetration of evil deeds recoil at length upon their author, unless death prematurely cuts short his career. It is the same with nations, which sooner or later pay the penalty of national wrong. And the law of con- sequences is now operating upon England for her injustice to Ire-

land. It is the opinion of Mr. ALISON, that the prudential habits

of the people of Great Britain have retained our own population within the 4letuand for labour. The suffering which is felt amongst the poorer classes, is owing to the immigration of Irish hordes, which undersell them in the market of labour, and disorder and demoralize the neighbourhoods where they take up their abodes. Yet, the political institutions of Great Britain being of a safer and better kind than those of ninny other countries, the disease de- velops itself in time, and a cure is possible if we only attend to the troublesome but warning symptoms.

" The political or imagivary grievances of Ireland might have been long enough disregarded by the English ; but when she thund...red iu ICe

name of seven millions, they moild no longer overbooked : her real grievances Had for centuries overspread her own plains tt ith unheeded. lint when they filled the English parishes with paupers and the English cities with

destitution, the magnitude of the evil attracted univerval attention to the means of its removal. Five centuries have elal.:1,1.4ince the EtTli,h standard was first planted in Ireland, and English enpiiiity laid in II:c cid& seation of its

landed property the deep foundat IOU toe 5.ta,ring to the one country and re- tribution to the other ; and the mortal hatred count by the CarIV 11,11 to the English power is still unappeased ; Iffiaid has flowed in our days from the effects

of this long resentment, and the empire is taw involviel in difficulties, chiefly

from the numbers, the tilrhillv1;(... and the ini.-ecy Of the children of this op- pressed me. Toward; nations, it not to individuals. Providence is truly a jealous God, and visits the sin, of the liitheis memo the children : in the con- sequences which naturally arise from Minstice is provided the pouidnuent which its wickedness desems; iii the vtleeis Which fh1l, cl'0111 its severity, the means

of ultimately destroying it. It is thus that, when t he errors in the political system are not great enough to thin the numbers of the people and is eaken the political power of the stale, thee occasiim that eimvulsion at Isom. which

ultimately leads to their removal. The mnisi tliereiMe, which is the imme- diate consequence of the redundant populatiiin which flows front political op- pression, is in tact the means which Nat lire takes to hasten the downfal of the institutions which hate occasioned it : like the swelling of it limb •which has been wounded or imbibed poisonous matter, it is the effort of Nature to dis- charge the noxious sub,tance which occasions the solferhez. The benevolent lairs of Nature are root ssantly operating for the geed of nein, even when their

tendency

must Mistaken by h11111:111 OhSerVerS. .tt the moment when the