Of Population

Book 3, Chapter 04 : Attempt towards a Rational Theory of the Checks on Population Continued
Godwin, William. Of Population. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1820. INQUIRY CONCERNING POPULATION BOOK III OF THE CAUSES BY WHICH THE AMOUNT OF THE NUMBERS Of MANKIND IS REDUCED OR RESTRAINED. CHAPTER IV ATTEMPT TOWABDS A RATIONAL THEOKY OP THE CHECKS ON POPULATION CONTINUED. THUS far I have been considering those checks on population, which operate with an outstretched power, and have in various instances turned great cities and flourishing countries into a desert. I proceed now to consider those regions, such as England, Germany and France, which for centuries past have not been subject to such violent convulsions. What we appear to have most reason to believe under this latter head, is, that these countries, like Sweden, have from time to time gone on for a certain period increasing their population in a steady and mod... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Book 3, Chapter 03 : Attempt towards a Rational Theory of the Checks on Population
Godwin, William. Of Population. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1820. INQUIRY CONCERNING POPULATION BOOK III OF THE CAUSES BY WHICH THE AMOUNT OF THE NUMBERS Of MANKIND IS REDUCED OR RESTRAINED. CHAPTER III ATTEMPT TOWARDS A RATIONAL THEORY OP THE CHECKS ON POPULATION. SCARCELY any thing can be imagined more likely to supply us with just views respecting the past history of population, and of consequence to suggest to us sound anticipations as to its future progress, than the comparing some tract of country and period of time in which its increase appears to have gone on with highest vigor and health on the one hand, with all that is known, as to its general aspect over the face of the earth, on the other. Mr. Malthus has had recourse to certain wild conjectures and gratuitous assertions respecting the United States of Nort... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Book 3, Chapter 02 : Of Deaths and the Rate of Human Mortality
Godwin, William. Of Population. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1820. INQUIRY CONCERNING POPULATION BOOK III OF THE CAUSES BY WHICH THE AMOUNT OF THE NUMBERS Of MANKIND IS REDUCED OR RESTRAINED. CHAPTER II Of deaths and the rate of human mortality. It is the glory of modern philosophy to have banished the doctrine of occult causes. Superstition and a blind deference to great names taught men that there were questions upon which we must not allow ourselves to enter with a free spirit of research. In science, as well as religion, we were told there was a sanctuary into which it would be profaneness for ordinary and unpriveleged men to intrude. The avroc eøn of the master, was the authority upon which we were directed to repose ourselves: and occult causes were assigned, a sort of sacred names that could not be defined, the ope... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Book 3, Chapter 01 : Futility of Mr. Malthus's Doctrine Respecting the Checks on Population
Godwin, William. Of Population. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1820. INQUIRY CONCERNING POPULATION BOOK III OF THE CAUSES BY WHICH THE AMOUNT OF THE NUMBERS Of MANKIND IS REDUCED OR RESTRAINED. CHAPTER I FUTILITY OF MR MALTHUS'S DOCTRINE RESPECTING THE CHECKS ON POPULATION. IN the preceding Book I have taken for the subject of my inquiry the possible progress of mankind under peculiarly favorable circumstances as to the increase of their numbers I have produced the example of Sweden as the most advantageous specimen of the kind that is contained in the records of history I have not contented myself with this but have proceeded in the endeavor to establish certain principles on the subject. From the example of Sweden, corroborated by views drawn from all other countries of Europe, in which any progress has been made in collecting Ta... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Book 2, Appendix : Tables Of The American Census
Godwin, William. Of Population. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1820. TABLES OF THE AMERICAN CENSUS That the reader may be fully possessed of all the documents which should enable him to form correct notions on the subject, I have thought proper to insert here the Three Tables of the American Census, as they appear in Pitkin's Statistical View of the United States. I should have been glad to have printed from the Tables published by the authority of the American government; but I have been able to procure only those for 1810. W. G. (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Observations on the Swedish Tables Continued
Godwin, William. Of Population. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1820. CHAPTER VI. OBSERVATIONS ON THE SWEDISH TABLES CONTINUED BUT there is another view of the subject, equally worthy of notice, and well calculated to throw light upon the topic before us. I have just stated that the annual number of marriages in any country, cannot, for any length of time, exceed the number of females annually arriving at a marriageable age. Now let us take this question in another way. Thought I have set out with considering the women capable of child-bearing as the soil or nidus in which the successive generations of mankind are reared, yet it is equally true, that husbands are necessary to the consummation of marriage, as t... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Principles Respecting the Increase or Decrease of the Numbers of Mankind
Godwin, William. Of Population. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1820. CHAPTER III. PRINCIPLES RESPECTING THE INCREASE OR DECREASE OF THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND. HAVING thus entered into an impartial review of Mr. Malthus's theory and the authorities upon which it is founded, I proceed to that which is most properly the object of my volume. The Essay on Population has left for me a clear stage in this respect: it has touched upon none of those topics from which a real knowledge of the subject is to be acquired. Its author from a very slight and unsatisfactory evidence has drawn the most absurd and extravagant consequences; and having done this, he closes the account, fully convinced that he has shewn in "the laws o... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Survey of the Creation from Natural History
Godwin, William. Of Population. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1820. CHAPTER II. SURVEY OF THE CREATION FROM NATURAL HISTORY. Previously to our entering directly on the subject before us, it will probably be found not wholly unworthy of attention to recollect, in how different a way the multiplication of the human species has ordinarily been regarded, by writers whose purpose it was to survey the various classes of existence that form the subject of natural history, and who were satisfied to discover "the wisdom of God in the works of creation," from the ideas expressed by Mr. Malthus. The following is the manner in which the subject is stated by Goldsmith, one of the latest of the number, in his History of t... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Views of Man and Society which Result from the Preceding Facts
Godwin, William. Of Population. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1820. CHAPTER XIII. VIEWS OF MAN AND SOCIETY WHICH RESULT FROM THE PRECEDING FACTS I turn now from the dreary speculations of Mr. Malthus, to the venerable recollection of what has been the creed of all ages and nations upon this interesting subject. Mr. Malthus's doctrine is directly calculated to bring our human nature into "hatred and contempt;" a crime I should think somewhat greater than that which Mr. Pitt made a law to counteract, "the bringing hatred and contempt upon the government of the united kingdom." One of his distinguishing positions is the necessity of warning men of the evil of marrying, except the few who, in the vicissitude of ... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Sparta
Godwin, William. Of Population. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1820. CHAPTER X. Sparta An accurate and instructive experiment on the subject of population appears to be afforded us by the institutions of Sparta. There is nothing more memorable in the history of mankind, than the code of laws digested by Lycurgus for that people; and this code seems to have operated in full vigor for five hundred years. Lycurgus, we are told, divided the entire lands of the republic into 39,000 equal portions; of which thirty thousand were distributed to the rural citizens of the state, and nine thousand to the inhabitants of the capital. One of the leading principles of his code was to regard marriage as a duty, and the havin... (From : Anarchy Archives.)