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.)

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.)

South America
Godwin, William. Of Population. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1820. CHAPTER VIII. South America Of what I may denominate the ancient history of America, we know infinitely less, than of the history of China and of India. These latter countries still exist in a state very similar to their ancient state, and have been made the subject of investigation, the former to a succession of travelers, and the latter to a number of gentlemen for the last thirty or forty years, who have studied its ancient and esoteric language, and have devoted a considerable part of their lives to the investigation of the Hindu policy and literature. But the Spaniards in their invasion of America, were, I suppose, the most merciless de... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Numbers of Mankind in Ancient and Modern Times
Godwin, William. Of Population. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1820. CHAPTER V. Numbers of Mankind in Ancient and Modern Times Les hommes ne multiplient pas aussi aisément qu'oun le pense. Voltaire, Histoire Générale, CHAP. I. It is not a little singular, and is proper to be commemorated here, that a controversy existed in the early part of the last century, as to the comparative populousness of ancient nations, or the contrary. One of the leaders in this debate was the celebrated Montesquieu; and what he says on the subject is so much to the purpose, that I shall translate the passage. "To amuse in some part," says one of the correspondents in the Persian Letters to another, "the time of... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Principles Respecting the Increase or Decrease of the Numbers of Mankind Resumed
Godwin, William. Of Population. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1820. Chapter IX: PRINCIPLES RESPECTING THE INCREASE OR DECREASE OF THE NUMBERS OF MANKIND RESUMED. THERE is a further point highly worthy of attention in the subject now under consideration, and our investigation will be incomplete if that is not distinctly adverted to. We have found that, according to all Tables which have yet been formed upon the registers of births and marriages, the union of two persons of opposite sexes does not produce upon an average, in Europe at least, more than four births. But it may be objected that this rule applies to Europe only, and may have relation to some accidents or customs which belong peculiarly to this div... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Proofs of the Geometrical Ratio from the Phenomenon of a Pestilence
Godwin, William. Of Population. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1820. Chapter XI: PROOFS OF THE GEOMETRICAL RATIO FROM THE PHENOMENON OF A PESTILENCE ONE frequent source of the mistakes that have been made on the subject of population, has been derived from the consideration of a pestilence. It has been said, that, when a nation has been laid waste by this great scourge of mankind, the loss is speedily made up, the lands are again cultivated, the peoples repeopled, and the country grows as flourishing as ever. The received idea is, that, if you happened not to be a spectator of the distress while it lasted, and if you returned to the country that had been visited by such a calamity after an interval of ten yea... (From : Anarchy Archives.)