rmable to a southern
climate. Far be it from my intention however to put these passions on a
level; I only mean to show that the president's reasoning proves too
much. It must further be considered that the genial warmth which expands
the desires of the men, and prompts a more unlimited exertion of their
faculties, does not inspire their constitutions with proportionate
vigour; but on the contrary renders them in this respect inferior to the
inhabitants of the temperate zone; whilst it equally influences the
desires of the opposite sex without being found to diminish from their
capacity of enjoyment. From which I would draw this conclusion, that if
nature intended that one woman only should be the companion of one man,
in the colder regions of the earth it appears also intended a fortiori
that the same law should be observed in the hotter; inferring nature's
design, not from the desires, but from the abilities with which she has
endowed mankind.

Montesquieu has further suggested that the inequality in the comparative
numbers of each sex born in Asia, which is represented to be greatly
superior on the female side, may have a relation to the law that allows
polygamy. But there is strong reason to deny the reality of this supposed
excess. The Japanese account, taken from Kaempfer, which makes them to be
in the proportion of twenty-two to eighteen, is very inconclusive, as the
numbering of the inhabitants of a great city can furnish no proper test;
and the account of births at Bantam, which states the number of girls to
be ten to one boy, is not only manifestly absurd, but positively false. I
can take upon me to assert that the proportion of the sexes throughout
Sumatra does not sensibly differ from that ascertained in Europe; nor
could I ever learn from the inhabitants of the many eastern islands whom
I have conversed with that they were conscious of any disproportion in
this respect.

CONNEXION BETWEEN POLYGAMY AND PURCHASE OF WIVES.

But from whatever source we derive polygamy its prevalence seems to be
universally attended with the practice of giving a valuable consideration
for the woman, instead of receiving a dowry with her. This is a natural
consequence. Where each man endeavours to engross several, the demand for
the commodity, as a merchant would express it, is increased, and the
price of course enhanced. In Europe on the contrary, where the demand is
small; whether owing to the paucity of males from continual