The average proportion of births to burials in any country for a period
of five to ten years, will hence appear to be a very inadequate
criterion by which to judge of its real progress in population. This
proportion certainly shews the rate of increase during those five or
ten years; but we can by no means thence infer what had been the
increase for the twenty years before, or what would be the increase for
the twenty years after. Dr Price observes that Sweden, Norway, Russia,
and the kingdom of Naples, are increasing fast; but the extracts from
registers that he has given are not for periods of sufficient extent to
establish the fact. It is highly probable, however, that Sweden,
Norway, and Russia, are really increasing their population, though not
at the rate that the proportion of births to burials for the short
periods that Dr Price takes would seem to shew. (See Dr Price's
Observations, Vol. ii, postscript to the controversy on the population
of England and Wales.) For five years, ending in 1777, the proportion
of births to burials in the kingdom of Naples was 144 to 100, but there
is reason to suppose that this proportion would indicate an increase
much greater than would be really found to have taken place in that
kingdom during a period of a hundred years.

Dr Short compared the registers of many villages and market towns in
England for two periods; the first, from Queen Elizabeth to the middle
of the last century, and the second, from different years at the end of
the last century to the middle of the present. And from a comparison of
these extracts, it appears that in the former period the births
exceeded the burials in the proportion of 124 to 100, but in the
latter, only in the proportion of 111 to 100. Dr Price thinks that the
registers in the former period are not to be depended upon, but,
probably, in this instance they do not give incorrect proportions. At
least there are many reasons for expecting to find a greater excess of
births above the burials in the former period than in the latter. In
the natural progress of the population of any country, more good land
will, caeteris paribus, be taken into cultivation in the earlier stages
of it than in the later. (I say 'caeteris paribus', because the
increase of the produce of any country will always very greatly depend
on the spirit of industry that prevails, and the way in which it is
directed. The knowledge and habits of the people, and other temporary