orrectly, perhaps it may be said that the number of
unmarried persons in proportion to the whole number, existing at
different periods, in the same or different states will enable us to
judge whether population at these periods was increasing, stationary,
or decreasing, but will form no criterion by which we can determine the
actual population.

There is, however, a circumstance taken notice of in most of the
accounts we have of China that it seems difficult to reconcile with
this reasoning. It is said that early marriages very generally prevail
through all the ranks of the Chinese. Yet Dr Adam Smith supposes that
population in China is stationary. These two circumstances appear to be
irreconcilable. It certainly seems very little probable that the
population of China is fast increasing. Every acre of land has been so
long in cultivation that we can hardly conceive there is any great
yearly addition to the average produce. The fact, perhaps, of the
universality of early marriages may not be sufficiently ascertained. If
it be supposed true, the only way of accounting for the difficulty,
with our present knowledge of the subject, appears to be that the
redundant population, necessarily occasioned by the prevalence of early
marriages, must be repressed by occasional famines, and by the custom
of exposing children, which, in times of distress, is probably more
frequent than is ever acknowledged to Europeans. Relative to this
barbarous practice, it is difficult to avoid remarking, that there
cannot be a stronger proof of the distresses that have been felt by
mankind for want of food, than the existence of a custom that thus
violates the most natural principle of the human heart. It appears to
have been very general among ancient nations, and certainly tended
rather to increase population.

In examining the principal states of modern Europe, we shall find that
though they have increased very considerably in population since they
were nations of shepherds, yet that at present their progress is but
slow, and instead of doubling their numbers every twenty-five years
they require three or four hundred years, or more, for that purpose.
Some, indeed, may be absolutely stationary, and others even retrograde.
The cause of this slow progress in population cannot be traced to a
decay of the passion between the sexes. We have sufficient reason to
think that this natural propensity exists still in undiminished vigour.
Why then do not i