But without knowing enough of the minute and intimate history
of these people, to point out precisely on what part the distress
for want of food chiefly fell, and to what extent it was
generally felt, I think we may fairly say, from all the accounts
that we have of nations of shepherds, that population invariably
increased among them whenever, by emigration or any other cause,
the means of subsistence were increased, and that a further
population was checked, and the actual population kept equal to
the means of subsistence, by misery and vice.

For, independently of any vicious customs that might have
prevailed amongst them with regard to women, which always operate
as checks to population, it must be acknowledged, I think, that
the commission of war is vice, and the effect of it misery, and
none can doubt the misery of want of food.



CHAPTER 4

State of civilized nations--Probability that Europe is much more
populous now than in the time of Julius Caesar--Best criterion
of population--Probable error of Hume in one the criterions that
he proposes as assisting in an estimate of population--Slow
increase of population at present in most of the states of Europe
--The two principal checks to population--The first, or
preventive check examined with regard to England.


In examining the next state of mankind with relation to the