A Comparative View of the Mortality of the Human Species, at All Ages. Black William
and plains; but in no part of the earth’s circumference do those stately monuments of nature’s workmanship ascend to five miles perpendicular elevation.
The Creator has bountifully stored the earth and the ocean with animals and vegetables. Our attention is here circumscribed to the most exalted class, the Human Species; leaving to the naturalist a description of quadrupeds, birds, fishes, insects, and vegetables. By far the largest proportion of the human species are stationed to the north side of the equator, and even to the north of the tropick of cancer. The populous continents of Europe and Asia, comprehending most of the powerful kingdoms in our planet, are in the northern hemisphere. Within the tropical circles and furnace of the earth, are stationed the next considerable hive of mankind. To the south of Capricorn there are few inhabitants. Some wretched human beings are also scattered through those dreary wastes of ice and snow within the northern polar circles.
Calculators differ enormously respecting the number of the Human Species. Some sink the collected herd so low as three hundred million, whilst others exaggerate them to treble and quadruple that amount. It forms no part of my scheme to investigate the comparative population of the earth, one, two, and three thousand years ago. Europe, in all probability, since the era of Roman grandeur, has, together with advancement in civilization, likewise added to the number of its inhabitants. Those parental nurseries of the arts and sciences in Asia and Africa, have no doubt undergone various revolutions in population. If we were to draw any inferences from the numerous Asiatic armies, during the successive despotism of Assyrian, Babylonian, Medean, and Persian monarchies, we should conclude that, in remote ages, the south of Asia abounded in men. The extensive empire of China, at this day, resembles an industrious beehive, and is gorged with mankind. We have still more aversion to plunge into the mysterious archives of Africa, and with critical affectation to pronounce upon the population of that quarter before the decay of its political, commercial, and literary fame with Thebes, Carthage, and Alexandria. That modern-discovered transatlantic continent, from the cruelties and desolation of its first conquerors, and of a loathsome infectious disease exchanged for another, has probably suffered considerable diminution of its original feeble hive, notwithstanding the recruit from Europe; and in the scale of population, as yet ascends to a very subordinate rank amongst the other continents. The most probable calculations estimate the whole human race at eight hundred million: of which number, Europe boasts of little more than one hundred million. The great swarm is in Asia; amounting to between four and five hundred million. Africa is supposed to contain one third or fourth of the latter number. Over the fertile wilderness of America are scattered not altogether twenty million.
But if in London alone, where registers of various kinds may be consulted, calculators are, notwithstanding, at variance respecting its population upwards of one hundred thousand, and in the whole island more than a million; it may be reasonably suspected, that in forming a gross estimate of the aggregate terrestrial inhabitants, we may err perhaps, one, two, or even three hundred million. As well might we expect a correct list of the lions, crocodiles, and monkies of Africa, as of the outcast human race in those burning and illiterate regions. To determine the exact amount of inhabitants in any civilized kingdom, the most certain method would be, to make an universal and arithmetical numeration throughout every dwelling. This is often done in several kingdoms; and in none more culpably neglected than in this island. English calculators, therefore, have been under the necessity, by other laborious processes, to form at least plausible conjectures of the national population. One of their methods is, by collecting the number of houses, and allotting five, or four and a half inhabitants to each house; which, at a general medium, was found near the standard of truth, in a multitude of large towns and open districts in England, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy; as may be seen recorded in the writings of Short, Susmilch, Price, and many others. In some particular cities, however, such as Berlin, Vienna, Paris, and Edinburgh, where several families are crowded into one house, this rule would lead into error. Besides, in ours, and many other large kingdoms, we are not yet supplied with an authentick register of all the dwellings. And in Asia and Africa, whose political institutions and customs are so different from us, this scale of mensuration may be still more erroneous. Another method, but still more complex and uncertain, of computing the population is, by the annual christenings and burials. When these are equal, and consequently there is no increase or decrease of the inhabitants, we are directed to multiply the usual prospect or decrement of life, or in the mathematical phrase, the expectation of an infant at birth in that city, town, or district, by the general medium of christenings; which will be the total local amount of the inhabitants. But as the christenings and burials are rarely equal, or a correct list of either can be ascertained from the imperfect registers, this process is very defective.
The Multiplication of the human species depends greatly on society. There are more inhabitants concentrated into one large metropolis of Asia or Europe, than could be collected in many thousand miles of the North-American wilderness on its first discovery. The population of the earth is by no means regulated by the extent of country. If, on the one hand, high refinement and large cities are obstacles to population, a wild state of nature is still more detrimental. A few tribes of North American natives, prowling like hungry wolves, can scarce find precarious subsistence in a wide extent of uncultivated desarts. Their infants, from necessity, are suckled several years; and after rearing two or three, the period of propagation is nearly over. A medium state between the vicious extremes of refinement and rude savageness; or the middle stages between the iron and golden ages of the ancient philosophers, is most favourable to the increase of our species. But the causes conducive to population and depopulation, are of infinite compass; and are of a compound nature, medical and political. They are connected with the state of government, religion, climate, genius, industry, riches, poverty, taxes, luxury, refinement, wars, colonization, emigration, commerce, agriculture, the unequal distribution and monopoly of property and farms, the plenty, scarcity, and cheapness of food; and, with many other causes, closely allied to our future medicinal investigation. Under governments and nurture, directed with political and moral, together with medical prudence and circumspection, the earth and ocean would probably afford ample nutriment, and their population might be multiplied to three times eight hundred million.
Extending our views over the surface of the globe, we perceive striking distinctions between the human species; not only in the four great continents, but also in different parts of the same continent. These differences are principally manifest in the colour of the skin; in the complexion, countenance, physiognomy, hair, form, and stature. We attend here merely to corporeal distinction, without including the intellectual. These great Classes of mankind may be divided into the Laplander, the Tartar, the Chinese, the European, the African-negro, and the native American. The modern-discovered inhabitants in the islands of the Pacific ocean, seem to have no remarkable cast of countenance or figure to sever them into a separate class. But throughout a considerable extent of the globe, from conquest, emigration, colonization, and commercial intercourse, many nations are now blended and assimilated into one; and their elementary characteristic features more faintly imprinted. Besides, every one’s experience and observation will instruct him, that in populous kingdoms those classes branch out into innumerable intermixtures, orders, and genera; and that the species and varieties are as numerous as the individuals of the human race. Amongst the ab-origines, and stationary inhabitants of most kingdoms, there are indeed some prominent features peculiar to each community; which are, in some degree, conspicuous in the corporeal, and still more in the mental outlines. Mankind, exclusive of their original mould, as issued from the mint of the Creator, are afterwards diversified by climate, soil, diet, government, religion, association, occupation, and habit.
By Civilization, mankind are arranged and connected into an infinite series of descending and dependent links. In a state of nature there are few gradations in society; few professions or mechanical arts. Mr. Voltaire makes two great divisions of mankind; the oppressors, and the oppressed. Descending the mole-hill and ladder from the throne to the cottage, we may trace a multitude of gradations in the scale of polished communities. We descend thro’ nobility and gentry of independent fortunes, in lands or money; through literary professions, including divinity, medicine, law, and various other branches of active or speculative science: all of which united, constitute, even in the most opulent nations, but a small portion