Sketches of the History of Man. Lord Kames (Henry Home)
of trees, which afford them food as well as habitation; and, when the fruit is consumed in one spot, they remove to another. The orange, lemon, and other European trees, bear fruit twice a-year: a sprig planted bears fruit within the year. And this picture of Manila answers to numberless places in the torrid zone. The Marian or Ladrone islands are extremely populous, and yet the inhabitants live entirely on fish, fruits, and roots. The inhabitants of the new Philippine islands live on cocoa-nuts, salads, roots, and fish. The inland negroes make but one meal a-day, which is in the evening. Their diet is plain, consisting mostly of rice, fruits, and roots. The island of Otaheite is healthy, the people tall and well made; and by temperance, vegetables and fish being their chief nourishment, they live to<104> a good old age, almost without any ailment. There is no such thing known among them as rotten teeth: the very smell of wine or spirits is disagreeable; and they never deal in tobacco nor spiceries. In many places Indian corn is the chief nourishment, which every man plants for himself. The inhabitants of Biledulgerid and the desert of Zaara have but two meals a-day, one in the morning, and one in the evening. Being temperate, and strangers to diseases arising from luxury, they generally live to a great age. Sixty with them is the prime of life, as thirty is in Europe. An inhabitant of Madagascar will travel two or three days without any food but a sugar-cane. There is indeed little appetite for animal food in hot climates; though beef and fowl have in small quantities been introduced to the tables of the great, as articles of luxury. In America are observable some variations from the progress; but these are reserved for a separate sketch(a).
With respect to population, that plenty of food is its chief cause, may be illustrated by the following computation. The south-<105>ern provinces of China produce two crops of rice in a year, sometimes three; and an acre, well cultivated, gives food to ten persons. The peasants go almost naked; and the better sort wear but a single garment made of cotton, of which as much is produced upon an acre as may clothe four or five hundred. Hence the extreme populousness of China and other rice countries. The Cassave root, which serves the Americans for bread, is produced in such plenty, that an acre of it will feed more persons than six acres of wheat. It is not, then, for want of food that America is ill peopled. That Negroland is well peopled is past doubt, considering the great annual draughts from that country to America, without any apparent diminution of numbers. Instances are not extremely rare, of 200 children born to one man by his different wives. Food must be in great plenty, to enable a man to maintain so many children. It would require wonderful skill and labour to make Europe so populous: an acre and a half of wheat is barely sufficient to maintain a single family of peasants; and their clothing requires many acres more. A country<106> where the inhabitants live chiefly by hunting, must be very thin of inhabitants, as 10,000 acres, or double that number, are no more than sufficient for maintaining a single family. If the multiplication of animals depended chiefly on fecundity, wolves would be more numerous than sheep: a great proportion of the latter are deprived of the procreating power, and many more of them are killed than of the former: yet we see every where large flocks of sheep, seldom a wolf; for what reason, other than that the former have plenty of food, the latter very little? A wolf resembles a savage who lives by hunting, and consumes the game of five or six thousand acres.
Waving the question, Whether the human race be the offspring of one pair or of many, it appears the intention of Providence, that the earth should be peopled, and population be kept up by the ordinary means of procreation. By these means a tribe soon becomes too populous for the primitive state of hunting and fishing: it may even become too populous for the shepherd-state; but it cannot easily become too populous for husbandry. In the<107> two former states, food must decrease in quantity as consumers increase in number: but agriculture has the signal property of producing, by industry, food in proportion to the number of consumers. In fact, the greatest quantities of corn and of cattle are commonly produced in the most populous districts, where each family has its proportion of land. An ancient Roman, sober and industrious, made a shift to maintain his family on the produce of a few acres.*
The bounty given in Britain for exporting corn is friendly to population in two respects; first, because husbandry requires many hands; and, next, because the bounty lowers the price of corn at home. To give a bounty for exporting cattle would obstruct population; because pasture requires few hands, and exportation raises the price of cattle at home. From the single port of Cork, an. 1735, were ex-<108>ported 107,161 barrels of beef, 7379 barrels of pork, 13,461 casks of butter, and 85,727 firkins of the same commodity. Thus a large portion of Ireland is set apart for feeding other nations. What addition of strength would it not be to Britain, if that large quantity of food were consumed at home by useful manufacturers!
No manufacture contributes more to population than that of silk. It employs as many hands as wool; and it withdraws no land from tillage or pasture.2
Lapland is but thinly inhabited even for the shepherd-state, the country being capable of maintaining a greater number of rain-deer, and consequently a greater number of the human species than are found in it. Yet the Laplanders are well acquainted with private property: every family has tame rain-deer of their own, to the extent sometimes of four or five hundred: they indeed appear to have more rain-deer than there is a demand for. Why then is Lapland so thinly peopled? Either it must have been but lately planted, or the inhabitants are not prolific. I incline to the latter, upon the authority of Scheffer. Tartary is also but thinly<109> peopled; and as I find not that the Tartars are less prolific than their neighbours, it is probable that Tartary, being the most barren country in Asia, has not been early planted. At the same time, population has been much retarded by the restless and roaming spirit of that people: it is true, they have been forced into the shepherd-state by want of food; but so averse are they to the sedentary life of a shepherd, that they trust their cattle to slaves, and persevere in their favourite occupation of hunting. This disposition has been a dreadful pest to the human species, the Tartars having made more extensive conquests, and destroyed more men, than any other nation known in history: more cruel than tigers, they seemed to have no delight but in blood and massacre, without any regard either to sex or age.* Luckily for the human species, rich spoils dazzled their eyes, and roused an appetite for wealth. Avarice is sometimes productive of good: it moved these monsters<110> to sell the conquered people for slaves, which preserved the lives of millions. Conquests, however successful, cannot go on for ever; they are not accomplished without great loss of men; and the conquests of the Tartars depopulated their country.
But as some centuries have elapsed without any considerable eruption of that fiery people, their numbers must at present be considerable by the ordinary progress of population. Have we not reason to dread new eruptions, like what formerly happened? Our foreknowledge of future events extends not far; but in all appearance we have nothing to fear from that quarter. The Tartars subdued a great part of the world by ferocity and undaunted courage, supported by liberty and independence. They acknowledged Genhizkan as their leader in war, but were as far from being slaves, as the Franks were when they conquered Gaul. Tamerlane again enjoyed but a substituted power, and never had the boldness to assume the title of Chan or Emperor. But the Tartars have submitted to the same yoke of despotism that their ferocity imposed upon<111> others; and being now governed by a number of petty tyrants, their courage is broken by slavery, and they are no longer formidable to the rest of mankind.*
Depopulation enters into the present sketch as well as population. The latter follows not with greater certainty from equality of property, than the former from inequality. In every great state, where the people by prosperity and opulence are sunk into voluptuousness, we hear daily complaints of depopulation. Cookery depopulates like a pestilence; because, when it becomes an art, it brings within the compass of one stomach what is sufficient for ten in days of temperance; and is so far worse than a pestilence, that the people<112> never recruit again. The inhabitants of France devour at present more food than the same number did formerly. The like is observable in Britain, and in every country where luxury abounds. Remedies are proposed and put in practice, celibacy disgraced, marriage encouraged, and rewards given for a numerous offspring. All in vain! The only effectual remedies are to encourage husbandry, and to repress luxury. Olivares hoped to repeople Spain by encouraging matrimony. Abderam, a Mahometan king of Cordova, was a better politician. By encouraging industry, and procuring plenty of food, he repeopled his kingdom in less than thirty years.†
Luxury