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PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION.
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CHAP. III.
The savage or hunter state shortly reviewed.—The shepherd state, or the tribes of barbarians that overran the Roman Empire.—The superiority of the power of population to the means of subsistence.—the cause of the great tide of Northern Emigration.
In the rudest state of mankind, in which hunting is the principal occupation, and the only mode of acquiring food; the means of subsistence being scattered over a large extent of territory, the comparative population must necessarily be thin. It is said, that the passion between the sexes is less ardent among the North American Indians, than among any other race of men. Yet, notwithstanding this apathy, the effort towards population, even in this people, seems to be always greater than the means to support it. This appears, from
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