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2 AN INQUIRY INTO

CHAP. TI port a family; and of courfe, the population muft bear a {mall proportion to the extent of territory which they poflefs.

If, like the Tartars or Arabs of old*, a nation be wholly employed in pafturage, its population will be in proportion to its herds, or, which is in effect the fame, in proportion to the number of cattle, which the territory occupied by fuch nation is capable to fupport.

Under mild and fruitful climates, where mankind are part- y fupported by the fpontaneous produétions of the earth, and obtain their fubfftence with a fmall degree of labour, the population may be great, but the inhabitants will in general be feeble and enervated; unaccuftomed to mental, as well as to bodily exertions, they are without refources upon emergen- cies; their ftruggles in adverfity muft be weak; and a barren feafon will either banifh or cut off a tumber of them, propor- tioned to the decreafe of the ufual quautity of food.

In communities fuch as Holland, Venice, Genoa, Geneva, and other republics, the Hanfe, and other free towns, whofe induftry is great, but whofe territory is of fmall extent, the inhabitants muft barter their labour in the different arts, or in commerce, for the produétions of the lands of other na- tions: depending therefore, in a great meafure, upon foreign countries for fubfiftence, their profperity can advance by only flow degrees, and their population will be proportioned to the fupply procured by their manufactures and commerce.

In Great Britain, and other extenfñve countries under the

* Vide Genefñis, c. F3. ver. 2,$, O.; and C. 33. ver. 13.

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