第17章

There must be some strong inherent vice in any community, where the certain prospect of plentiful subsistence does not produce an abundant population.It can only be, also, from the effects of some great inherent vice, that, in any community, a very profitable investment for capital can be held out, and yet capital not accumulate with rapidity.Where there is no sufficient prospect of subsistence, people may be restrained from marriage by the dread of their families suffering want.Where there is no sufficient prospect of profit, people may be withheld from accumulating capital, because they may see no sufficiently profitable adventure open to them that they would not fear to embark in.But the fact is, that people, rather than live single, are inclined to marry at all risks, and hence population is kept down by misery, and premature death; and they are also, rather than do nothing, enclined to embark in adventures where the chances are against their success; hence the vast numbers of unsuccessful projects that in most communities are continually dissipating previous accumulations of capital.To form a right judgment of the power of any community, under the most favorable circumstances, of increasing its population, we must consider the additional marriages which would take place, and the greater numbers that would be reared to maturity from such as do take place, if plentiful subsistence were provided.In like manner, to form a right judgment of the powers of any community, under the most favorable circumstances, to increase its capital, we must consider, that, if abundance of secure and profitable investments for capital were presented, its members would be more eager to possess additional capital, and, therefore, would be more prompted to accumulate it; and the capital they possessed would be more productive, and would not be subject to be risked and lost in imprudent speculations.

From the inconsiderable rudiments of population and capital, which Great Britain furnished to North America, is to be traced the great amount of both, of which that flourishing division of the globe at present boasts.

The former has increased so greatly, because plentiful subsistence has been afforded it: the latter, because profitable and secure investments have been presented to it.Had it been possible to have afforded, and had the same abundant subsistence been afforded, to the population, and the same profitable and secure investments to the capital remaining within the kingdom, they would have both augmented, we have every reason to believe, in a ratio equal to that at which the fragments of both that went to North America have augmented.It certainly was not the voyage across the Atlantic, but the rich soil on which they fell on the other side of it, that excited them to so luxuriant a growth.

This great productive power of both the population and capital of a country, when room is afforded them to shoot, seems so easily to fill up any gap which is made in the national members or stock, that a calculation founded on the assumption, that any loss in either which a nation may sustain, necessarily occasions a its funds must evidently proportionably permanent diminution of be inconclusive.It is very doubtful if the population of London or England would have been greater than it is at present, had there been no plague.It is very doubtful also if the capital of London or of England would have been greater than it is at present, had there been no great fire.The additional demand for labor and capital, which these disasters created, may very well be supposed soon to have brought both up to the amount they had previously attained.

In all instances of such, or even far greater calamities, destroying a part of the population or capital of a country, while the principles and elements, through and from which they sprang, are not consumed along with them, we see them quickly reproduced.When, for example, the great destroyer War holds his course through a country, and clearing wide his path with fire and sword, leaves property and life a wreck behind him, we see not that the traces of his wrath are long perpetuated; in the midst of the ruins of what were, lie the germs of what are to be, and seizing on the elements of existence that lie waste around, they expand with a vigor proportioned to the magnitude of the void that has been made for them, and speedily replenish it.Like the track of the whirlwind through the forest, the present desolation is quickly covered up and obliterated by the freshness of the new growth, to which that very desolation gives light, and air, and the means of existence.We should think the calculation rather fanciful, which, estimating the trees overborne by the blast for centuries, and reckoning the increase that might have possibly come from each of them, should bring out as a correct result, that all this would have been a clear addition to the vegetable life of the forest; and that so much greater it must have been to-day, had not these disasters had place.

Calculations proceeding on the assumption of the indefinite increase of population or capital, without showing also that there will be room for them, are but little more logical.

Before population can advance, there must be something on which it can subsist; before capital can increase, there must be something in which it may be embodied.Produce subsistence, and, if vice prevent it not, population will follow; show that if capital did exist, it would produce great profits, and, if vice prevent it not, capital will be accumulated.But, until there be some means of subsisting the population, and employing the capital, they can never, by simply urging on their production, be rationally.expected to be much augmented.