The Sun.
London, England, 1840-08-18 00:00:00

EV ENING EDITION.

LITERATURE.

1 SEVILLE AND ITS VICINITY.
Black and Armstrong, London, 1840.
We carnet better describe the • nature of this
volume, than by the following extract from the
author's preface :—" The work now presented to
the pulilic contains an examination of almost all
the convents and public buildings which existed in
Seville during the last century, with their most re-
-1 markable contents in the present ; some notice
being taken of the troglodyte habitations of the
Alain. The miracles of Catholic images are re-
corded to show the gross superstition of the faith-
f
lul in former times." From this brief summary of
•
1 The contents of the volume before us, it must he
• evident to every one that it affords little or no
l scope for literary criticism ; artists and lovers of
1 architectural antiquities—such as Mr. Britton,
Whose enthusiasm exhibits itself in the expansive
t and expensive form of folios—may perhaps find
r some entertainment in the accounts of the principal
Public buildings, monastic and otherwise, of Seville;
and readers of a caustic turn of mind will doubtless
r be as much diverted with the author's details of
some of the Catholic miracles, as with Gibbon's
1 °lasted) sketch of the Homoousion and Honzooision,
Which agitated the schoohnen of Christendom for
a 10 many years ; e,r that perplexing question " How
r . many thousand rebels can dance on the point of a
needle, without jostling each other ?" which one of
the gravest theologians of the middle ages discussed
d with as much earnestness and subtlety, as if the sub-
e ject Were one of infinite religious moment : Readers
)1 B°ol as these, may possibly be amused with some
it portions of. Mr. Standish's work, which has at
1 ' least the merit of being tersely and unaffectedly
6 :wtitten ; but it will, we fear, be caviare to the
0
esnPralitv, even although the author, by way of
o.
it I,acling to the attractions of his volume, has consi-
ot merately prefixed his portrait to the tide-page.
0. ---

ALISON ON POPULATION.

SECOND AIRTICL.N.
If we venture again to beseech attention to Mr.
Alison and his book, it is from a conviction that
principles of
,population are of the utmost im-
I)°rtance. They lie at the foundation of all accu-
rate political science. In this we agree with Mr.
Alison, who says, " population is the great spring
°f human affairs—the moving power, which from
the earliest tunes has forced on the multiplication
the species, from which alike the progress, and
the happiness, and the sufferings of nations have
'taken their origin." If he had stuck to that view
a "rmighout, we should have found much more to
:Raise than to censure in in his work. But he has
;b. intgled discussions on the principles of popula-
-441 with an immense variety of extraneous matter,
4°,4 has forgotten them to debate on themes with
which, from being daily discussed in the newspapers,
he is more familiar.
In pointing out the importance of these prin.
'eiPles, it was not necessary for Mr. Alison to cast
stone at political economy. He does not under-
ttand it. The science of wealth is the science of
human
subsistence, and therefore also the science of
Population. The accumulation of much wealth in
the hands of individuals, as Mr. Alison has shown
:3f the accumulation of much land, is equally as in-
jurious to the progress of national wealth, as to
.the progress of population : and wealth being a
very measurable substance, it is better to treat
"t it than to treat of population, to whose welfare
it is an unfailing index. The remarks on the
science of wealth, with which Mr. Alison begins
his work, reflect more discredit on his ignorance
than on the science he seeks to depreciate.
• , We are much puzzled, after an attentive con-
aideration, to ascertain what is the main principle
of Mr. Alison's work. He begins with a chapter
" 011 the increase of mankind in the early times," and
3‘ q• uotes authorities to show that in the first stages of
society it is very slog'—that parents seldom rear more
than two children to maturay—that as man learns
ht,,w to tame cattle, or enters into the pastoral state,
• circumstances are more favourable to the multipli-
. cation of his numbers ;" that the employment of
agriculture is still more favourable to his increase ;
and then Mr. Alison proves in the next chapter,
4)
-that the labour of one man in agriculture is suffi-
cient to nourish more than himself ; from all which
''.4everal circumstances it is plain, and ought to be
plainto Mr. Alison, that the spring of population
'Zomes snore powerful as men advance in skill and
,00:vvirlitlge, and can by their labour produce more
S (4 their families.
• ishowij.ell) too, is, according to Mr. Alison's own
Ing, the fact. He takes our own country as
e ,
' example. In fifteen centuries from the date of
TMefirst history, he says, the numbers of the people
forree hardly tripled, while within the last half cm=
"41. "e population has been doubling itself in
3'-two years. He shows that a similar fact is
f
▪ the Scotland ; that the rapid increase of people
United States, who commenced the cultiva-
hi„,,,,,..°4 of their forests with all.the advantages and re-
741tees of r
civilized life, is unexampled in the his-
' ttbill of man, and is a strong contrast to his condi-
11°° in the ruder ages of the world. There is,
ictwever, a different series of observations, scattered
rough many parts and pages of Mr. Alison's
,„°,,,°k, to show that in the infancy of mankind the
rug of population is stronger than in its min-
i:o; that this is wisely ordained, to enable the
nl• an race to overcome the difficulties of their
...°ll, °ranee ; that in the progress of society there
tae checks which limit the principle of increase
m•
all these observations are directly contrary to the
advanced
he has established, that population has
"zinced more rapidly as society has grown older.
Such a contradiction in principle fills the book
with
Contradictions in detail. The theory dis-
covered is 1809, shun " the author bad just ter-
11:inated his philosophical studies," that " the power
Polyalation was greatest in the infancy of the
when it is evident, " that it was only in the
rapid increase of their numbers that the means of
Overcoming the numerous difficulties by which man
surrounded,"was contradicted by all the facts that
"" author afterwards learned ; but he wanted either
tagacity to see his error, or courage to renounce
tl_• The former is most likely, for it is impossible
(14 so wordy a writer as Mr. Alison should be a
Clear thinker. From this opposition he has filled
almost every page of his book with contradictory
remarks, derived from these two very opposite and
Contradictory principles.
th It is of great importance to discriminate between
these principles and theories, and to establish the
4,,• ante one. We adopt the facts which Mr. Alison
• d others have collected ; and, looking at the ac-
to 4 progress of population as far as history may
1)e relied on—taking our country for the example,
•and noticing that from the time when Julius Caesar
limided in Britain till the tenth century, the popu
tenth century it required 500 years to double ;
Sat the close of the seventeenth century, or in
0 years, it had doubled ; that in the eighteenth
teotury, according to the best writers, it doubled in
80 or 90 years ; and that in the nineteenth cen-
tury it has doubled in 40 years, or a little more—
. we conclude that the spring of population, mea-
-: lc in the
the actual increase of mankind, acquires
force the progress of society. If we extend our
• remarks from England to the United States and to
our own colonies, the doubling of the population
14 them in the half of 40 years fully confirms the
conclusion.
Mr. Alison's observation on the increase in
America is worth quoting :
1 4,'We are informed by M. Toqueville that the popu-
-4n of the basin of the Mississippi, the richest part
of
America, has increased thirty-fold in the last forty
tliTos, while during the same period the whole popula-
the Western
of the United States has tripled. The increase in
rapid that
provinces of America is probably the most
c!Pl.(1 that was ever known on the face of the globe.
It u for outstrips the utmost possible multiplication of
11, man beings from their own powers of increase, and
.11.0 mainly owing to the prodigious horde of immigrants
m the European States, and the old settled maritime
Provinces of America. Nevertheless, not only is there
n° deficiency of subsistence felt to provide for this cner-
. 1118 os increase of human beings advancing, not
as the
guars but as the cube of time ; but the accumulation
of - •
subsistence from the labours of the cultivators has
beene so grea.t. that out of their immense surplus pro-
% vast cities and innumerable villages have arisen,
11,(1 Cincinnati, Louisville, and other towns on the
uhio, and on the Mississippi have, during the same
Period, multiplied above a hundredfold, and, in tact,
risen from obscure hamlets into splendid capitals."
Of the actual populousness of the ancient world,
about which so much has been written, and of the
length of time which was required before Egypt and
Assyria contained their presumed millions, we
xt,': °NY very little. It is known, indeed, that
„re art of enumeration was then very imper-
4eet--that in many of the numbers, weights, and
measures handed down from. antiquity there