The plain fact is, that Mr. Sadler has confounded the population of a city with its population "on a given space,' of which is made up, partly of rural inhabi- | fecundity of the rural districts of Wartants and partly of accumulations of people wickshire. in immense masses, the prolificness of which, if he will allow me still the use of the phrase, is inversely as their magnitude; but he would have compared these small towns with the country places properly so called, and then again the different classes of towns with each other; this method would have led him to certain conclusions on the subject." 66 Now, this reply shows that Mr. Sadler does not in the least understand the principle which he has himself laid down. What is that principle? It is this, that the fecundity of human beings on given spaces, varies inversely as their numbers. We know what he means by inverse variation. But we must suppose that he uses the words, given spaces in the proper sense. Given spaces are equal spaces. Is there any reason to believe, that in those parts of Surrey which lie within the bills of mortality there is any space equal in area to the space on which Guildford stands, which is more thickly peopled than the space on which Guildford stands? We do not know that there is any such. We are sure that there are not many. Why, therefore, on Mr. Sadler's principle, should the people of Guildford be more prolific than the people who live within the bills of mortality? And, if the people of Guildford ought, as on Mr. Sadler's principle they unquestionably ought, to stand as low in the scale of fecundity as the people of Southwark itself, it follows, most clearly, that they ought to stand far lower than the average obtained by taking all the people of Surrey together. a mistake which, in a gentleman who assures us that mathematical science was one of his early and favourite studies, is somewhat curious. It is as absurd, on his principle, to say that the fecundity of London ought to be less than the fecundity of Edinburgh, because London has a greater population than Edinburgh, as to say that the fecundity of Russia ought to be greater than that of England, because Russia has a greater population than England. He cannot say that the spaces on which towns stand are too small to exemplify the truth of his principle. For he has himself brought forward the scale of fecundity in towns, as a proof of his principle. And, in the very passage which we quoted above, he tells us that, if we knew how to pursue truth or wished to find it, we "should have compared these small towns with country places, and the different classes of towns with each other." That is to say, we ought to compare together such unequal spaces as give results favourable to his theory, and never to compare such equal spaces as give results opposed to it. Does he mean anything by "a given space?" Or does he mean merely such a space as suits his argument? It is perfectly clear that, if he is allowed to take this course, he may prove anything. No fact can come amiss to him. Suppose, for example, that the fecundity of New York should The same remark applies to the case prove to be smaller than the fecundity of Birmingham, and to all the other of Liverpool. "That," says Mr. Sadler, which Mr. Sadler mentions." makes for my theory. For there are Towns of 5000 inhabitants may be, more people within two miles of the and often are, as thickly peopled "on Broadway of New York, than within a given space," as Birmingham. They two miles of the Exchange of Liverare, in other words, as thickly peopled pool." Suppose, on the other hand, as a portion of Birmingham, equal to that the fecundity of New York should them in area. If so, on Mr. Sadler's | be greater than the fecundity of Liverprinciple, they ought to be as low in pool. "This," says Mr. Sadler again, "is the scale of fecundity as Birmingham. an unanswerable proof of my theory. But they are not so. On the contrary, they stand higher than the average obtained by taking the fecundity of Birmingham in combination with the cases For there are many more people within forty miles of Liverpool than within forty miles of New York." In order to obtain his numbers, he takes spaces coincidence which seems to him to support his theory, and which to us seems, of itself, sufficient to overthrow it. in any combinations which may suit | France? In the pamphlet before us, him. In order to obtain his averages, he dwells with great complacency on a he takes numbers in any combinations which may suit him. And then he tells us that, because his tables, at the first glance, look well for his theory, his theory is irrefragably proved. We will add a few words respecting the argument which we drew from the peerage. Mr. Sadler asserted that the peers were a class condemned by nature to sterility. We denied this, and showed, from the last edition of Debrett, that the peers of the United Kingdom have considerably more than the average number of children to a marriage, Mr. Sadler's answer has amused us much. He denies the accuracy of our counting, and, by reckoning all the Scotch and Irish peers as peers of the United Kingdom, certainly makes very different numbers from those which we gave. A member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom might have been expected, we think, to know better what a peer of the United Kingdom is. By taking the Scotch and Irish peers, Mr. Sadler has altered the average. But it is considerably higher than the average fecundity of England, and still, therefore, constitutes an unanswerable argument against his theory. The shifts to which, in this difficulty, he has recourse, are exceedingly diverting. The average fecundity of the marriages of peers," said we, "is higher by one-fifth than the average fecundity of marriages throughout the kingdom." Where, or by whom did the Reviewer find it supposed," answers Mr. Sadler, "that the registered baptisms expressed the full fecundity of the marriages of England?" Assuredly, if the registers of England are so defective as to explain the difference which, on our calculation, exists between the fecundity of the peers and the fecundity of the people, no argument against Mr. Sadler's theory can be drawn from that difference. But what becomes of all the other arguments which Mr. Sadler has founded on these very registers? Above all, what becomes of his comparison be tween the censuses of England and 10 "In my table of the population of France in the forty-four departments in which there are from one to two hectares to each inhabion the average of the results of the three tant, the fecundity of 100 marriages, calculated computations relating to different periods given in my table, is 4067. In the twentytwo counties of England, in which there is from one to two hectares to each inhabitant, or from 129 to 259 on the square mile,-beginning, therefore, with Huntingdonshire, and ending with Worcestershire, the whole found to amount to 379,624, and the whole number of marriages during ten years will be number of the births during the same term to 1,545,549-or 4071 births to 100 marriages! A difference of one in one thousand only, compared with the French proportion!" 10 Does not Mr. Sadler see that, if the registers of England, which are notoriously very defective, give a result exactly corresponding almost to an unit with that obtained from the registers of France, which are notoriously very full and accurate, this proves the very reverse of what he employs it to prove? The correspondence of the registers proves that there is no correspondence in the facts. In order to raise the average fecundity of England even to the level of the average fecundity of the peers of the three kingdoms, which is 3.81 to a marriage, it is necessary to add nearly six per cent. to the number of births given in the English registers. But, if this addition be made, we shall have, in the counties of England, from Huntingdonshire to Worcestershire inclusive, 4:30 births to a marriage or thereabouts; and the boasted coincidence between the phenomena of propagation in France and England disappears at once. This is a curious specimen of Mr. Sadler's proficiency in the art of making excuses. In the same pamphlet he reasons as if the same registers were accurate to one in a thousand, and as if they were wrong at the very least by one in eighteen. He tries to show that we have not taken a fair criterion of the fecundity of the peers. We are not quite sure that we understand his reasoning on this subject. The order of his obser vations is more than usually confused, and the cloud of words more than usually thick. We will give the argument on which he seems to lay most stress in his own words: "But shall first notice a far more obvious and important blunder into which the Reviewer has fallen; or into which, I rather fear, he knowingly wishes to precipitate his readers, since I have distinctly pointed out what ought to have preserved him from it in the very chapter he is criticising and contradicting. It is this:- he has entirely omitted counting' the sterile marriages of all those peerages which have become extinct during the very period his counting embraces. He counts, for instance, Earl Fitzwilliam, his marriages, and heir; but has he not omitted to enumerate the marriages of those branches of the same noble house, which have become extinct since that venerable individual possessed his title? He talks of my having appealed merely to the extinction of peerages in my argument; but, on his plan of computation, extinctions are perpetually and wholly lost sight of. In computing the average prolificness of the marriages of the nobles, he positively counts from a select class of them only, one from which the unprolific are constantly weeded, and regularly disappear; and he thus comes to the conclusion, that the peers are an eminently prolific class!' Just as though a farmer should compute the rate of increase, not from the quantity of seed sown, but from that part of it only which comes to perfection, entirely omitting all which had failed to spring up or come to maturity. Upon this principle the most scanty crop ever obtained, in which the husbandman should fail to receive' seed again,' as the phrase is, might die in 1827? What shadow of reason is there to suppose that there was not the ordinary proportion of barren marriages among the marriages contracted by the noblemen whose names are in Debrett's last edition? But we ought, says Mr. Sadler, to have counted all the sterile marriages of all the peers "whose titles had become extinct during the period which our counting embraced;" that is to say, since the earliest marriage contracted by any peer living in 1828. Was such a proposition ever heard of before? Surely we were bound to do no such thing, unless at the same time we had counted also the children born from all the fruitful marriages contracted by peers during the same period. Mr. Sadler would have us divide the number of children born to peers living in 1828, not by the number of marriages which those peers contracted, but by the number of marriages which those peers contracted added to a crowd of marriages selected, on account of their sterility, from among the noble marriages which have taken place during the last fifty years. Is this the way to obtain fair averages? We might as well require that all the noble marriages which during the last fifty years have produced ten children apiece should be added to those of the peers If we understand this living in 1828. The proper way to rightly, it decisively proves that Mr. ascertain whether a set of people be Sadler is incompetent to perform even prolific or sterile is, not to take marthe lowest offices of statistical re- riages selected from the mass either search. What shadow of reason is on account of their fruitfulness or on there to believe that the peers who account of their sterility, but to take were alive in the year 1828 differed a collection of marriages which there as to their prolificness from any other is no reason to think either more or equally numerous set of peers taken at less fruitful than others. What reason random? In what sense were the is there to think that the marriages peers who were alive in 1828 analo-contracted by the peers who were alive gous to that part of the seed which in 1828 were more fruitful than those comes to perfection? Did we entirely contracted by the peers who were alive omit all that failed? On the contrary, in 1800 or in 1750? we counted the sterile as well as the be so counted' as to appear ' eminently prolific' indeed." passage fruitful marriages of all the peers of the United Kingdom living at one time. In what way were the peers who were alive in 1828 a select class? In what way were the sterile weeded from among them? Did every peer who had been married without having issue We will add another passage from Mr. Sadler's pamphlet on this subject. We attributed the extinction of peerages partly to the fact that those honours are for the most part limited to heirs male. eminently prolific,' do not, as Macbeth conjured his spouse, bring forth men-children "This is a discovery indeed! Peeresses ་ only; they actually produce daughters as well as sons!! Why, does not the Reviewer see, that so long as the rule of nature, which proportions the sexes so accurately to each other, continues to exist, a tendency to a diminution in one sex proves, as certainly as the demonstration of any mathematical problem, a tendency to a diminution in both; but to talk of eminently prolific' peeresses, and still maintain that the rapid extinction in peerages is owing to their not bearing male children exclusively, is arrant nonsense.' and this is more than the average number of sons to a marriage in England. When, therefore, it is considered how many peerages are in the first and second generation, it will not appear strange that extinctions should frequently take place. There are peerages which descend to females as well as males. But, in such cases, if a peer dies, leaving only daughters, the very fecundity of the marriage is a cause of the extinction of the peerage. If there were only one daughter, the honour would descend. If there are several, it falls into abeyance. Now, if there be any proposition on the face of the earth which we should not have expected to hear characterised as arrant nonsense, it is this,-that an honour limited to males alone is more likely to become extinct than an honour But it is needless to multiply words which, like the crown of England, de- in a case so clear; and indeed it is scends indifferently to sons and daugh- needless to say anything more about ters. We have heard, nay, we actually Mr. Sadler's book. We have, if we do know families, in which, much as Mr. not deceive ourselves, completely exSadler may marvel at it, there are daugh- posed the calculations on which his ters and no sons. Nay, we know many theory rests; and we do not think that such families. We are as much inclined we should either amuse our readers or as Mr. Sadler to trace the benevolent serve the cause of science if we were to and wise arrangements of Providence rebut in succession a series of futile in the physical world, when once we charges brought in the most angry are satisfied as to the facts on which spirit against ourselves; ignorant imwe proceed. And we have always con-putations of ignorance, and unfair comsidered it as an arrangement deserving plaints of unfairness,-conveyed in of the highest admiration, that, though long, dreary, declamations, so prolix in families the number of males and that we cannot find space to quote females differs widely, yet in great col-them, and so confused that we cannot lections of human beings the disparity venture to abridge them. almost disappears. The chance un- There is much indeed in this foolish doubtedly is, that in a thousand mar-pamphlet to laugh at, from the motto riages the number of daughters will not in the first page down to some wisdom very much exceed the number of sons. about cows in the last. One part of it But the chance also is, that several of indeed is solemn enough, we mean a those marriages will produce daughters, certain jeu d'esprit of Mr. Sadler's and daughters only. In every genera- touching a tract of Dr. Arbuthnot's. tion of the peerage there are several This is indeed "very tragical mirth," such cases. When a peer whose title is as Peter Quince's playbill has it; and limited to male heirs dies, leaving only we would not advise any person who daughters, his peerage must expire, reads for amusement to venture on it unless he have, not only a collateral as long as he can procure a volume heir, but a collateral heir descended of the Statutes at Large. This, howthrough an uninterrupted line of males ever, to do Mr. Sadler justice, is an from the first possessor of the honour. exception. His witticisms, and his If the deceased peer was the first tables of figures, constitute the only nobleman of his family, then, by the parts of his work which can be perused supposition, his peerage will become with perfect gravity. His blunders are extinct. If he was the second, it will diverting, his excuses exquisitely comic. become extinct, unless he leaves a But his anger is the most grotesque brother or a brother's son. If the exhibition that we ever saw. He foams second peer had a brother, the first at the mouth with the love of truth. peer must have had at least two sons; and vindicates the Divine benevolence with a most edifying heartiness of hatred. On this subject we will give him one word of parting advice. If he raves in this way to ease his mind, or because he thinks that he does himself credit by it, or from a sense of religious duty, far be it from us to interfere. His peace, his reputation, and his religion are his own concern; and he, like the nobleman to whom his treatise is dedicated, has a right to do what he will with his own. But, if he has adopted his abusive style from a notion that it would hurt our feelings, we must inform him that he is altogether mistaken; and that he would do well in future to give us his arguments, if he has any, and to keep his anger for those who fear it. MIRABEAU. (JULY 1832.) Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, et sur les deux Premières Assemblées Législatives. Par ETIENNE DUMONT, de Genève: ouvrage posthume publié par M. J. L. Duval, Membre du Conseil Représentatif du Canton du Genève. Svo. Paris: 1832. Not that he was of a servile and idola- The services which M. Dumont has rendered to society can be fully appreciated only by those who have studied Mr. Bentham's works, both in their rude and in their finished state. The difference both for show and for use is as great as the difference between a lump of golden ore and a rouleau of Sovereigns fresh from the mint. Of Mr. Bentham we would at all times speak with the reverence which is due to a great original thinker, and to a sincere and ardent friend of the human race. If a few weaknesses were THIS is a very amusing and a very in-mingled with his eminent virtues,-if structive book: but, even if it were a few errors insinuated themselves less amusing and less instructive, it would still be interesting as a relic of a wise and virtuous man. M. Dumont was one of those persons, the care of whose fame belongs in an especial manner to mankind. For he was one of those persons who have, for the sake of mankind, neglected the care of their own fame. In his walk through life there was no obtrusiveness, no pushing, no elbowing, none of the little arts which bring forward little men. With every right to the head of the board, he took the lowest room, and well deserved to be greeted with-Friend, go up higher. Though no man was more capable of achieving for himself a separate and independent renown, he attached himself to others; he laboured to raise their fame; he was content to receive as his share of the reward the mere overflowings which redounded from the full measure of their glory. among the many valuable truths which he taught,-this is assuredly no time for noticing those weaknesses or those errors in an unkind or sarcastic spirit. A great man has gone from among us, full of years, of good works, and of deserved honours. In some of the highest departments in which the human intellect can exert itself he has not left his equal or his second behind him. From his contemporaries he has had, according to the usual lot, more or less than justice. He has had blind flatterers and blind detractors-flatterers who could see nothing but perfection in his style, detractors who could see nothing but nonsense in his matter. He will now have judges. Posterity will pronounce its calm and impartial decision; and that decision will, we firmly believe, place in the same rank with Galileo. and with Locke, the man who found jurisprudence a gibberish |