ncreases from one to a hundred and sixty on the
square mile, the fecundity will diminish from 5.48 to 3.66; and that
again, while the population increases from one hundred and sixty to two
hundred thousand on the square mile, the fecundity will diminish from
3.66 to 2.35.

The proposition which Mr Sadler enounces, without understanding the
words which he uses, would indeed, if it could be proved, set us at ease
as to the dangers of over-population. But it is, as we have shown, a
proposition so grossly absurd that it is difficult for any man to keep
his countenance while he repeats it. The utmost that Mr Sadler has
ever attempted to prove is this,--that the fecundity of the human
race diminishes as population becomes more condensed,--but that the
diminution of fecundity bears a very small ratio to the increase
of population,--so that, while the population on a square mile is
multiplied two hundred-thousand-fold, the fecundity decreases by little
more than one half.

Does this principle vindicate the honour of God? Does it hold out any
new hope or comfort to man? Not at all. We pledge ourselves to
show, with the utmost strictness of reasoning, from Mr Sadler's own
principles, and from facts of the most notorious description, that every
consequence which follows from the law of geometrical progression, laid
down by Mr Malthus, will follow from the law, miscalled a law of inverse
variation, which has been laid down by Mr Sadler.

London is the most thickly peopled spot of its size in the known world.
Therefore the fecundity of the population of London must, according
to Mr Sadler, be less than the fecundity of human beings living on
any other spot of equal size. Mr Sadler tells us, that "the ratios
of mortality are influenced by the different degrees in which the
population is condensated; and that, other circumstances being similar,
the relative number of deaths in a thinly-populated, or country
district, is less than that which takes place in towns, and in towns of
a moderate size less again than that which exists in large and populous
cities." Therefore the mortality in London must, according to him, be
greater than in other places. But, though, according to Mr Sadler, the
fecundity is less in London than elsewhere, and though the mortality is
greater there than elsewhere, we find that even in London the number of
births greatly exceeds the number of deaths. During the ten years which
ended with 1820, there were fifty