[82] The chapter, “Des Machines,” is one of those included in the author’s list of intended additions, which he did not live to write. (See Notice of Life and Writings, etc., p. 30, ante.)—Translator.
[83] For an explanation of these terms, borrowed from the Civil Law, see ante, p. 172.—Translator.
[84] See ante, chapter iv.
[85] The manuscript brought from Rome stops here. What is subjoined was found among the papers left by the author in Paris. It indicates how he intended to terminate and sum up this chapter.—Editor.
XV. SAVING
[86] Sir James Steuart of Coltness, whose Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy was published in 1767, nine years before the appearance of Adam Smith’s great work, takes the very same view of the principle of population which Malthus, thirty years afterwards, more formally enunciated. “The generative faculty,” says Sir James Steuart, “resembles a spring loaded with a weight, which always exerts itself in proportion to the diminution of resistance. When food has remained some time without augmentation or diminution, generation will carry numbers as high as possible; if, then, food come to be diminished, the spring is overpowered, the force of it becomes less than nothing, inhabitants will diminish, at least in proportion to the overcharge. If, on the other hand, food be increased, the spring will begin to exert itself in proportion as the resistance diminishes, people will begin to be better fed, they will multiply, and, in proportion as they increase in numbers, the food will become scarce again.”—Translator.
[87] “Threescore and ten souls.”—Gen. xlvi. 27. “Seventy souls.”—Exodus i. 5. “Threescore and ten persons.”—Deut. x. 22.—Translator.
[88] 601,730 “from twenty years old and upwards.”—Numbers xxvi. 2 and 51.—Translator.
[89] What follows was written in 1846.—Editor.
[90] It is fair to mention that J. B. Say represents the means of existence as a variable quantity.