Chap. VII.
Here I break off my subject, to answer an objection arising from these principles.
Obj. How could the simplicity of the antients be compatible with a great multiplication?
Answ. In antient times men were forced to labour the ground because they were slaves to others. In modern times the operation is more complex, and as a statesman cannot make slaves of his subjects, he must engage them to become slaves to their own passions and desires; this is the only method to make them labour the ground, and provided this be accomplished, by whatever means it is brought about, mankind will increase.
Chap. VIII.
This question being dismissed, I point out a method of estimating the proportion of numbers between the farmers and free hands of a country, only as an illustration of the principle already laid down, to wit, that it is the surplus of the farmers which goes for the subsistence of the others.
This surplus I shew to be the same thing as the value of the land rents; and hence I conclude,
1st, That the rising of the rents of lands proves the augmentation of industry, and the multiplication of free hands; but as rents may rise, and yet the number of inhabitants continue the same as before, I infer,
2dly, That the revolution must then mark the purging of the lands of superfluous mouths, and forcing these to quit their mother earth, in order to retire to towns and villages, where they may usefully swell the number of the free hands and apply to industry.
3dly, That the more a country is in tillage, the more it is inhabited, and the fewer free hands are to be found: that the more it is laid into pasture, the less it is inhabited, and the greater is the proportion of free hands.