Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/82

56 and modern nations, could it be clearly ascertained that the average produce of the countries in question, taken altogether, is greater now than it was in the times of Julius Caesar, the dispute would be at once determined.

When we are assured that China is the most fertile country in the world; that almost all the land is in tillage; and that a great part of it bears two crops every year; and further, that the people live very frugally, we may infer with certainty, that the population must be immense, without busying ourselves in inquiries into the manners and habits of the lower classes, and the encouragements to early marriages. But these inquiries, are of the utmost importance, and a minute history of the customs of the lower Chinese would be of the greatest use, in ascertaining in what