Page:Studies in the Scriptures - Series I - The Plan of the Ages (1909).djvu/367

 We estimate the next four centuries as increasing the popu- lation twenty-five per cent, each centttry; for the decrease of war res-tilting from the firm establishment of the Roman power must have had such an effect. This gives us at the time of Charlemagne, at the closing of the eighth centtury, a world population of over 227,000,000.

Following came the centuries of the Crusades, etc., in which millions of the youth of the world perished. Our reckoning is that the world's population doubled during these six centuries from the year 800 to 1399, A. D. This gives us as the population of the world for the year 1400 the sum of 455,733,808.

The next four centuries were more favorable to the multi- plying of the race, great battles and desolating plagues being fewer. The religious reformation belongs to this period. We reckon the population to have doubled during these four centuries, and this would give us the world population for the year 1700 of 911,467,616. These figures, so far as we know, are very greatly in excess of any reliable statistics.

We reckon the period from 1700 to 1800, A. D., at a twenty per cent, rate of increase, giving the population in the year 1800 at 1,093,759,939.

For the century just closed, from the year 1800 to the year 1900, we have estimated an increase of forty per cent., which shows the population for the year 1900, 1,531,163,915. Although, as already stated, the ratio of increase in popula- tion for the ten years of the last census was eight per cent., representing an increase of 115 per cent, for the century, it is manifest that the increase during the earlier portion of the nineteenth century was at a much slower rate. Present conditions are increasingly favorable to the propagation of the race, as well as to its longevity; and it would not sur- prise us if the increase would show much greater in the near future.

The following tables of estimates of the world's population, made during the nineteenth century show clearly that the estimates we have given are exceedingly liberal; besides, in reckoning the total we have counted the entire century at the figures of its dose.

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