Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/103

Rh poverty in the soil and climate of those countries, which cannot be changed. They must emigrate before they can become rich or comfortable in our sense of the word. Hence their poverty is to be attributed to their geographical position. Put the Now Englanders there, oven they would be a poor people. Thus the poverty of a nation may depend on the geographical position of the nation.

Suppose a race of men has little vigour of body or of mind, and yet the same natural wants an a vigorous race; put them in favourable circumstances, in a good climate, on a rich soil, they will be poor on account of the feebleness of their mind and body; put them in a stern climate, on a sterile soil, and they will perish. Such is the case with the Mexicans. Soil and climate are favourable, yet the people are poor. Suppose a nation had only one-third part of the Laplander's ability, and yet needed the result of all his power, and was put in the Laplander's position, they would not live through the first winter. Had they been Mexicans who came to Plymouth in 1620, not one of them, it is probable, would have seen the next summer. Take away half the sense or bodily strength of the Bushmans of South Africa, and though they might have sense enough to dig nuts out of the ground, yet the lions and hyenas would eventually eat up the whole nation. So the poverty of a nation may come from want of power of body or of mind.

Then if a nation increases in numbers more rapidly than in wealth, there is a corresponding increase of want. Let the number of births in England for the next ten years be double the number for the last ten, without a corresponding creation of new wealth, and the English are brought to the condition of the Irish. Let the number of births in Ireland in like manner multiply, and one-half the population must perish for want of food. So the poverty of a nation may depend on the disproportionate increase of its numbers.

Then an able race, under favourable outward circumstances, without an over-rapid increase of numbers, if its powers are not much developed, will be poor in comparison with a simile race under similar circumstances, but highly developed. Thus England, under Egbert, in the ninth