Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 02.djvu/287

Rh doubled, so that we numbered forty millions of people instead of twenty, what would be the consequence?

.—It would be this: that, one with another, each would have, instead of forty, but twenty crowns to live upon; or that the land should produce double the crops it now does; or that there should be double the national industry, or of gain from foreign countries; or that half of the people should be sent to America; or that one-half of the nation should eat the other.

.—Let us then remain satisfied with our twenty millions of inhabitants, and with our hundred and twenty livres a head, distributed as it shall please the Lord. Yet this situation is a sad one, and your iron age is hard indeed.

.—There is no nation that is better off, and there are many that are worse. Do you believe that there is in the north wherewithal to afford to each inhabitant the value of a hundred and twenty of our livres a year? If they had had the equivalent of this, the Huns, the Vandals, and the Franks would not have deserted their country in quest of establishments elsewhere, which they, conquered, fire and sword in hand.

.—If I were to listen to you, you would persuade me presently that I am happy with my hundred and twenty livres.