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33
the autumn has arrived. Does this ample provision of
life imply a prevision of the subsequent sacrifice of so
much of it? Is the supply in anticipation of the
demand? Is it regulated to meet the demand that
death has made, and is continually making? It may
be, that in the circle of being, in the evolution of
life and death, the same law of supply and demand
operates as we see in connexion with other matters or
commodities, be they man's follies, his necessities, or
his vices. It is an historical fact, that devastations of
the race, whether by plague, famine, or war, have been
followed by a rapid and corresponding increase of
births; and that, as Adam Smith remarks, "The demand
for men necessarily regulates the production of men,
quickens it when it goes on too slowly, and stops it
when it advances too fast." In America, we see a
large demand, and a rapidly progressive supply; in
France, with the absence or rather the repression of
the demand, there is a slowly decreasing population.
Between one and two years of age. It will be seen
that the deaths are much less numerous. One or other
of the exanthemata (small-pox, measles, and scarlet
fever), which are never entirely absent from the community,
claims its complement of victims ; and the
larger too, provided it exists in an epidemic form.
This remark applies particularly to measles, which is
most fatal at this age. The fatal local diseases are
convulsions, bronchitis, and pneumonia.
The developmental class exacts its contingent in
the deaths of the few who survived the first year of
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