Page:China- Its State and Prospects.djvu/45

famine. The Malthusites have caught at the fact, that China, already over-peopled, is yet increasing in population and is doubling the number of its inhabitants every twenty-five years; which, connected with the circumstance of the scarcity and misery which already prevail, have led them to form the most gloomy apprehensions for the future, and to discourage marriage and encourage wars, lest the world should, like China, become overstocked, and universal want and misery envelope and engulph the whole family of man. The anti-Malthusites, on the other hand, shocked at this dreadful picture, and still more alarming prospect, have greedily embraced the suggestion thrown out by some writers, that the population of China has been exaggerated; and finding different returns given by various authors, have argued that the subject is questionable and undecided; then taking the lowest census they can find, they have come boldly forward and declared that China is one of the most thinly peopled countries of the globe, that her soil is not one-tenth part cultivated, and that her peasantry and mechanics are enjoying an ease and luxury, devoid of all appearance of want or penury, unknown and unequalled in any other part of the world. These extreme differences of opinion, established as they both appear to be by irrefragable arguments, tend to perplex the enquirer; but we must remember that the advocates of opposing systems generally go to extremes in defence of their favourite propositions; and that the truth usually lies between the two, to be elicited only by a dispassionate research, and an unprejudiced mind; determined to judge according to the evidence adduced, independent of previously existing opinions.