With regard, then, to the checks to population in ancient Rome, Mr. Malthus thinks that moral restraint acted but feebly in restraining the increase of numbers. And of the other branch of the preventive check, which comes under the denomination of “vice,” according to Mr. Malthus, though its effect seems to have been very considerable in the later periods of Roman history and in some other countries; yet, on the whole, he thinks its operation was much inferior to the positive checks. A large portion of the procreative power was called into action among the Romans, the redundancy being checked by violent causes, among which war was the most prominent and striking, and after which came famines and violent diseases. In most of these ancient nations the population seems to have been seldom measured accurately according to the average and permanent means of subsistence, but generally to have vibrated between the two extremes, and therefore the contrasts between want and plenty were strongly marked, as might be expected in the earlier and less experienced ages of human society. [Illustration] CHAPTER IV. CHECKS TO POPULATION IN MODERN EUROPE. Book ij. of Malthus’ Essay treats of the checks to population in the different States of modern Europe,—Norway, Sweden, Russia, Germany, Switzerland, France, Great Britain, and Ireland. In Malthus’ day, Norway seems to have been, perhaps, the most prosperous country in Europe; and it was distinguished by the great healthiness of its people. The death-rate he puts down as only one in 48, in a population of about three-quarters of a million. With such a very low _positive_ check, Malthus at once looked for the existence of a very high _preventive_ check; and found this to be present in the very small proportion of marriages (one in 130) taking place annually in Norway. There were, then as now, no large manufacturing towns in Norway to take away the overflowing population of the country; and, hence, as emigration was not then in vogue, the Norwegian peasant seldom left the village he was born in. Until, then, some married person died, there was usually no place for another marriage to take place. “In countries more fully peopled (says Malthus) this subject is always involved in great obscurity. Each man naturally thinks that he has as good a chance of finding employment as his neighbour, and that if he fail in one place he shall succeed in another. He marries, therefore, and trusts to fortune: and the effect too frequently is, that the redundant population occasioned in this manner is repressed by the positive checks of poverty and disease.”