they were the nearest and best known savages of their kind, and their necessary labours were in Europe rich men’s pleasures. But hunting and river-fishing cannot yield much food unless pursued over a wide area. A hunter is so far like the beast of prey which he pursues, that he must go long distances for his food, and must either fly from or overcome every rival. The North American Indian must therefore either go West after his old food, or else he must stay where he is, to beat off the Europeans, or to adopt their food and their habits. “The Indians have only two ways of saving themselves, war and civilization. They must either destroy the Europeans or become their equals.”[160] As the civilization of a nation of hunters is almost impossible, their extinction seems inevitable. The question remains, How is this population cut down to the level of its food? In Malthus’ answer to the question occur three remarks of great general importance. First, what limits the numbers of a people is not the possible but the actual food.[161] Second, want destroys a population less often directly by starvation than indirectly through the medium of manners and customs.[162] Third, the mere pressure of impending starvation does not lead to progress.[163] Malthus is never tired of insisting on the first of these remarks; and a proper understanding of it is essential to a fair judgment on his doctrine. He never says that it is the tendency of a population to increase up to the limits of the greatest possible amount of food that can be produced in a given country. The valley of the Mississippi when highly cultivated may possibly support a hundred millions; but the question is not what it would do when highly cultivated, but what it can do when cultivated as it now is and as men now are. “In a general view of the American continent as described by historians, the population seems to have been spread over the surface very nearly in proportion to the quantity of food which the inhabitants of the different parts in the actual state of their industry and improvements could as a matter of fact obtain; and that with few exceptions it pressed hard against this limit, rather than fell short of it, appears from the frequent recurrence of distress for want of food in all parts of America.”[164] What is said here of the Indians a hundred years ago applies to the Colonists now. “The actual state of industry” is of course a much more improved one; but the population the land will bear is still in proportion to it, and the amount could not have been increased till the actual state of the industry had first been bettered. One cause of the decay of the numbers of the Indians was that their method of industry, so far from becoming better, became worse by their contact with Europeans, and therefore the limit of population was actually contracted instead of being extended.[165] This explains how it is that their diminishing numbers do not bring them greater comfort. Whether the