CHAP. XVI.: The Concern of the Legislator in the Propagation of the Species.

REGULATIONS on the number of citizens depend greatly on circumstances. There are countries, in which nature does all; the legislator then has nothing to do. What need is there of inducing men by laws to propagation, when a fruitful climate yields a sufficient number of inhabitants? Sometimes the climate is more favourable than the soil; the people multiply, and are destroyed by famine: this is the case of China. Hence a father sells his daughters, and exposes his children. In Tonquin Dampiere’s Voyages, vol. ii. ^†251, the same causes produce the same effects; so we need not, like the Arabian travellers mentioned by Renaudot, search for the origin of this in their sentiments Ibid. p. 167. ^†252 on the metempsychosis.

For the same reason, the religion of the isle of Formosa See the collection of voyages that contributed to the establishment of the East-India company, vol. i. part 1. page 182, and 188. ^†253 does not suffer the women to bring their children into the world, till they are thirty-five years of age; the priestess before this age, by bruising the belly, procures abortion.