ABSTRACT
The astonishing rise in population in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries preceded the movement of industrialization. The former seemed to be a stimulant rather than a result of the latter. That the growth of industry cannot be regarded as an initial cause of the rapid increase in population in the nineteenth century is suggested by the simple fact that the number of Russians increased more rapidly than the number of western Europeans, and had been doing so throughout the eighteenth century. From 1722 to 1897 the population of Russia increased from 14 million to 129 million. For the purpose of the present argument these figures must be modified, as they are partly accounted for by the vast conquests of Russia in the period. But the population even of the original territory of Russia increased from 14 million to 65 million, in spite of considerable migration of Russians from the original territory to the newly annexed lands. In Britain, France and Germany the great increase in population was accompanied by industrialization and a drift of people to the towns and cities. In Russia a yet greater increase of population was a characteristic of the whole country, and was not accompanied by industrialization until the end of the nineteenth century. Economic historians have discussed the original causes of the rise in population at great length, but have come to no firm conclusion beyond deciding that a declining death rate rather than a rising birth rate is the predominant factor. Some respite from the terrible epidemics that decimated the population in earlier centuries – epidemics of plague, typhoid, cholera and so on – gave the human race in the small continent of Europe a chance to multiply in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This respite owed little to medical knowledge or hygienic habits, which were still in a primitive state, though improved quarantine measures, in Britain at least, probably had some effect.
