Note 244-10 — Chapter II

Compare Machiavelli, at the beginning of his Istoria Fiorentina. The migration of the Germani is accounted for simply by the family and marriage relations of the Germans, which necessarily favored prolificacy: Severa matrimonia ... singulis uxoribus contenti sunt ... septae pudicitia ... paucissima adulteria ... publicatae pudicitiae nulla venia ... nemo vitia ridet ... numerum liberorum finire, flagitium habetur ... sua quemque mater uberibus alit ... sera juverum Venus eoque inexhausta pubertas ... quanto plus propinquorum, tanto gratiosior senectus. Tacit., Germ., 14. Entirely similar in character were the migrations of the Normans, which lasted just as long as the resistance to the countries they would invade, seemed to them a matter of less difficulty than the transition to a higher civilization in their own country. Malthus has corrected the extravagant notions concerning the former density of population in the North—the vagina nationum, according to Jornandes! (Malthus, I, ch. 6.) Compare, however, Friedrich M., in Antimachiavel, ch. 21, and the later view: Ouevres, IX, 196.