Of moral restraint.

tion that is required with regard to the principle of population, not diminution or alteration. And if moral restraint be the only virtuous mode of avoiding the incidental evils arising from this principle, our obligation to practise it will evidently rest exactly upon the same foundation, as our obligation to practise any of the other virtues, the foundation of utility.

Whatever indulgence we may be disposed to allow to occasional failures in the discharge of a duty of acknowledged difficulty; yet of the strict line of duty, we cannot doubt.. Our obligation not to marry till we have a fair prospect of being able to support our children, will appear to deserve the attention of the moralist, if it can be proved, that an attention to this obligation is of more effect in the prevention of misery, than all the other virtues combined; and that if in violation of this duty, it were the general custom to follow the first impulse of nature, and marry at the age of puberty, the universal prevalence of every known virtue, in the greatest conceivable degree, would fail of rescuing society from the most wretched and desperate state of want, and all the diseases and famines which usually accompany it.

CHAPTER II.

Of the effects which would result to society from the prevalence of this virtue.

ONE of the principal reasons which has prevented an assent to the doctrine of the constant tendency of population to increase beyond the means of subsistence, is a great unwillingness to believe, that the Deity would by the laws of nature bring beings into existence, which by the laws of nature could not be supported in that existence. But if in addition to that general activity and direction of our industry put in motion by these laws, we further consider, that the incidental evils arising from them are constantly directing our attention to the proper check to population, moral restraint; and if it appear, that by a strict obedience to those duties which are pointed out to us by the light of nature and reason, and are confirmed and sanctioned by revelation, these evils may be avoided, the objection will, I trust, be removed, and all apparent imputation on the goodness of the Deity be done away.

The heathen moralists never represented hap

Of the effects on society

piness as attainable on earth, but through the medium of virtue; and among their virtues prudence ranked in the first class, and by some was even considered as including every other. The Christian religion places our present as well as future happiness in the exercise of those virtues which tend to fit us for a state of superior enjoy. ment; and the subjection of the passions to the guidance of reason, which, if not the whole, is a principal branch of prudence, is in consequence most particularly inculcated.

If for the sake of illustration, we might be permitted to draw a picture of society, in which each individual endeavored to attain happiness by the strict fulfilment of those duties, which the most enlightened of the ancient philosophers deduced from the laws of nature, and which have been directly taught, and received such powerful sanctions in the moral code of Christianity, it would present a very different scene from that which we now contemplate. Every act which was prompted by the desire of immediate gratification, but which threatened an ultimate overbalance of pain, would be considered as a breach of duty; and conse quently no man whose earnings were only sufficient to maintain two children, would put himself in a

of moral restraint.

situation in which he might have to maintain four or five, however he might be prompted to it by the passion of love. This prudential restraint, if it were generally adopted, by narrowing the supply of labor in the market, would, in the natural course of things, soon raise its price. The period of delayed gratification would be passed in saving the earnings which were above the wants of a single man, and in acquiring habits of sobriety, industry, and economy, which would enable him in a few years to enter into the matrimonial contract without fear of its consequences. The operation of the preventive check in this way, by constantly keeping the population within the limits of the food, though constantly following its increase, would give a real value to the rise of wages, and the sums saved by laborers before marriage, very different from those forced advances in the price of labor, or arbitrary parochial donations, which, in proportion to their magnitude and extensiveness, must of necessity be followed by a proportional advance in the price of provisions. As the wages of labor would thus be sufficient to maintain with decency a large family, and as every married couple would set out with a sum for contingencies, all squalid poverty would be

Of the effects on society

removed from society, or at least, be confined to a very few, who had fallen into misfortunes against which no prudence or foresight could provide.

The interval between the age of puberty and the period at which cach individual might venture on marriage must, according to the supposition, be passed in strict chastity; because the law of chastity cannot be violated without producing evil. The effect of any thing like a promiscuous intercourse which prevents the birth of children, is evidently to weaken the best affections of the heart, and in a very marked manner to degrade the fe male character. And any other intercourse would without improper arts, bring as many children into the society as marriage, with a much greater probability of their becoming a burden to it.

These considerations show that the virtue of chastity is not, as some have supposed, a forced produce of artificial society; but that it has the most real and solid foundation in nature and reason; being apparently the only virtuous mean of avoiding the vice and misery which result so often from the principle of population.

In such a society as we have been supposing, it might be necessary for both sexes to pass many of the early years of life in the single state; and if