Of the direction of our charity.

not merely endeavor to mitigate the partial evils arising from general laws, but regularly and systematically to counteract the obviously beneficial effects of these general laws themselves. And we cannot easily conceive that the Deity should implant any passion in the human breast for such a purpose.

In the great course of human events, the bestfounded expectations will sometimes be disappointed; and industry, prudence, and virtue, not only fail of their just reward, but be involved in unmerited calamities. Those who are thus suffering in spite of the best-directed endeavors to avoid it, and from causes which they could not be expected to foresee, are the genuine objects of charity. In relieving these we exercise the appropriate office of benevolence, that of mitigating the partial evils arising from general laws; and in this direction of our charity therefore, we need not apprehend any ill consequences. Such objects ought to be relieved, according to our means, liberally and adequately, even though the worthless were starving.

When indeed this first claim on our benevolence was satisfied, we might then turn our attention to the idle and improvident; but the interests of human happiness most clearly require that the

Of the direction of our charity.

relief which we afford them should be scanty. We may perhaps take upon ourselves, with great cau tion, to mitigate the punishments which they are suffering from the laws of nature, but on no account to remove them entirely. They are deservedly at the bottom in the scale of society; and if we raise them from this situation, we not only palpably defeat the end of benevolence, but commit a most glaring injustice to those who are above them. They should on no account be enabled to command so much of the necessaries of life, as can be obtained by the worst-paid common labor. The brownest bread, with the coarsest and scantiest apparel, is the utmost which they should have the means of purchasing.

It is evident that these reasonings do not apply to those cases of urgent distress arising from disastrous accidents, unconnected with habits of indolence and improvidence. If a man break a leg or an arm, we are not to stop to inquire into his moral character before we lend him our assistance; but in this case we are perfectly consistent, and the touchstone of utility completely justifies our conduct. By affording the most indiscriminate assistance in this way, we are in little danger of vol. ii. kkk

Of the direction of our charity.

encouraging people to break their arms and legs. According to the touchstone of utility, the high approbation which Christ gave to the conduct of the good Samaritan, who followed the immediate impulse of his benevolence in relieving a stranger in the urgent distress of an accident, does not, in the smallest degree, contradict the expression of St. Paul, "If a man will not work, neither shall he "eat."

We are not however, in any case, to lose a present opportunity of doing good, from the mere supposition that we may possibly meet with a worthier object. In all doubtful cases, it may safely be laid down as our duty to follow the natural impulse of our benevolence; but when in fulfilling our obligation as resonable beings to attend to the consequences of our actions, we have, from our own experience and that of others, drawn the conclusion, that the exercise of our benevolence in one mode is prejudicial, and in another is benefi cial, in its effects, we are certainly bound, as moral agents, to check our natural propensities in the one direction, and to encourage them and acquire the habits of exercising them, in the other.

CHAPTER X. ·

Different plans of improving the condition of the

Poor considered.

IN the distribution of our charity, or in any efforts which we may make to better the condition of the lower classes of society, there is another point relating to the main argument of this work, to which we must be particularly attentive. We must on no account do any thing which tends di rectly to encourage marriage, or to remove, in any regular and systematic manner, that inequality of circumstances which ought always to exist between the single man and the man with a family. The writers who have best understood the principle of population appear to me all to have fallen into very important errors on this point.

Sir James Steuart, who is fully aware of what he calls vicious procreation, and of the misery that. attends a redundant population, recommends, notwithstanding, the general establishment of foundling hospitals; the taking of children under certain

Different plans of improving the

circumstances, from their parents, and supporting them at the expense of the state; and particularly laments the inequality of condition between the married and single man, so ill-proportioned to their respective wants.' He forgets, in these instances, that if, without the encouragement to multiplication, of foundling hospitals, or of public support for the children of some married persons, and under the discouragement of great pecuniary disadvantages on the side of the married man, popula-. tion be still redundant, which is evinced by the inability of the poor to maintain all their children, it is a clear proof that the funds destined for the maintenance of labor cannot properly support a greater population; and that if further encouragements to multiplication be given and discouragements removed, the result must be, an increase somewhere or other of that vicious procreation which he so justly reprobates.

Mr. Townsend, who in his dissertation on the Poor Laws, has treated this subject with great skill and perspicuity, appears to me to conclude with a proposal which violates the principles on

1 Political Economy, vol. i. b. i. c. xii.