increase of population, if all natural and artificial checks to it were removed," or rather, if every possible encouragement was given to its increase; but the question is, What are the evils which would necessarily and inevitably result from the principle of population; or, in other words, what are "the past and present effects of the principle of population,” and what would be its effect in a natural and just state of society, wherein the rent of the land were applied to its legitimate objects, the maintenance of the government, and the improvement of the country. In such an application of the rent, taxation of labour, prohibition, restrictions, encouragements, customs, excise, &c. &c., would be done away, and the people left to exert their energy and industry, free as the air they breathe ?

"All that the most enlightened government has to do" is, to let the principle of population alone, and to adopt every means of encouraging the increase of the means of subsistence and comfort; to avoid every measure which may offer an unnatural excitement to the increase of population; and, more particularly, those, which, at the same time, tend to diminish the future means of subsistence.

To attempt, by offering unnatural excitements to the population, to remove the artifi

cial checks to its increase, is, not only " an absolutely hopeless task," but a most foolish, if not wicked, attempt to set aside the laws of

nature.

BOOK IV.

Of our future Prospects respecting the Removal or Mitigation of the Evils arising from the Principle of Population."

CHAPTER I.

"OF MORAL RESTRAINT, AND OUR OBLIGATION TO PRACTISE THIS VIRTUE."

THE unfounded assumption contained in the title of this book, has been already pointed out and reprobated; and as the premises are thus demonstrated to be totally false and unjustifiable, the inferences and conclusions drawn from them must, of necessity, be so likewise. Though this is the fact, and though it may be deemed unnecessary to proceed, yet, having advanced so far in the demolition of the labyrinth, we will finish our work, lest any one should, hereafter, lose his way among the rubbish.

We, therefore, proceed to extract the good, and expose the evil, contained in this lecture on moral restraint.

"It appears, that, in the actual state of every society which has come under our review, the natural progress of population has been generally checked," not by the natural check of inability of the country to produce, or procure, more food and necessaries, but by the artificial checks of ignorance and tyrannical human institutions. It seems evident, therefore, that the general diffusion of knowledge, improved forms of Government, judicious plans of emigration, and the proper direction of national industry, are among the most certain means whereby those artificial checks may be removed, the population vastly increased, and the natural check of moral restraint left gradually to substitute itself, instead of the artificial checks of vice and misery. As to the manner in which the natural check should be encouraged and excited to operate, New Testament Christianity will be found the best director; not that bronze-faced pretender to its name and nature, which allows the propriety and justice of persecution, for the mere expression of opinions; the incarcerating of poor women, with infants at their breasts, in dungeons, during a term of years, for questioning its truth,—or which authorises its teachers to deny the right of the

poor to support, and its defenders of its faith to protect the detestable hirelings of Turkish murderers from the Grecian halters, which they so richly deserve! but, that true Bible Christianity, which teaches—that charity is the greatest of all the virtues; that we should do unto all as we would that they should do unto us; that we should love our neighbours as ourselves; that he who provideth not for his own, and, especially, for those of his own house, hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel; that he that will not work, should not eat; that the eternal fate of all men shall principally depend on their having neglected, or performed, the works of charity and mercy. For thus saith the Christ,- Depart from me, ye wicked; for I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; hungry, and ye gave me no food; thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.-Then shall they say-Lord, when saw we thee in any of those conditions, and did not administer unto thee? But he shall answer them,-Forasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these my brethren, ye did it not

to me.

These precepts are, we think, more likely to be efficacious, if properly taught and enforced by the example of Christian teachers and professors, than all the philosophy which has ever