interests of individuals and of the community coincide. Whatever fluctuations may betide the labour-market, let each man, in forming his private connections, act with the forethought and discretion which becomes a responsible being, and society will have no cause of complaint against him, for over-population will be impossible.

I should have been glad, if I had not already exceeded my limits, to animadvert on some other points in connection with Mr. Malthus' theory of moral restraint; but I must postpone part of my intended observations to a future lecture. I will only now touch very briefly on two points. First, I have to remark, that the preventive check which he labours to inculcate is a restraint that applies almost exclusively to the lower or labouring class of society. Among the upper and middle ranks, he recognises the check as prevailing to a great extent already—it is comparatively little needed there; it is to relieve the labour-market that it is chiefly wanted; consequently, the exhortations to moral restraint must be considered as addressed chiefly to the poor. Now, though I admit that there is much room for an improved spirit of forethought and selfrespect among this numerous class of society, at the same time I look with great jealousy upon attempts to dissuade them generally from marriage. First, because the denial of domestic connections to a poor man is a far greater privation than it can ever be to a rich one. Marriage makes a far larger ingredient in the labourer's cup of happiness; he more peculiarly needs the solace and support, to say nothing of the actual service and ministrations of a wife, than those

to whom wealth opens many other sources of consolation and enjoyment.* Secondly, I should apprehend, that any general habit of abstinence from marriage among the humbler classes would be attended with a great deterioriation of morals. Mr. Malthus himself is by no means insensible to this danger. He admits with his usual candour the force of the objection; but he weighs against the evils resulting from the practice of unchastity the vices and the degradation of character which spring from the pressure of indigence and distress, and he considers the account in a moral point of view to be at least equally balanced. For my own part, I distrust the accuracy of such calculations as these; we have no moral scales applicable to such a comparison of consequences. The mischiefs which marriage was designed to guard against we know; the consequences which might result from artificially restraining it, as compared with those which may be engendered from the effects of indigence upon the character, are a matter of pure speculation and most uncertain conjecture.†

* "On the system of Mr. Malthus, the poor, in addition to their other inconveniences, are required to sacrifice the comforts of domestic life to the general good: and the rich are invested, besides all their other advantages, with a monopoly of love and marriage. Such a plan is neither just nor safe: the privations and sufferings imposed upon communities by common necessities must be shared alike by all. When the crew of a ship are put upon short allowance, the officers, if they do not wish to be massacred, must submit to the same fare as the rest."-Everett on Population, p. 73.

† Mr. J. S. Mill, who appears to give up as non-essential the comparison of ratios and other points of Mr. Malthus' argument which have been assailed by his opponents, reduces the substance

of the theory to a very small residuum. "Is it true or not," he asks, "that if the number of the labourers were fewer, they would obtain higher wages? This is the question and no other." (Prin. Polit. Econ. vol. i. p. 428.) I apprehend, however, that this is by no means the whole of the question: it is, in fact, a very small part of it. The desideratum for the labourer is not the mere maximum of wages, but the greatest amount of comfort and enjoyment attainable in his condition. Among these, marriage and its consequences hold the first place. Supposing that the present rate of wages could be doubled, on the condition of a great increase in the practice of celibacy and a general late postponement of marriage, I should regard the gain to the labouring class from such a change as very equivocal, both on social and on moral grounds. The truth is, that the great source of happiness to the working man must ever be his home and those home-born joys which the poet has inimitably described,

"For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Nor busy housewife ply her evening care:

No children run to lisp their sire's return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share."

In whatever direction we are to look for the social regeneration of the labourer, I am persuaded that the road to it does not lie through enforced celibacy.

LECTURE IX.

ON POPULATION.

My object in this lecture will be to show the adaptation of the principle of population to the preservation and progress of the human race. I shall lay before you some of the grounds on which we are justified in concluding that the prolificness of the species, relatively to the means provided for its subsistence, is not excessive; but that it has been wisely and beneficently adjusted to the condition and necessities of mankind.

The question may be asked, Are the doctrines of Mr. Malthus in any respect inconsistent with this view of the subject? His opponents have broadly asserted that they are so. They have charged him with inculpating the arrangements of Providence by representing want and misery as necessary consequences of the constitution of nature and the propensities of mankind. His adherents, on the other hand, repudiate this charge. They deny that his system, rightly understood, involves any such consequence, though it is impossible, as they admit, to survey the condition of society, as Mr. Malthus has done, without being brought into contact with that old and inexplicable problem, the existence of evil in the world. Beyond this, they do not acknowledge

that the argument of the Essay on Population involves any impeachment on Divine wisdom or benevolence.

I have already expressed my own firm conviction, that Mr. Malthus had no thought, in propounding his theory of population, inconsistent with piety towards God, and good-will towards man. He vindicates himself with evident sincerity from the imputation of having reflected by his arguments upon the goodness of the Deity. External and internal evidence alike concur in acquitting him of intentional impiety or presumption.

But with respect to the effect of his reasonings and the tendency of his system, my impression, I confess, is somewhat different. What is the fundamental position of his work? It is this: that population has naturally a tendency to increase in a greater ratio,greater, in an enormous degree,— than the means of subsistence; that this disparity between the supply of men and of food is the radical cause of the distress which prevails in all communities with scarcely any exception; and that want and misery are the necessary results of this ultrapotency of the prolific principle, unless it be effectually repressed by certain checks. And what are these checks? They are some of the direst evils to which humanity is subject:- war, pestilence, famine, and the like; to which must be added one of a different and peculiar nature-moral restraint. The latter check, however, the author expressly declares, has never yet prevailed in an adequate degree; nor does he hold out any reasonable hope that it is likely to do so for the time to come.

Now, if this be a true account of the matter—if

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