of beggars, and shall relieve them of the disgusting sight of abject
poverty.'" O wonderful man!

From these facts, which I might multiply still farther, two things are
to be inferred,--the one, that pauperism is independent of population;
the other, that all attempts hitherto made at its extermination have
proved abortive.

Catholicism founds hospitals and convents, and commands charity; that
is, she encourages mendicity. That is the extent of her insight as
voiced by her priests.

The secular power of Christian nations now orders taxes on the rich,
now banishment and imprisonment for the poor; that is, on the one hand,
violation of the right of property, and, on the other, civil death and
murder.

The modern economists--thinking that pauperism is caused by the excess
of population, exclusively--have devoted themselves to devising checks.
Some wish to prohibit the poor from marrying; thus,--having denounced
religious celibacy,--they propose compulsory celibacy, which will
inevitably become licentious celibacy.

Others do not approve this method, which they deem too violent; and
which, they say, deprives the poor man of THE ONLY PLEASURE WHICH HE
KNOWS IN THIS WORLD. They would simply recommend him to be PRUDENT. This
opinion is held by Malthus, Sismondi, Say, Droz, Duchatel, &c. But if
the poor are to be PRUDENT, the rich must set the example. Why should
the marriageable age of the latter be fixed at eighteen years, while
that of the former is postponed until thirty?

Again, they would do well to explain clearly what they mean by this
matrimonial prudence which they so urgently recommend to the laborer;
for here equivocation is especially dangerous, and I suspect that
the economists are not thoroughly understood. "Some half-enlightened
ecclesiastics are alarmed when they hear prudence in marriage advised;
they fear that the divine injunction--INCREASE AND MULTIPLY--is to be
set aside. To be logical, they must anathematize bachelors." (J. Droz:
Political Economy.)

M. Droz is too honest a man, and too little of a theologian, to see why
these casuists are so alarmed; and this chaste ignorance is the very
best evidence of the purity of his heart. Religion never has encouraged
early marriages; and the kind of PRUDENCE which it condemns is that
described in this Latin sentence from Sanchez,--_An licet ob metum
liberorum semen extra vas ejicere_?

Destutt de Tracy seems to dislike prudence in either form. He sa