nent or temporary, on the soil, but
tend also to prevent these great oscillations in the progress of
agriculture and commerce which are seldom unattended with evil.

_IV.--Moral Restraint and Discriminate Charity_

As it appears that in the actual state of every society which has come
within our view the natural progress of population has been constantly
and powerfully checked, and as it seems evident that no improved form of
government, no plans of emigration, no direction of natural industry
can prevent the continued action of a great check to population in some
form or other, it follows that we must submit to it as an inevitable law
of nature, and the only inquiry that remains is how it may take place
with the least possible prejudice to the virtue and happiness of human
society.

All the immediate checks to population which have been observed to
prevail in the same and different countries seem to be resolvable into
moral restraint, vice, and misery; and if our choice be confined to
those three, we cannot long hesitate in our decision. It seems certain
that moral restraint is the only virtuous and satisfactory mode of
escape from the evils of over-population. Without such moral restraint,
and if it were the custom to marry at the age of puberty, no virtue,
however great, could rescue society from a most wretched and desperate
state of want, with its concomitant diseases and famines.

Prudential restraint, if it were generally adopted, would soon raise the
price of labour by narrowing its supply, and those practising it would
save money and acquire habits of sobriety, industry, and economy such as
should ensure happy married life. Further, postponement of marriage
would give both sexes a better opportunity to choose life-partners
wisely and well; and the passion, instead of being extinguished by early
sensuality, would burn the more brightly because repressed for a time,
and attained as the prize of industry and virtue, and as the reward of a
genuine attachment.

Moral restraint in this matter is a Christian duty. There are, perhaps,
few actions that tend so directly to diminish the general happiness as
to marry without the means of supporting children. He who commits this
act clearly offends against the will of God, for he violates his duty to
his neighbours and to himself, and listens to the voice of passion
rather than fulfils his higher obligations. The duty is intelligible to
the meanest capacity.

It is