ts effects appear in a rapid increase of the human
species? An intimate view of the state of society in any one country in
Europe, which may serve equally for all, will enable us to answer this
question, and to say that a foresight of the difficulties attending the
rearing of a family acts as a preventive check, and the actual
distresses of some of the lower classes, by which they are disabled
from giving the proper food and attention to their children, act as a
positive check to the natural increase of population.

England, as one of the most flourishing states of Europe, may be fairly
taken for an example, and the observations made will apply with but
little variation to any other country where the population increases
slowly.

The preventive check appears to operate in some degree through all the
ranks of society in England. There are some men, even in the highest
rank, who are prevented from marrying by the idea of the expenses that
they must retrench, and the fancied pleasures that they must deprive
themselves of, on the supposition of having a family. These
considerations are certainly trivial, but a preventive foresight of
this kind has objects of much greater weight for its contemplation as
we go lower.

A man of liberal education, but with an income only just sufficient to
enable him to associate in the rank of gentlemen, must feel absolutely
certain that if he marries and has a family he shall be obliged, if he
mixes at all in society, to rank himself with moderate farmers and the
lower class of tradesmen. The woman that a man of education would
naturally make the object of his choice would be one brought up in the
same tastes and sentiments with himself and used to the familiar
intercourse of a society totally different from that to which she must
be reduced by marriage. Can a man consent to place the object of his
affection in a situation so discordant, probably, to her tastes and
inclinations? Two or three steps of descent in society, particularly at
this round of the ladder, where education ends and ignorance begins,
will not be considered by the generality of people as a fancied and
chimerical, but a real and essential evil. If society be held
desirable, it surely must be free, equal, and reciprocal society, where
benefits are conferred as well as received, and not such as the
dependent finds with his patron or the poor with the rich.

These considerations undoubtedly prevent a great number in this ra