THE LAW OF POPULATION 151 



the part of those marrying as to whether they had 

 a reasonable prospect of being able to maintain a wife 

 and family in the future. Accordingly he held that 

 the neglect of this check of moral restraint, which he 

 made to consist in a man's abstaining from marrying 

 until he has satisfied himself that he has a reasonable 

 prospect of maintaining a wife and family in the future, 

 was the main cause of the tendency to over-population, 

 which called for the action of his positive checks to over- 

 come it: for, as he said, "Moral restraint, whatever hopes 

 we may entertain of its action in the future, has acted 

 in the past history of the race with inconsiderable force." 

 Let us see how the case really stands. The young 

 working man, who is in receipt of a daily wage, which 

 he considers to be, in the case of his fellow-workmen, 

 sufficient to maintain a wife and family, marries in the 

 confidence that his health will be preserved to him in 

 the coming years, and that the daily wage will not fail 

 him in those years. This confidence forms the principal 

 asset of his estate, which he takes into account when 

 he forms the marriage tie. But no man can foresee 

 what the morrow will bring forth as to his health 

 or his life. The young working man, therefore, has 

 no certainty that his health will not fail him, or that 

 he will not leave a wife and young children destitute. 

 But if the thought of this possibility acted upon him 

 as a deterrent from marrying, he. would never marry. 

 Yet he considers himself justified, when contemplating 

 marriage, in entertaining a confident hope that his 

 health and life will be praserved until his children 



