INCREASE OF THE POPULATION. 291 



so from good motives. On the one hand, there are 

 many who attribute a large proportion not only of the 

 misery, but of the immorality, actually existent among 

 us to overcrowding, not in the wider sense in which 

 countries and districts are overcrowded, but as over- 

 crowding affects the houses or homes of individuals. 

 On the other hand, there are many who consider not 

 only that increase of misery is amply compensated by 

 the existence of a new soul, and the chance which this 

 soul has of future beatitude (to say nothing of the 

 necessity which, it would seem, exists for new recruits 

 both above and below), but that, whether there is 

 compensation in this way or not, men have no choice 

 in the matter : their bounden duty is to increase and 

 multiply as fast as Nature will permit. This being so, 

 it would seem that these good motives on both sides 

 should be fairly recognised, and charges of impiety on 

 the one hand, and of want of feeling on the other, 

 should be avoided. It would be impious, doubtless, 

 for those who regard increase and multiplication as 

 divine commands to advocate any limitations, whether 

 by late marriages or otherwise, to the development of 

 our population , r and, on the other hand, it would be 

 decidedly wrong of those who consider, with Mill, that 

 * causing the existence of a human being is one of the 

 most responsible actions in the range of human life,' 

 to urge that men should undertake this responsibility 

 where the life bestowed is far more likely to be a curse 

 than a blessing a curse not only to the creature called 



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