326 NATTTRAL THEOLOaY. 



scribes the condition of the mass of the community in all 

 countries : a condition unavoidably, as it should seem, result- 

 ing from the provision which is made in the human, in com- 

 mon with all animal constitutions, for the perpetuity and 

 multiplication of the species. 



It need not however rlishearten any endeavors for the 

 public service, to know that population naturally treads 

 upon the heels of improvement. If the condition of a people 

 be meliorated, the consequence will be, either that the mean 

 happiness will be increased, or a greater number partake of 

 it ; or, which is most likely to happen, that both eflects will 

 take place together. There may be Hmits fixed by nature 

 to both, but they are hmits not yet attained, nor even ap- 

 proached, in any country of the world. 



And when we speak of limits at all, we have respect 

 only to provisions for animal wants. There are sources, 

 and means, and auxiliaries, and augmentations of human 

 happiness, communicable without restriction of numbers ; 

 as capable of being possessed by a thousand persons as by 

 one. Such are those which flow from a mild, contrasted 

 with a tyrannic government, Avhether civil or domestic ; 

 those which spring from religion ; those which grow out of 

 a sense of security ; those which depend upon habits of vir- 

 tue, sobriety, moderation, order; those, lastly, which are 

 found in the possession of well-directed tastes and desires, 

 compared with the dominion of tormenting, pernicious, con- 

 tradictory, unsatisfied, and unsatisfiable passions. 



The clistiTictions of civil life are apt enough to be regard- 

 ed as evils by those who sit under them ; but, in my opin- 

 ion, with very little reason. 



In the first place, the advantages which the higher con- 

 ditions of life are supposed to confer, bear no proportion in 

 value to the advantages which are bestowed by nature. The 

 gifts of nature always surpass the gifts of fortune. How 

 much, for example, is activity better than attendance ; beau- 

 ty than dress ; appetite, digestion, and tranrpiil bowels, than 



