Ch. ii. and the Mode of their Operation. 15 



jugal and parental affection, and to lessen the 

 united exertions and ardour of parents in the care 

 and education of their children; — effects which 

 cannot take place without a decided diminution 

 of the general happiness and virtue of the society; 

 particularly as the necessity of art in the accom- 

 plishment and conduct of intrigues, and in the 

 concealment of their consequences necessarily 

 leads to many other vices. 



The positive checks to population are extremely 

 various, and include every cause, whether arising 

 from vice or misery, which in any degree contri- 

 butes to shorten the natural duration of human 

 life. Under this head, therefore, may be enu- 

 merated all unwholesome occupations, severe 

 labour and exposure to the seasons, extreme 

 poverty, bad nursing of children, great towns, 

 excesses of all kinds, the whole train of common 

 diseases and epidemics, wars, plague, and famine. 



On examining these obstacles to the increase of 

 population which I have classed under the heads 

 of preventive and positive checks, it will appear 

 that they are all resolvable into moral restraint, 

 vice, and misery. 



Of the preventive checks, the restraint from 

 marriage which is not followed by irregular grati- 

 fications may properly be termed moral restraint.* 



* It will be observed, tbat I here use the term moral in its most 

 confined sense. By moral restraint I would be understood to mean 

 a restraint from marriage, from prudential motives, with a conduct 

 strictly moral during the period of this restraint ; and I have never 

 intentionally deviated from this sense. When I have wished to 



