Ch. xiii. among- the Greeks. 241 



o 



man who had three sons, was exempt from the 

 night-watch; and he who had four, enjoyed a 

 complete immunity from all public burdens. But 

 it is evident, as Aristotle most justly observes, 

 that the birth of a great number of children, the 

 division of the lands remaining the same, would 

 necessarily cause only an accumulation of po- 

 verty.* 



He here seems to see exactly the error into 

 which many other legislators besides Lycurgus 

 have fallen; and to be fully aware that to en- 

 courage the birth of children, without providing 

 properly for their 'support, is to obtain a very 

 small accession to the population of a country at 

 the expense of a very great accession of misery. 



The legislator of Crete,-f~ as well as Solon, 

 Pheidon, Plato and Aristotle, saw the necessity 

 of checking population in order to prevent general 

 poverty; and as we must suppose that the 

 opinions of such men, and the laws founded upon 

 them, would have considerable influence, it is 

 probable that the preventive check to increase, 

 from late marriages and other causes, operated 

 in a considerable degree among the free citizens 

 of Greece. 



For the positive checks to population we need 

 not look beyond the wars in which these small 

 states were almost continually engaged; though 

 we have an account of one wasting plague, at 



* De Repub. lib. ii. c. ix. Gillies's Aristot. vol. ii. b. ii. p. 107. 

 t Aristot. de Rcpub. lib. ii. c. x. Gillies's Aristot. vol. ii. b. ii. 

 p. 113. 



VOL. I. r 



