Ch. vi. in France. 377 



to mourn the two millions and a half of individuals 

 which she may have lost, but not their posterity; 

 because, if these individuals had remained in the 

 country, a proportionate number of children, born 

 of other parents, which are now living in France, 

 would not have come into existence. If, in the 

 best governed country in Europe, we were to 

 mourn the posterity which is prevented from 

 coming into being, we should always wear the 

 habit of grief. 



It is evident that the constant tendency of the 

 births in every country to supply the vacancies 

 made by death, cannot, in a moral point of view, 

 afford the slightest shadow of excuse for the wanton 

 sacrifice of men. The positive evil that is com- 

 mitted in this case, the pain, misery, and wide- 

 spreading desolation and sorrow, that are occa- 

 sioned to the existing inhabitants, can by no 

 means be counterbalanced by the consideration, 

 that the numerical breach in the population will 

 be rapidly repaired. We can have no other right, 

 moral or political, except that of the most urgent 

 necessity, to exchange the lives of beings in the 

 full vigour of their enjoyments, for an equal num- 

 ber of helpless infants. 



It should also be remarked that, though the nu- 

 merical population of France may not have suf- 

 fered by the revolution, yet, if her losses have 

 been in any degree equal to the conjectures on 

 the subject, her military strength cannot be unim- 

 paired. Her population at present must consist 

 of a much greater proportion than usual of women 



