Ch. i. Of moral Restraint. 257 



cases are similar and uniform. They indicate 

 to us that we have followed these impulses too 

 far, so as to trench upon some other law, which 

 equally demands attention. The uneasiness we feel 

 from repletion, the injuries that we inflict on our- 

 selves or others in anger, and the inconveniencies 

 we suffer on the approach of poverty, are all ad- 

 monitions to us to regulate these impulses better; 

 and if we heed not this admonition, we justly incur 

 the penalty of our disobedience, and our sufferings 

 operate as a warning to others. 



From the inattention of mankind hitherto to 

 the consequences of increasing too fast, it must 

 be presumed, that these consequences are not so 

 immediately and powerfully connected with the 

 conduct which leads to them, as in the other in- 

 stances; but the delayed knowledge of particular 

 effects does not alter their nature, or our obliga- 

 tion to regulate our conduct accordingly, as soon 

 as we are satisfied of what this conduct ought to 

 be. In many other instances it has not been till 

 after long and painful experience, that the conduct 

 most favourable to the happiness of man has been 

 forced upon his attention. The kind of food, and 

 the mode of preparing it, best suited to the pur- 

 poses of nutrition and the gratification of the pa- 

 late; the treatment and remedies of different dis- 

 orders ; the bad effects on the human frame of low 

 and marshy situations ; the invention of the most 

 convenient and comfortable clothing ; the con- 

 struction of good houses ; and all the advantages 

 and extended enjoyments, which distinguish ci- 



VOL. II. s 



