Ch. ii. of moral Restraint. 281 



a redundant population, in this way, would remove 

 one of the principal encouragements to offensive 

 war; and at the same time tend powerfully to 

 eradicate those two fatal political disorders, in- 

 ternal tyranny and internal tumult, which mutually 

 produce each other. 



Indisposed to a war of offence, in a war of de- 

 fence, such a society would be strong as a rock of 

 adamant. Where every family possessed the ne- 

 cessaries of live in plenty, and a decent portion of 

 its comforts and conveniences, there could not ex- 

 ist that hope of change, or at best that melancholy 

 and disheartening indifference to it, which some- 

 times prompts the lower classes of people to say, 

 " Let what will come, we cannot be worse off than 

 we are now." Every heart and hand will be united 

 to repel an invader, when each individual felt the 

 value of the solid advantages which he enjoyed, 

 and a prospect of change presented only a pros- 

 pect of being deprived of them. 



As it appears therefore, that it is in the power 

 ofeach individual to avoid all the evil consequences 

 to himself and society resulting from the principle 

 of population, by the practice of a virtue clearly 

 dictated to him by the light of nature, and ex- 

 pressly enjoined in revealed religion ; and as we 

 have reason to think, that the exercise of this vir- 

 tue to a certain degree would tend rather to in- 

 crease than diminish individual happiness; we can 

 have no reason to impeach the justice of the Deity, 

 because his general laws make this virtue neces- 

 sary, and punish our offences against it by the 



