Ch. iii. improving the Condition of the Poor. 285 



But in this respect there is an essential differ- 

 ence between that improved state of society, which 

 1 have supposed in the last chapter, and most of 

 the other speculations on this subject. The im- 

 provement there supposed, if we ever should make 

 approaches towards it, is to be effected in the 

 way in which we have been in the habit of seeing 

 all the greatest improvements effected, by a direct 

 application to the interest and happiness of each 

 individual. It is not required of us to act from 

 motives to which we are unaccustomed; to pursue 

 a general good, which we may not distinctly com- 

 prehend, or the effect of which may be weakened 

 by distance and diffusion. The happiness of the 

 whole is to be the result of the happiness of indi- 

 viduals, and to begin first with them. No co- 

 operation is required. Every step tells. He who 

 performs his duty faithfully will reap the full fruits 

 of it, whatever may be the number of others who 

 fail. This duty is intelHgible to the humblest 

 capacity. It is merely, that he is not to bring 

 beings into the workl, for whom he cannot find the 

 means of support. When once this subject is 

 cleared from the obscurity thrown over it by pa- 

 rochial laws and private benevolence, every man 

 must feel the strongest conviction of such an ob- 

 ligation. If he cannot support his children, they 

 must starve ; and if he marry in the face of a fair 

 probability that he shall not be able to support his 

 children, he is guilty of all the evils, which he thus 

 brings upon himself, his wife and his offspring. It 

 is clearly his interest, and will tend greatly to 



