Ch. iv. Objections to this Mode considered. 293 



ther; and to couple them even in imagination 

 betrays a gross ignorance of the simplest princi- 

 ples of political economy. 



A second objection that may be made to this 

 plan is, the diminution of population that it would 

 cause. It is to be considered, however, that this 

 diminution is merely relative ; and when once 

 this relative diminution has been effected, by 

 keeping the population stationary, while the sup- 

 ply of food has increased, it might then start 

 afresh, and continue increasing for ages, with the 

 increase of food, maintaining always nearly the 

 same relative proportion to it. I can easily con- 

 ceive that this country, with a proper direction 

 of the national industry, might, in the course of 

 some centuries, contain two or three times its 

 present population, and yet every man in the 

 kinsrdom be much better fed and clothed than he 

 is at present. While the springs of industry con- 

 tinue in vigour, and a sufficient part of that in- 

 dustry is directed to agriculture, we need be under 

 no apprehensions of a deficient population ; and 

 nothing perhaps would tend so strongly to excite 

 a spirit of industry and economy among the poor, 

 as a thorough knowledge that their happiness 

 must 'always depend principally upon themselves; 

 and that, if they obey their passions in opposition 

 to their reason, or be not industrious and frugal 

 while they are single, to save a sum for the 

 common contingencies of the married state, they 

 must expect to suffer the natural evils which 

 Providence has prepared for those who disobey 

 its repeated admonitions. 



