Ch. xiii. Pinnciples on this Subject. 425 



all ages is what we ought to aim at. "We cannot 

 however elFect this object, without first crowding 

 the population in some degree by making more 

 children grow up to manhood; but we shall do 

 no harm in this respect, if, at the same time, we 

 can impress these children with the idea, that, to 

 possess the same advantages as their parents, they 

 must defer marriage till they have a fair prospect 

 of being able to maintain a family. And it must 

 be candidly confessed that, if w^e cannot do this, 

 all our former efforts will have been thrown away. 

 It is not in the nature of things that any permanent 

 and general improvement in the condition of the 

 poor can be effected without an increase in .the 

 preventive check; and unless this take place, 

 either with or without our efforts, every thing 

 that is done for the poor must be temporary and 

 partial: a diminution of mortality at present will 

 be balanced by an increased mortality in future ; 

 and the improvement of their condition in one 

 place will proportionally depress it in another. 

 This is a truth so important, and so little underr 

 stood, that it can scarcely be too often insisted on. 

 Paley, in a chapter on population, provision, 

 &c., in his Moral Philosophy, observes, that the 

 condition most favourable to the population of a 

 country, and at the same time to its general hap- 

 piness, is, " that of a laborious frugal people mi- 

 " nistering to the demands of an opulent luxurious 

 " nation/'* Such a form of society has not, it 



* Vol. ii. c. xi. p. 359. From a passage in Palcy's Nalmal 

 Theology, I am inclined to tliink that subsequent reflection induced 



