Ch. xiv. respecting future Improvements. 439 



would receive it with more thankfulness, and 

 more justly appreciate its value. 



If these truths were by degrees more generally 

 known, (which in the course of time does not seem 

 to be improbable from the natural effects of the 

 mutual interchange of opinions,) the lower classes 

 of people, as a body, would become more peace- 

 able and orderly, would be less inclined to tumul- 

 tuous proceedings in seasons of scarcity, and 

 would at all times be less influenced by inflam- 

 matory and seditious publications, from knowing 

 how little the price of labour and the means of 

 supporting a family depend upon a revolution. 

 The mere knowledge of these truths, even if they 

 did not operate sufficiently to produce any marked 

 change in the prudential habits of the poor with 

 regard to marriage, would still have a most bene- 

 ficial effect on their conduct in a political' light ; 

 and undoubtedly, one of the most valuable of 

 these effects would be the power, that would re- 

 sult to the higher and middle classes of society, 

 of gradually improving their governments,* with- 

 out the apprehension of those revolutionary ex- 

 cesses, the fear of which, at present, threatens to 



* I cani>ot believe that the removal of all unjust grounds of 

 discontent against constituted authorities would render the people 

 torpid and indifferent to advantages, which are really attainable. 

 Tlie blessings of civil liberty are so great that they surely cannot 

 need the aid of false colouring to make them desirable. I should 

 be sorry to think that the lower classes of people could never be 

 animated to assert their rights but by means-of such illusory pro- 

 mises, as will generally make the remedy of resistance much worse 

 than the disease which it was intended to cure. 



