most prominent, and deserves especial remark, as being totally unknown in those conditions of society where an equal hand supplies alike the thoughtless and the temperate, the frugal and the extravagant. This duty arises out of the rapid growth of population. The difficulty which exists in an old and fully peopled country, of acquiring support in the rank and sphere to which each individual belongs by birth, requires an habitual restraint, and a prudent denial of those inclinations which, in other circumstances of the human race, are only felt to be gratified. Since the desires which it is

* Should any one be inclined to question the wisdom of a provision which requires this restraint, and allege its frequent infraction as an argnment against the dispensation, let him reflect on the state of those countries where the restraint is disregarded, or where there is little occasion for its exercise; as in many parts of the East, and among the Polynesians, &c. Their example is a sufficient proof how little is gained, on the score of morality, by the facility of gratification, or the absence of restraint. America is a case still more in point, being generally understood to be the country where marriage takes place earlier, and more easily, than in any other of equal civilization. Yet it is not represented as superior in the virtue of chastity to countries where the multi

necessary to subject to these checks, are always natural, and sometimes laudable; and since the evils which attend their gratification are prospective and even distant, while the gratification is itself immediate ; reason has here an occasion of exercising her peculiar province, in keeping the right balance between opposite interests; and the right use of that province leads to the perfection of those virtues which are the chief ornament and characteristic of man.

It is equally true with respect to the lowest

:

plication of the species is ten times slower. Among European nations, where the duty of restraint is recognised, the sexual passion is the great touchstone of virtue, and of the efficacy of religion. That it is too often violated, all must lament that it is observed to a considerable extent, no one can deny; or that its observance would be more general and easy if proper attention were paid to the subject in education, and if absurd custom had not authorized the habitual use of inflammatory liquors, at an age which by no means requires any such artificial incitement. The Creator has not made the indulgence of any passion obligatory on mankind; but vicious custom may pervert the intention of nature, and change a necessary provision into a moral poison.

See, on the first part of the subject of this note, Malthus's Observations, vol. ii. p. 493.

ranks, that their peculiar circumstances open at once a field both for the trial of their virtue and the improvement of their reason. To see so many around them in the easy and undisturbed possession of what they are themselves incessantly labouring to attain, because their own ancestors have been either less prudent or less fortunate, requires the constant exertion of patient contentment. Their reason is employed meanwhile, in some cases, to point out the advantage of preserving a cheerful equanimity under those hardships which no discontent can remove or alleviate; and in others, to discover what prospect there may be of meliorating, by successful industry, the difficulties inseparable from the very lowest condition. lowest condition. The struggle

to escape this is the constant spur of labour. Reason must teach the foresight which enables a healthy and vigorous youth to provide against the infirmities of age; and by which a father points out to his children the path in which they may tread the rough road of life with fewest obstacles, and the fairest prospect of success. By this right application of the rational faculties,

poverty may be rendered tolerable, and indi

gence avoided.

These conditions, it must be

ever remembered, are essentially distinct and separate. Poverty is often both honourable and comfortable; but indigence can only be pitiable, and is usually contemptible. Poverty is not only the natural lot of many, in a well-constituted society, but is necessary, that a society may be well constituted. Indigence, on the contrary, is seldom the natural lot of any, but is commonly the state into which intemperance and want of prudent foresight push poverty: the punishment which the moral government of God inflicts in this world upon thoughtlessness and guilty extravagance. It is one of the moral advantages of civil society, that every condition has a tendency to sink into the degree immediately below it, unless that tendency is counteracted by prudence and activity; and the descent, which from the higher ranks becomes degradation, from the lower becomes indigence.

From the collected aggregate of these various duties, results that mutual dependence and

connexion, which is the bond of society.

The

labour of the lowest class, which feeds the superfluities of the highest, like the vapour which has been drawn from the earth, descends again in a thousand channels, and fertilizes the soil into which it falls. There are persons, it must be confessed, who, in such a constitution of things, can see only "a spirit of oppression, a spirit of servility, and a spirit of fraud;" and, in truth, among the infinite varieties and corruptions of the human mind, some will doubtless find an occasion of falling, where others find an occasion of virtue. But it may be maintained, that, exclusive of the particular duties which this scheme of society renders incumbent on each individual, and every class of individuals, the general spirit of dependence, the general connexion, not necessary but voluntary, is highly favourable to that benevolence which was truly said to approximate mankind nearest to the divine nature. There is little in the situation of man, which can make us select independence as most congenial to him. For his original and his continued existence, he is indebted to his