and religion neglected, not indeed where the laws themselves are founded in injustice and immorality, but certainly where the opposite virtues are merely sufficiently prevalent to render them upon the whole the ruling principles upon which public and private conduct is regulated. The degree of happiness and civilization will of course depend upon the extent to which the habits and dispositions of the people prompt them to a ready obedience or to a profligate resistance to such laws; but as long as the principle of virtue is strong enough to maintain them in the respect of the people, and to ensure a general obedience to their enactments, so long will the society continue to advance, and the spontaneous arrangements of the people to produce those political effects which have been detailed in the preceding chapters of this treatise. If this hypothesis be just, it must follow of course that any principle of conduct, which is allowable on grounds of morality and religion, cannot be politically mischievous, since those grounds are asserted to form the criterion to which, and to which only, political expediency can with certainty be referred. In other words nothing can be politically expedient that is inconsistent with morals and religion; and every thing plainly consistent with them is politically expedient as a fundamental principle of action. Here then another very wide field of difference is opened between the principles of this treatise and those which it is my object to oppose. By these many actions perfectly allowable upon moral and religious grounds, some indeed which appear to be specifically commanded as branches of our duty, are concluded to be contrary to the well-being of society, and alto gether inconsistent with the views of Providence for the government of the world. The course of nature is set up against the divine laws, and the principle of political expediency against the revealed will of God. Now there are two ways of attacking positions of this nature, either by asserting at once that Providence is a better judge of its own work, and consequently of what is expedient to keep it in due course, than any human philosopher can pretend to be; which at once precludes all argument except as to what really is the revealed will of God. The other method, and upon the whole perhaps the most satisfactory, in so far as the proof can be clearly made out, is to show that, upon fair principles of philosophy unaided by higher authority, the duties which are commanded, and the actions which are permitted, are in themselves expedient and in their consequences beneficial to society: and while we carefully abstain from any idea that the authority of the divine laws is at all affected by our necessarily confined notions concerning their expediency, we may be thankful that on many important points of practical conduct the proof of that expediency lies so much within the scope of our intellectual faculties. The last is the method which I mean to pursue on the present occasion, and shall in the following chapters select the most prominent of the actions and duties connected with this inquiry; first endeavouring to show the extent to which we are commanded or permitted to practise them, and then to exhibit the degree in which the expediency and advantages of practising them can be proved from the arguments of the two preceding books. 66 CHAPTER II. Of the Nature and Extent of the Duty of It is surely superfluous in these days, and most are only increasing the quantum of human misery. While we assist some we are proportionably depressing others, and adding to that number which is already exuberant to a fault. It is impossible to parry this conclusion; and although the humanity of many who profess to admit its truth, especially of the author of the Essay on Population, very naturally recoils from the proposition, nothing can more strongly mark its practical deficiency when applied to the exigences of human life than the manner in which he endeavours to escape from it. They say that general principles should not be pushed too far; and that cases may occur where the good resulting may more than overbalance the evil to be apprehended. But if the principle be true, how is it possible to know that the beings we thus exalt may be more worthy than those so unjustifiably depressed? If the world be already miserable because it has a continual tendency to repletion, all charity which encourages marriage among the lower orders in order to promote happiness and morality, which assists women in child-birth, which promotes vaccination and the cure of painful and distressing diseases, which helps in short any of the poor to rear their children in soundness of body, which bestows relief upon the old who have not saved a provision from their youthful earnings, which saves in any manner the life of one whose death would set his fellow-creatures more at ease, is a criminal indulgence of individual feeling at the expense of the general welfare of mankind: since by the exercise of any one of these charities towards one individual, we reduce another, who may deserve it less, to the same distress from which the object of our benevolence is relieved. This is the plain, manly, and consistent conclusion to be drawn from the premises. He who is thoroughly convinced of the truth of the latter must of course think it his duty, however painful it may be, to act up to the former. Nor can this opinion or conduct be at all altered by a mere recommendation from the person who, as he thinks, has established the principles, not to push them too far, because the benefit he may bestow upon one individual may perchance be greater than the injury he will certainly do to another. He may reasonably doubt this; and the doubt may serve very strongly to fortify the natural inclination, of which we are most of us too sensible, to keep our money in our pockets. Again, the goodness and justice of the Divine Providence, in the precepts it has laid down for the exercise of our charity, are no less implicated in the conclusions referred to. In addition to the texts just quoted, we are commanded absolutely, and without any reference to its effects upon society, “to give unto the poor sufficient for his need," " to deal bread to the hungry," "to cover the naked," and so forth. The law is represented as of the highest obligation, and not only strict, but generous obedience to it as the most decisive test of faith. is too broad a principle of duty to be palliated or denied: and being so, we are surely justified in presuming à priori, that a compliance with it can never endanger the welfare of those towards whom it is exercised, by enlarging the boundaries of vice and misery amongst them. Nor is it easy to reconcile our minds to the solution of this difficulty, which has been attempted, by saying, "that the Scriptures command us to give to the poor, but are quite silent This |