Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/175

Rh Condorcet allows, that a class of people, which maintains itself entirely by industry, is necessary to every state. Why does he allow this? No other reason can well be assigned, than that he conceives that the labour necessary to procure subsistence for an extended population, will not be performed without the goad of necessity. If by establishments of this kind, this spur to industry be removed, if the idle and the negligent are placed upon the same footing with regard to their credit, and the future support of their wives and families, as the active and industrious; can we expect to see men exert that animated activity in bettering their condition, which now forms the master spring of public prosperity. If an inquisition were to be established, to examine the claims of each individual, and to determine whether he had, or had not, exerted himself to the Rh