Page:Malthus 1807 A letter to Samuel Whitbread.djvu/12

 motives to the exercise and improvement both of our intellectual energies and our moral feelings.

But though to banish poverty from society be a task which, if not absolutely impossible, is clearly beyond the power of legislative regulations; yet the slightest glance at the state of different countries will indicate such important variations in the pressure of this evil, as to give us the best grounded hopes of being able to lighten a burden which we cannot remove. In this noble and animating task however we must expect to meet with difficulties of no inconsiderable magnitude, on every side to which we turn our view. And this consideration makes it pre-eminently the duty of the legislature, while it violates no positive precepts of morality, to be guided in its decisions by general rather than particular consequences.