Page:Malthus 1807 A letter to Samuel Whitbread.djvu/36

 would have a tendency to depress the independent labourer, to weaken in some degree the springs of industry and good conduct, and to put virtue and vice more on a level than they would be in the natural course of things; but as in all human institutions it is impossible to avoid some disadvantages, it might fairly be urged that the certain relief of the aged and the helpless, of those who had met with misfortunes which no common prudence could have avoided, and of those who had a greater number of children than they could be expected to foresee, would more than counterbalance those inconveniencies, and that the good would preponderate over the evil. I had certainly much rather that the poor were deterred from very early and improvident marriages by the fear of dependent poverty than by the contemplation of positive distress; but this concession implies that dependent poverty is so undesirable, that if it involved a large portion of the society, the evil would entirely overwhelm the good.