Page:Two Lectures on the Checks to Population.pdf/13

7 be had for nothing, and to have to maintain those who contribute no addition to it, must of course imply either a deduction from the existing stock, or a compensation derived either from increased labour or extraneous sources.

An American, we will suppose, settles in the woods, marries and has a family. He clears his ground, builds his house, plants an orchard, incloses his fields. As time rolls on, he acquires experience, obtains a knowledge of the localities, finds out the most advantageous channels of trade, his orchard becomes productive, the cultivation of his land becomes more easy, he improves his habitation, every year adds to his comforts, and eventually he surrounds himself with many of the conveniences and luxuries of refined life. In a word, his daily enjoyments depend much more on accumulation, than on the daily labour of himself or of his family. His children are brought up participating in all these advantages. Thus comfortably situated at home, have they no cause for hesitation, or for an interval of preparation, before they venture upon marriage? Surely they have, and so long as man is a reasoning animal, and not only