Page:Two Lectures on the Checks to Population.pdf/22

16 climate, which diminishes the field for the checks depending directly on want of subsistence, but of which the effects would not be lessened by the prevalence of moral restraint. Hence, considering the importance of a numerous population for the great object of national defence, the maxims of ancient legislators respecting the propriety of encouraging marriage were probably correct as general rules, and suitable to the times to which they were applied.

But now, when the invention of gunpowder has changed the whole art of war, which, partly from that cause, and partly from the greater humanity of modern times, has become much less destructive; when also from the improvement of medicine, and of the arts which supply the comforts of life, epidemic and other diseases, not depending on want of food, have abated in violence, the ancient doctrine is no longer suitable. The first class of checks, or, at least, so many belonging to that class, as are also of a positive description, having been contracted, a wider sphere is now opened for those depending on a scarcity of subsistence, and it has become a matter of importance, instead