Page:Two Lectures on the Checks to Population.pdf/41

35 For, for the sake of argument, suppose it to prevail, and, by consequence, that the money wages of labour will command a considerable quantity of food. All labourers, therefore, without distinction, have apparently a greater power of maintaining with decency a large family. If all continue to abstain, they will retain this power. But here I ask, what is there to hinder individuals, who do not enter into the common feeling, from taking advantage of the general forbearance? What rule of prudence would they violate by doing so? Would they lower their rank in life? Would they be unable to transmit to their children the same advantages which they had themselves possessed? They might indeed have for a few years to deny themselves a few luxuries of dress or furniture, or otherwise, possibly, to submit to harder work and harder fare in order to retain them. But these inconveniences could not be sufficient, in the judgment even of the most prudent person, to counterbalance the real advantages of a wife and family, and to induce the preference of a life of celibacy. Neither would they furnish any material grounds for delay; since,