Page:Two Lectures on the Checks to Population.pdf/49

43 motives for moral restraint which their circumstances would then suggest. The peculiarity of their condition consists in the great expansion of their means of subsistence, which occurs in the time of spring and summer, and its subsequent contraction in winter. Hence, after each annual reduction of their numbers, the survivors, upon the return of the season, have abundant means for maintaining a family. Where then are we to look for motives for moral restraint? In the chance of starvation in the winter? But this chance will not be sensibly varied whether they refrain or not. They possess the means of subsistence in common, and before winter the helplessness of the first period of life having passed, each family can then take in proportion to its number out of the common stock. In the same manner, a labourer obtaining good employment, with a prospect of its continuance during ten or twelve years, may marry upon that prospect without violating the rules of prudence.

It may be said indeed, that, instead of extravagantly squandering his temporary income in the maintenance of a family, he might save it for himself