Page:Two Lectures on the Checks to Population.pdf/69

63 check is a motive for procrastination, and this can only be looked for in the assured prospect of an advance in circumstances with the advance in age. A curate, who is without hopes of further advancement, settles his mind to his condition, and marries at once upon his curacy. But, if he has reasonable expectation of preferment, he is apt to feed himself with hope, and, raising his ideas of comfort, and of the rank in society which he would wish his wife and family to hold, to the standard of his future prospects, to postpone his marriage until these prospects can be realized. The same principles are calculated equally to operate throughout all ranks of society.