It is a singular fact that Mr. Godwin (_Reply_, p. 70), made a supposition respecting the number of children that might be allowed to each prolific marriage. That writer, however, did not enter into any detail as to the mode by which a greater number might be prevented. The last check which Mr. Godwin mentions, Mr. Malthus feels persuaded is the only one which that author would seriously recommend. It is “That sentiment, whether virtue, prudence, or pride, which continually restrains the universality and frequent repetition of the marriage contract.” He says he entirely approves of this check, and adds that the tendency to early marriage is so strong that we want every possible help that we can get to counteract it; and therefore he thinks that a system of equality like that proposed by Mr. Godwin, which tends to weaken the foundations of private property, and to lessen in any degree the full advantage and superiority which each individual may derive from his prudence, must remove the only counteracting weight to the passion of love that can be depended upon for any essential effect. Mr. Godwin acknowledges that in his system “the ill consequences of a numerous family will not come so coarsely home to each man’s individual interest as they do at present.” Mr. Malthus is sorry to say that from what we know hitherto of the human character, we can have no rational hopes of success without this coarse application to individual interest. In our author’s day it was out of the question for him to be aware that Mr. Godwin’s hint as to the limitation of the family would come to be the prominent social doctrine it has since become. In France, among the respectable classes the production of a large family is now looked upon as quite a mark of a low state of morality and culture; and so effectual has this public opinion become in that most remarkable state that the families of the professional classes are not even two on an average (1·74). That Mr. Malthus should have considered late marriage as the only remedy for poverty is easily understood. Experience alone can enable mankind to judge of how happiness is to be best attained; and it was doubtless because our incomparable writer on social questions, Mr. J. S. Mill, had so long resided in France that he could take the decided stand he did against the large families which cause such terrible misery in England and Germany. The result of this great prudence among the better classes of France is well shown by the very small excess of births over deaths. Thus, in 1879, the increase of population from this cause was but 92,000, whereas M. Yves Guyot speaks of a total of births in 1879 in unfortunate Ireland of 887,055, with a total of deaths of 500,348, which gives an excess of births over deaths, in a population of about five millions, of 386,707. No wonder that Ireland is so fond of emigration and still so steeped in poverty.