Lord Derby, some years ago, truly observed that great emperors did not like their subjects to be too well off. This remark may have been a citation from Malthus, where he says: “The ambition of princes would want instruments of destruction, if the distresses of the lower classes of their subjects did not drive them under their standards. A recruiting sergeant always prays for a bad harvest and want of employment, or in other words, a redundant population.” Mr. Malthus points out that a society with a low birth-rate will be extremely powerful both in war and peace. One of the principal encouragements to an offensive war would be removed, and there would be greater freedom from political dissensions at home. “Indisposed to a war of offence, in a war of defence such a society would be strong as a rock of adamant. Where every family possessed the necessaries of life or plenty, and a decent portion of its comforts and conveniences, there could not exist that hope of change, or at best that melancholy and disheartening indifference to it, which sometimes prompts the lower classes of people to say—Let what will come, we cannot be worse off than we are now.” In chapter iii. Mr. Malthus speaks rather gloomily as to the prospect of Society adopting his recommendation of late marriages, “I believe (he says) that few of my readers can be less sanguine of expectations of any great change in the general conduct of men on this subject than I am.” He proposes it, it seems, in order chiefly to vindicate the character of the Deity! This is at present known by all scientific inquirers to be a fallacious argument; and we cannot but contrast with our great author’s vacillating doctrine, the clear line of duty laid down by the greatest of his followers, Mr. J. S. Mill, when he says that the happiness of society is quite attainable, if only it becomes a rule of morals that the producing of large families in Europe should be looked upon as a vice.