the offence is venal; for he premised it by making her, at the altar, an “honest woman.” If a married father neglect his children, it is a trifle; for grace was regularly said, before they were born. So true is this, that if some heterodox moralist were to throw out the idea, that many of the rudenesses and jarrings, and much of the indifference and carelessness of each others’ feelings that is exhibited in married life, might be traced to the almost universal custom (in this country though not in France) of man and wife continually occupying the same bed—if he put it to us whether such a forced and too frequent familiarity were not calculated to lessen the charms and pleasures, and diminish the respectful regard and deference, which ought ever to characterize the intercourse of human beings—if, I say, some heretical preferrer of things to forms were to light upon and express some such unlucky idea as this, ten to one the married portion of the community would fall upon him without mercy, as an impertinent intermeddler in their most legitimate rights and prerogatives. With such a world as this, it is a difficult matter to reason. After listening to all I have said, it may perhaps cut me short by reminding me, that nature herself declares it to be right and proper, that we should reproduce our species without calculation or restraint. I will ask, in reply, whether nature also declares it to be right and proper, that when the thermometer is at 96°, we should drink greedily of cold water, and drop down dead in the streets? Let the world be told, that if nature gave us our passions and propensities, she gave us also the power wisely to control them; and that, when we hesitate to exercise that power we descend to a level with the brute creation, and become the sport of fortune—the mere slaves of circumstance.[24] To one other argument it were not, perhaps, worth while to advert, but that it has been already speciously used to excite popular prejudice. It has been said, that to recommend to mankind prudential restraint in cases where children cannot be provided for, is an insult to the poor man; since all ought to be so circumstanced that they might provide amply for the largest family. Most assuredly all _ought_ to be so circumstanced; but all _are_ not. And there would be just as much propriety in bidding a poor man to go and take by force a piece of Saxony broadcloth from his neighbour’s store, because he _ought_ to be able to purchase it, as to encourage him to go on producing children, because he _ought_ to have wherewithal to support them. Let us exert every nerve to correct the injustice and arrest the misery that results from a vicious order of things; but, until we have done so, let us not, for humanity’s sake, madly recommend that which grievously aggravates the evil; which increases the burden on the present generation, and threatens with neglect and ignorance the next.