with whom they are unable to contend for the chief authority. It is evident, therefore, that marriage through these causes, and not through itself, becomes burdensome and intolerable to many. It is proper, however, as it is said, neither to blame things which are innoxious, nor to make our imbecility in the use of things the cause of complaint against them. Besides, it is also in other respects most absurd, to investigate on all sides the auxiliaries of friendship, and procure certain friends and associates, as those who will aid and defend us in the difficulties of life, and yet not explore and endeavour to obtain that relief, defence, and assistance which are afforded us by nature, by the laws, and by the Gods, through a wife and children. With respect to a numerous offspring, it is after a certain manner, according to nature and consentaneous to marriage, that all, or the greatest part of those that are born, should be nurtured. Many, however, appear to be unpersuaded by this admonition, through a cause not very decorous: for they are thus affected through a love of riches, and because they think poverty to be a transcendently great evil. In the first place, therefore, it must be considered, that in procreating children, we not only beget assistants for ourselves, nourishers of our old age, and participants with us of every fortune and every circumstance that may occur in life;—I say, we do not beget them for ourselves alone, but in many things also for our parents. For the procreation of children is gratifying to them; because, if we should suffer any thing of a calamitous nature prior to their decease, we shall leave our children instead of ourselves, as the support of their old age. But it is a beautiful thing for a grandfather to be conducted by the hands of his grandchildren, and to be considered by them as deserving of every other attention. Hence, in the first place, we shall gratify our own parents, by paying attention to the procreation of children. And, in the next place, we shall cooperate with the prayers and ardent wishes of those that begot us. For they from the first were solicitous about our birth, conceiving that through it there would be a very extended succession of themselves, and that they shall leave behind them children of children, and have to pay attention to our marriage, our procreation, and nurture. Hence, by marrying and begetting children, we shall accomplish, as it were, a part of their prayers; but, by being of a contrary opinion, we shall cut off the object of their deliberate choice. _Moreover, it appears that every one who voluntarily, and without some prohibiting circumstance, avoids marriage, and the procreation of children, accuses his parents of madness, as not having engaged in wedlock with right conceptions of things._ It is easy also to see, that such a one forms an incongruous opinion. For how is it possible that he should not be full of dissension, who