Naturally enough, this difference of choice by the two peoples is to be explained by the difference in their previous circumstances. The Irish people, robbed by violence of their own higher classes, and, therefore, and on this account precisely, almost entirely destitute of a middle class, had lost the check on increase they possessed in the middle ages, without having as yet assimilated to themselves the checks which come with a higher stage of culture. Their political, ecclesiastical and social oppression allowed them no hope of rising by temporary sacrifices and energetic efforts permanently to a better condition as citizens or gentlemen. Only the free man cares for the future. Hence, the sexual thoughtlessness and blind good nature, the original tendencies of the Irish people, necessarily remained without anything to counterbalance them. It always supposes a high degree of intelligence and self-restraint among the lower classes, when an increase in the thing-value, or the real value of wages, does not produce an increase in the number of workmen, but in their well-being. The individual is too apt to think that it matters little to the whole community whether he brings children into the world or not, a species of egotism which has done most injury to the interests in common of mankind. As a rule, it requires a great and palpable enhancement of wages to make workmen, as a class, raise their standard of living.[163-5] [163-6] [Footnote 163-1: Compare _Lassalle_, Antwortschreiben an das Central Comite zur Berufung eines allg. deutschen Arbeitercongresses, 1863, 15; also _Turgot_, sur la Formation etc., § 6. When _Lassalle_ says that when a varied standard of living has become a national habit it ceases to be felt as an improvement, he says what is in a certain sense true. But is the man to be pitied who, absolutely speaking, is getting on well enough; relatively speaking, better off than before; but who is only not better off than other men?] [Footnote 163-2: A case in Holstein, in which, in the first half of the eighteenth century, the serfs of a hard master conspired together not to marry, and thus soon forced him to sell his estate. (_Büsch_, Darstellung der Handlung, V, 3, II.)] [Footnote 163-3: On the otherwise remarkable economic advance in Ireland about 1750, see _Orrey_, Letters concerning the Life and Writings of Swift, 1751, 127; _Anderson_, Origin of Commerce, a., 1751.] [Footnote 163-4: Compare especially _Malthus_, Principles, ch. 4, sec. 2. How little Adam Smith dreamt of this may be best seen in I, 115, Bas. Recently, the average wages per week amounted in England to 22½s., in Scotland to 20½s., in Ireland to 14¾s. (_Levi_, Wages and Earnings of the working Classes, 1866.)]