The justice and expediency of toleration we found primarily in its conduciveness to truth, and in the superior value of truth to that of any other quality which a religion can possess: this is the principal argument; but there are some auxiliary considerations, too important to be omitted. The confining of the subject to the religion of the state,tory, or ethics. is a needless violation of natural liberty, and is an instance in which constraint is always grievous. Persecution produces no sincere conviction, nor any real change of opinion; on the contrary, it vitiates the public morals, by driving men to prevarication; and commonly ends in a general though secret infidelity, by imposing, under the name of revealed religion, systems of doctrine which men cannot believe, and dare not examine: finally, it disgraces the character, and wounds the reputation of Christianity itself, by making it the author of oppression, cruelty, and bloodshed.

Under the idea of religious toleration, I include the toleration of all books of serious argumentation: but I deem it no infringement of religious liberty, to restrain the circulation of ridicule, invective, and mockery, upon religious subjects; because this species of writing applies solely to the passions, weakens the judgment, and contaminates the imagination, of its readers; has no tendency whatever to assist either the investi

might insinuate themselves into offices of trust and authority, by subscribing political assertions, and yet retain their predilection for the interests of the religious sect to which they continued to belong. By which means, government would sometimes find, though it could not accuse the individual, whom it had received into its service, of disaffection to the civil establishment, yet that, through him, it had communicated the aid and

upon this principle at all, it ought to be applied I in regal governments, to the chief magistrate himself, whose power might otherwise overthrow or change the established religion of the country, in opposition to the will and sentiments of the people. The second case of exleusion, and in which, I think, the measure is more easily vindicated, is that of a country in which some disaffection to the subsisting government happens to be connected with certain religious distinctions. The state un-influence of a powerful station to a party who doubtedly has a right to refuse its power and its were hostile to the constitution. These answers, confidence to those who seek its destruction. however, we propose rather than defend. The Wherefore, if the generality of any religious sect measure certainly cannot be defended at all, exentertain dispositions hostile to the constitution, cept where the suspected union between certain and if government have no other way of knowing obnoxious principles in politics, and certain tenets its enemies than by the religion which they pro-in religion, is nearly universal; in which case, it fess, the professors of that religion may justly be makes little difference to the subscriber, whether excluded from offices of trust and authority. But the test be religious or political; and the state even here it should be observed, that it is not is somewhat better secured by the one than the against the religion that government shuts its other. doors, but against those political principles, which, The result of our examination of those general however independent they may be of any article tendencies, by which every interference of civil of religious faith, the members of that communion government in matters of religion ought to be tried, are found in fact to hold. Nor would the legisla- is this: "That a comprehensive national religion, tor make religious tenets the test of men's incli- guarded by a few articles of peace and conformity, nations towards the state, if he could discover any together with a legal provision for the clergy of other that was equally certain and notorious. that religion; and with a complete toleration of all Thus, if the members of the Romish church, for dissenters from the established church, without the most part adhere to the interests, or maintain any other limitation or exception, than what arises the right, of a foreign pretender to the crown of from the conjunction of dangerous political dispothese kingdoms; and if there be no way of dis-sitions with certain religious tenets; appears to be, tinguishing those who do from those who do not retain such dangerous prejudices; government is well warranted in fencing out the whole sect from situations of trust and power. But even in this example, it is not to popery that the laws object, but to popery as the mark of jacobitism; an equivocal indeed and fallacious mark, but the best and perhaps the only one, that can be devised. But then it should be remembered, that as the connexion between popery and jacobitism, which is the sole cause of suspicion and the sole justification of those severe and jealous laws which have been enacted against the professors of that religion, was accidental in its origin, so probably it will be temporary in its duration; and that these restrictions ought not to continue one day longer than some visible danger renders them necessary to the preservation of public tranquillity.

After all, it may be asked; Why should not the legislator direct his test against the political principles themselves which he wishes to exclude, rather than encounter them through the medium of religious tenets, the only crime and the only danger of which consist in their presumed alliance with the former? Why, for example, should a man be required to renounce transub stantiation, before he be admitted to an office in the state, when it might seem to be sufficient that he abjure the pretender? There are but two answers that can be given to the objection which this question contains: first, that it is not opinions which the laws fear, so much as inclinations; and, that political inclinations are not so easily detected by the affirmation or denial of any abstract proposition in politics, as by the discovery of the religious creed with which they are wont to be united-secondly, that when men renounce their religion, they commonly quit all connexion with the members of the church which they have left; that church no longer expecting assistance or friendship from them: whereas particular persons

not only the most just and liberal, but the wisest and safest system, which a state can adopt; inasmuch as it unites the several perfections which a religious constitution ought to aim at :-liberty of conscience, with means of instruction; the progress of truth, with the peace of society; the right of private judgment, with the care of the public safety."

CHAPTER XI.

Of Population and Provision; and of Agricul ture and Commerce, as subservient thereto. THE final view of all rational politics is, to produce the greatest quantity of happiness in a given tract of country. The riches, strength, and glory of nations; the topics which history celebrates, and which alone almost engage the praises and possess the admiration of mankind; have no value farther than as they contribute to this end. When they interfere with it, they are evils, and not the less real for the splendour that surrounds them.

Secondly: Although we speak of communities as of sentient beings; although we ascribe to them happiness and misery, desires, interests, and passions; nothing really exists or feels but individuals. The happiness of a people is made up of the happiness of single persons; and the quantity of happiness can only be augmented by increasing the number of the percipients, or the pleasure of their perceptions.

Thirdly: Notwithstanding that diversity of condition, especially different degrees of plenty, freedom, and security, greatly vary the quantity of happiness enjoyed by the same number of individuals; and notwithstanding that extreme cases may be found, of human beings so galled by the rigours of slavery, that the increase of numbers is only the amplification of misery; yet, within certain limits, and within those limits

to which civil life is diversified under the tem- | seldom be found to be that which actually checks perate governments that obtain in Europe, it may be affirmed, I think, with certainty, that the quantity of happiness produced in any given district, so far depends upon the number of inhabitants, that, in comparing adjoining periods in the same country, the collective happiness will be nearly in the exact proportion of the numbers; that is, twice the number of inhabitants will produce double the quantity of happiness: in distant periods, and different countries, under great changes or great dissimilitude of civil condition, although the proportion of enjoyment may fall much short of the numbers, yet still any considerable excess of numbers will usually carry with it a preponderation of happiness; that, at least, it may and ought to be assumed, in all political deliberations, that a larger portion of happiness is enjoyed amongst ten persons, possessing the means of healthy subsistence, than can be produced by five persons, under every advantage of power, affluence, and luxury. I

From these principles it follows, that the quantity of happiness in a given district, although it is possible it may be increased, the number of inhabitants remaining the same, is chiefly and most naturally affected by alteration of the numbers: that, consequently, the decay of population is the greatest evil that a state can suffer; and the improvement of it, the object which ought, in all countries, to be aimed at, in preference to every other political purpose whatsoever.

the progress of population in any country of the world; because the number of the people have seldom, in any country, arrived at this limit, or even approached to it. The fertility of the ground, in temperate regions, is capable of being improved by cultivation to an extent which is unknown; much, however, beyond the state of improvement in any country in Europe. In our own, which holds almost the first place in the knowledge and encouragement of agriculture, let it only be supposed that every field in England, of the same original quality with those in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, and consequently capable of the same fertility, were, by a like management, made to yield an equal produce; and it may be asserted, I believe with truth, that the quantity of human provision raised in the island would be increased five-fold. The two principles, therefore, upon which population seems primarily to depend, the fecundity of the species, and the capacity of the soil, would in most, perhaps in all countries, enable it to proceed much farther than it has yet advanced. The number of marriageable women, who, in each country, remain unmarried, afford a computation how much the agency of nature in the diffusion of human life is cramped and contracted; and the quantity of waste, neglected, or mismanaged surface,-together with a comparison, like the preceding, of the crops raised from the soil in the neighbourhood of populous cities, and under a perfect state of cultivation, with those which lands of equal or superior quality yield in different situations,-will show in what proportion the indigenous productions of the earth are capable of being farther augmented.

The importance of population, and the superiority of it to every other national advantage, are points necessary to be inculcated, and to be understood; inasmuch as false estimates, or fantastic notions, of national grandeur, are per- The fundamental proposition upon the subject petually drawing the attention of statesmen and of population, which must guide every endeavour legislators from the care of this, which is, at all to improve it, and from which every conclusion times, the true and absolute interest of a country: concerning it may be deduced, is this: "Wherever for which reason, we have stated these points the commerce between the sexes is regulated by with unusual formality. We will confess, how-inarriage, and a provision for that mode of subthat a competition can seldom arise between the advancement of population and any measure of sober utility; because, in the ordinary progress of human affairs, whatever, in any way, contributes to make a people happier, tends to render them more numerous.

ever,

sistence, to which each class of the community is accustomed, can be procured with ease and certainty, there the number of the people will increase; and the rapidity, as well as the extent, of the increase, will be proportioned to the degree in which these causes exist."

This proposition we will draw out into the several principles which it contains.

In the fecundity of the human, as of every other species of animals, nature has provided for an indefinite multiplication, Mankind have in- I. First, the proposition asserts the "necessity creased to their present number from a single of confining the intercourse of the sexes to the pair; the offspring of early marriages, in the or- marriage-union." It is only in the marriage-union dinary course of procreation, do more than replace that this intercourse is sufficiently prolific. Bethe parents: in countries, and under circum-side which, family establishments alone are fitted stances very favourable to subsistence, the popu- to perpetuate a succession of generations. The lation has been doubled in the space of twenty offspring of a vague and promiscuous concubinage years; the havoc occasioned by wars, earthquakes, are not only few, and liable to perish by neglect, famine, or pestilence, is usually repaired in a short but are seldom prepared for, or introduced into time. These indications sufficiently demonstrate situations suited to the raising of families of their the tendency of nature, in the human species, to own. Hence the advantages of marriages. Now a continual increase of its numbers. It becomes, nature, in the constitution of the sexes, has protherefore, a question that may reasonably be provided a stimulus which will infallibly secure the pounded, what are the causes which confine or check the natural progress of this multiplication? And the answer which first presents itself to the thoughts of the inquirer is, that the population of a country must stop when the country can maintain no more; that is, when the inhabitants are already so numerous as to exhaust all the provision which the soil can be made to produce. This, however, though an insuperable bar, will

frequency of marriages, with all their beneficial effects upon the state of population, provided the male part of the species be prohibited from irregular gratifications. This impulse, which is sufficient to surmount almost every impediment to marriage, will operate in proportion to the difficulty, expense, danger, or infamy, the sense of guilt, or the fear of punishment, which attend licentious indulgences. Wherefore, in countries in

which subsistence is become scarce, it behoves the state to watch over the public morals with increased solicitude; for nothing but the instinct of nature, under the restraint of chastity, will induce mea to undertake the labour, or consent to the sacrifice of personal liberty and indulgence, which the support of a family, in such circumstances, requires.

culiarity arises, not probably from any civil advantages, any care or policy, any particular constitution or superior wisdom of government; but simply from hence, that the species of food to which custom hath reconciled the desires and inclinations of the inhabitants, is that which, of all others, is procured in the greatest abundance, with the most ease, and stands in need of the li. The second requisite which our proposition least preparation. The natives of Indostan being states as necessary to the success of population, is, confined, by the laws of their religion, to the use "the case and certainty with which a provision of vegetable food, and requiring little except rice, can be procured for that mode of subsistence to which the country produces in plentiful crops; which each class of the community is accustomed." and food, in warm climates, composing the only It is not enough that men's natural wants be want of life; these countries are populous, under supplied; that a provision adequate to the real all the injuries of a despotic, and the agitations exigencies of human life be attainable: habitual of an unsettled government. If any revolution, superfluities become actual wants; opinion and or what would be called perhaps refinement of fashion convert articles of ornament and luxury manners, should generate in these people a taste into necessaries of life. And it must not be ex- for the flesh of animals, similar to what prevails pected from men in general, at least in the present amongst the Arabian hordes; should introduce relaxed state of morals and discipline, that they flocks and herds into grounds which are now cowill enter into marriages which degrade their con- vered with corn; should teach them to account a dition, reduce their mode of living, deprive them certain portion of this species of food amongst the of the accommodations to which they have been necessaries of life; the population, from this sinaccustomed, or even of those ornaments or ap-gle change, would suffer in a few years a great peahges of rank and station which they have been taught to regard as belonging to their birth, or class, or profession, or place in society. The same consideration, namely, a view to their accustomed mode of life, which is so apparent in the superior order of the people, has no less influence upon those ranks which compose the mass of the community. The kind and quality of food and liquor, the species of habitation, furniture, and dothing, to which the common people of each country are habituated, must be attainable with LUXURY, as it supplies employment and procase and certainty, before marriages will be suf- motes industry, assists population. But, then ficiently early and general to carry the progress there is another consequence attending it, which of population to its just extent. It is in vain to counteracts and often overbalances these advanallege, that a more simple diet, ruder habitations, tages. When, by introducing more superfluities or coarser apparel, would be sufficient for the pur- into general reception, luxury has rendered the poses of life and health, or even of physical case usual accommodations of life more expensive, arand pleasure. Men will not marry with this en- tificial, and elaborate, the difficulty of maintaining couragement. For instance: when the common a family conformably with the established mode people of a country are accustomed to eat a large of living, becomes greater, and what each man proportion of animal food, to drink wine, spirits, has to spare from his personal consumption proor beer, to wear shoes and stockings, to dwell in portionably less: the effect of which is, that marstone houses, they will not marry to live in clay riages grow less frequent, agreeably to the maxim cottages, upon roots and milk, with no other above laid down, and which must be remembered clothing than skins, or what is necessary to de- as the foundation of all our reasoning upon the fend the trunk of the body from the effects of subject, that men will not marry to sink their cold; although these last may be all that the sus-place or condition in society, or to forego those tentation of life and health requires, or that even contribute much to animal comfort and enjoy

ment

The ease, then, and certainty, with which the means can be procured, not barely of subsistence, but of that mode of subsisting which custom hath in each country established, form the point upon which the state and progress of population chiefly depend. Now, there are three causes which evidently regulate this point: the mode itself of subsisting which prevails in the country; the quantity of provision suited to that mode of subsistence, which is either raised in the country or imported into it; and, lastly, the distribution of that provision. These three causes merit distinct consideration. 1. The mode of living which actually obtains in a country. In China, where the inhabitants freqat the sea shore, or the banks of large rivers, and subsist in a great measure upon fish, the population is described to be excessive. This pe

diminution: and this diminution would follow, in spite of every effort of the laws, or even of any improvement that might take place in their civil condition. In Ireland, the simplicity of living alone, maintains a considerable degree of population, under great defects of police, industry, and commerce.

Under this head, and from a view of these considerations, may be understood the true evil and proper danger of luxury.

indulgences which their own habits, or what they observe amongst their equals, have rendered necessary to their satisfaction. This principle is applicable to every article of diet and dress, to houses, furniture, attendance; and this effect will be felt in every class of the community. For instance: the custom of wearing broad-cloth and fine linen, repays the shepherd and flax-grower, feeds the manufacturer, enriches the merchant, gives not only support but existence to multitudes of families: hitherto, therefore, the effects are beneficial ; and were these the only effects, such elegancies, or, if you please to call them so, sach luxuries, could not be too universal. But here follows the mischief: when once fashion hath annexed the use of these articles of dress to any certain class, the middling ranks, for example, of the community, each individual of that rank finds them to be necessaries of life, that is, finds himself obliged to comply with the example of his equals,

and to maintain that appearance which the custom of society requires. This obligation creates such a demand upon his income, and adds so much to the cost and burden of a family, as to put it out of his power to marry, with the prospect of continuing his habits, or of maintaining his place and situation in the world. We see, in this description, the cause which induces men to waste their lives in a barren celibacy; and this cause, which impairs the very source of population, is justly placed to the account of luxury.

It appears, then, that luxury, considered with a view to population, acts by two opposite effects; and it seems probable that there exists a point in the scale, to which luxury may ascend, or to which the wants of mankind may be multiplied with advantage to the community, and beyond which the prejudicial consequences begin to preponderate. The determination of this point, though it assume the form of an arithmetical problem, depends upon circumstances too numerous, intricate, and undefined, to admit of a precise solution. However, from what has been observed concerning the tendency of luxury to diminish marriages, in which tendency the evil of it resides, the following general conclusions may be established:1st, That, of different kinds of luxury, those are the most innocent which afford employment to the greatest number of artists and manufacturers; or those, in other words, in which the price of the work bears the greatest proportion to that of the raw material.-Thus, luxury in dress or furniture, is universally preferable to luxury in eating, because the articles which constitute the one, are more the production of human art and industry, than those which supply the other.

from which it is raised being given, will depend greatly upon the kind. For instance: a piece of ground capable of supplying animal food sufficient for the subsistence of ten persons, would sustain, at least, the double of that number with grain, roots, and milk. The first resource of savage life is in the flesh of wild animals; hence the numbers amongst savage nations, compared with the tract of country which they occupy, are universally small; because this species of provision is, of all others, supplied in the slenderest proportion. The next step was the invention of pasturage, or the rearing of flocks and herds of tame animals: this alteration added to the stock of provision much. But the last and principal improvement was to follow; namely, tillage, or the artificial production of corn, esculent plants, and roots. This discovery, whilst it changed the quality of human food, augmented the quantity in a vast proportion. So far as the state of population is governed and limited by the quantity of provision, perhaps there is no single cause that affects it so powerfully, as the kind and quality of food which chance or usage hath introduced into a country. In England, notwithstanding the produce of the soil has been, of late, considerably increased, by the enclosure of wastes, and the adoption, in many places, of a more successful husbandry, yet we do not observe a corresponding addition to the number of inhabitants; the reason of which appears to me to be, the more general consumption of animal food amongst us. Many ranks of people whose ordinary diet was, in the last century, prepared almost entirely from milk, roots, and vegetables, now require every day a considerable portion of the flesh of animals. Hence a great part of the richest lands of the country are conna-verted to pasturage. Much also of the bread-corn, which went directly to the nourishment of human bodies, now only contributes to it by fattening the flesh of sheep and oxen. The mass and volume of provisions are hereby diminished; and what is gained in the melioration of the soil, is lost in the quality of the produce. This consideration teaches us, that tillage, as an object of national care and encouragement, is universally preferable to pasturage, because the kind of provision which it yields, goes much farther in the sustentation of human life. Tillage is also recommended by this additional advantage, that it affords employment to a much more numerous peasantry. Indeed, pasturage seems to be the art of a nation, either imperfectly civilized, as are many of the tribes which cultivate it in the internal parts of Asia; or of a nation, like Spain, declining from its summit by luxury and inactivity.

2dly, That it is the diffusion, rather than the degree of luxury, which is to be dreaded as a tional evil. The mischief of luxury consists, as we have seen, in the obstruction which it forms to marriage. Now it is only a small part of the people that the higher ranks in any country compose; for which reason, the facility or the difficulty of supporting the expense of their station, and the consequent increase or diminution of marriages among them, will influence the state of population but little. So long as the prevalency of luxury is confined to a few of elevated rank, much of the benefit is felt, and little of the inconveniency. But when the imitation of the same manner descends, as it always will do, into the mass of the people; when it advances the requisites of living, beyond what it adds to men's abilities to purchase them; then it is that luxury checks the formation of families, in a degree that ought to alarm the public fears.

3dly, That the condition most favourable to population is that of a laborious, frugal people, ministering to the demands of an opulent, luxurious nation; because this situation, whilst it leaves them every advantage of luxury, exempts them from the evils which naturally accompany its admission into any country.

II. Next to the mode of living, we are to consider "the quantity of provision suited to that mode, which is either raised in the country, or imported into it:" for this is the order in which we assigned the causes of population, and undertook to treat of them. Now, if we measure the quantity of provision by the number of human bodies it will support in due health and vigour, this quantity, the extent and quality of the soil

The kind and quality of provision, together with the extent and capacity of the soil from which it is raised, being the same; the quantity procured will principally depend upon two circumstances,-the ability of the occupier, and the encouragement which he receives. The greatest misfortune of a country is an indigent tenantry. Whatever be the native advantages of the soil, or even the skill and industry of the occupier, the want of a sufficient capital confines every plan, as well as cripples and weakens every operation of husbandry. This evil is felt, where agriculture is accounted a servile or mean employment; where farms are extremely subdivided and badly furnished with habitations; where leases are unknown, or are of short or precarious duration.