raud and a monopoly. Let us suppose
the commerce of the sexes established upon principles of the most
perfect freedom. Mr Godwin does not think himself that this freedom
would lead to a promiscuous intercourse, and in this I perfectly agree
with him. The love of variety is a vicious, corrupt, and unnatural
taste and could not prevail in any great degree in a simple and
virtuous state of society. Each man would probably select himself a
partner, to whom he would adhere as long as that adherence continued to
be the choice of both parties. It would be of little consequence,
according to Mr Godwin, how many children a woman had or to whom they
belonged. Provisions and assistance would spontaneously flow from the
quarter in which they abounded, to the quarter that was deficient. (See
Bk VIII, ch. 8; in the third edition, Vol II, p. 512) And every man
would be ready to furnish instruction to the rising generation
according to his capacity.

I cannot conceive a form of society so favourable upon the whole to
population. The irremediableness of marriage, as it is at present
constituted, undoubtedly deters many from entering into that state. An
unshackled intercourse on the contrary would be a most powerful
incitement to early attachments, and as we are supposing no anxiety
about the future support of children to exist, I do not conceive that
there would be one woman in a hundred, of twenty-three, without a
family.

With these extraordinary encouragements to population, and every cause
of depopulation, as we have supposed, removed, the numbers would
necessarily increase faster than in any society that has ever yet been
known. I have mentioned, on the authority of a pamphlet published by a
Dr Styles and referred to by Dr Price, that the inhabitants of the back
settlements of America doubled their numbers in fifteen years. England
is certainly a more healthy country than the back settlements of
America, and as we have supposed every house in the island to be airy
and wholesome, and the encouragements to have a family greater even
than with the back settlers, no probable reason can be assigned why the
population should not double itself in less, if possible, than fifteen
years. But to be quite sure that we do not go beyond the truth, we will
only suppose the period of doubling to be twenty-five years, a ratio of
increase which is well known to have taken place throughout all the
Northern States of America.

There can be little