mate and procreate until they had reasonable hope of being able easily
to rear, support, and educate the normal family of four, and, if that
were impossible, not to mate at all. As a Christian clergyman, Malthus
did not interpret the Divine command apart from the consequences of its
literal acceptance.

"Be fruitful," meant to Malthus reproduce your kind,--that implied not
only bringing babies into the world, but rearing them up to healthy,
robust, and prosperous manhood, with every prospect of continuing the
process.

"Multiply and replenish the earth" as a command to Noah, meant in the
mind of the Rector of Harleybury, "People the earth with men after your
own image."

Very little care would be required in Noah's time, with his fine
alluvial flats, and sparse population, but in Malthus's time the command
could not be fully carried out without labour, self-development, and
"moral restraint."

The physiological law is simple and blind, taking no cognisance of the
consequences, or the quality of the offspring produced. The divine
command is complex. It embodies the reproductive instinct, but restrains
and guides it in view of ultimate consequences.

So much for the views and teaching of Malthus. To him no ethical
standard was violated in preventing offspring by protracted continence,
or lifelong celibacy, provided the motive was the inability so to
provide for a family as to require no aid from the state. And it is
difficult to escape this conclusion. There is no ethical, Christian, or