prejudicial effects on the human constitution. The greater part
of the happy inhabitants of this terrestrial paradise live in
hamlets and farmhouses scattered over the face of the country.
Every house is clean, airy, sufficiently roomy, and in a healthy
situation. All men are equal. The labours of luxury are at end.
And the necessary labours of agriculture are shared amicably
among all. The number of persons, and the produce of the island,
we suppose to be the same as at present. The spirit of
benevolence, guided by impartial justice, will divide this
produce among all the members of the society according to their
wants. Though it would be impossible that they should all have
animal food every day, yet vegetable food, with meat
occasionally, would satisfy the desires of a frugal people and
would be sufficient to preserve them in health, strength, and
spirits.

Mr Godwin considers marriage as a fraud 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.