"Let us not add," said the Prince, "to the other evils of life the
bitterness of controversy, nor endeavour to vie with each other in
subtilties of argument. We are employed in a search of which both
are equally to enjoy the success or suffer by the miscarriage; it
is therefore fit that we assist each other. You surely conclude
too hastily from the infelicity of marriage against its
institution; will not the misery of life prove equally that life
cannot be the gift of Heaven? The world must be peopled by
marriage or peopled without it."

"How the world is to be peopled," returned Nekayah, "is not my care
and need not be yours. I see no danger that the present generation
should omit to leave successors behind them; we are not now
inquiring for the world, but for ourselves."



CHAPTER XXIX--THE DEBATE ON MARRIAGE (continued).



"The good of the whole," says Rasselas, "is the same with the good
of all its parts. If marriage be best for mankind, it must be
evidently best for individuals; or a permanent and necessary duty
must be the cause of evil, and some must be inevitably sacrificed
to the convenience of others. In the estimate which you have made
of the two states, it appears that the incommodities of a single
life are in a great measure necessary and certain, but those of the
conjugal state accidental and avoidable. I cannot forbear to
flatter myself that prudence and benevolence will make marriage