Note 258-14 — Chapter III

Malthus, Principle of Population, IV, ch. 4, 5. It is a great error to suppose that the number of immoral acts increases and decreases with the frequency of temptation. In Ireland, farmers very frequently keep their men servants and maid servants even after the latter have married. But the very facility with which a fall is legalized, increases very largely the number of reckless marriages. (Meidinger, Reise, II, 187 seq.) In the country about Göttingen also, where the people marry much earlier on an average than in that about Calenberg, illegitimate births are much more frequent.