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Show CONSEQUENCES OF POLYGAMY. 153 properly, engendered the evil, and we are not at a loss to see that it proceeds from habitual and pampered indolence, unreasonable and carnal indulgences, unbridled passions, and the consequent inability of the intellect to discover this moral failing. What would be the consequence, if all the numerous classes of animated beings (other than man), in the particular of regeneration, were unrestricted by the wise ordination of their instmct ? The answer would be-frightful havoc and total extinction of their identity. So would it be with man, if his reasoning faculties had not been vouchsafed to him. Thus is he endowed with that quickening judgment to know right from wrong; and we have demonstration that these powers of the mind are rendered lanquid, and often totally destroyed, by the brutal excesses of the sensualist; and no better term can be applied to the bigamist. " 0 ! had they but the instinct of the dove, And could love aa well." We will suppose for an instant that this evil was pre valent throughout the earth; and, for example, let us take a community of 50,000 men and 50,000 women, and class them at a very low estimate, and let us see how it would work; we take it for granted that the number of the two sexes are equally divided: 2,000 men take 10 wives each, 20,000 women, which together are 22,000 2,000 " 5 " 10,000 " " " 12,000 1,000 " 2 " 2,000 " " " 8,000 18,000 " 1 " 18,000 " " " 86,000 28,000 60.000 78,000 Here we have, by this moderate calculation of the 7* |