constitution, were buried in a cavern of mount Taygetus. Custom had so far reconciled the consciences of men to this practice, however barbarous, that Plato, even where he is describing an imaginary republic, which he might therefore have moulded to his will, makes exposure the express provision for those children, whose parents' ages did not conform to the period appointed by the laws *.

A priori, no nation was more likely to have admitted this usage than the Hebrews. They married early. When their laws were enacted, they were an unsettled people, nor were they at liberty to provide in other countries for the redundant population of their own. Had the circumstances of the

* Plautus, in the Cistellaria, of which the scene lies in Sicyon, speaks familiarly of the practice. In the Andria of Terence (the scene of which lies at Athens) it is ridiculed as extravagant folly, that Pamphilus was determined to bring up his child by Glycerium:

Quicquid pepererit, decreverunt tollere.

Inceptio est amentium, haud amantium.

See Hume, Populousness of ancient Nations; Malthus, i. 288; Philopatris Warwicensis, vol. ii.; Millar's Origin of Ranks, 125, 134.

state alone been considered, nothing would appear more probable than the introduction of a custom which permitted the intercourse of marriage without requiring the burden of domestic poverty; which provided for the indulgence of the passions, without oppressing the state with useless. and hungry mouths. If Moses, therefore, like other legislators, had considered his people as existing for themselves, and as permitted to consult in their civil code their own interests and strength alone, we may reasonably suppose that he would have countenanced a practice, which other more civilized states admitted, and philosophers did not think unworthy of their sanction *.

But when it is understood that an infant is born subject to the will and dis

* Aristotle, Polit. 7, c. 16, after observing, that da πλῆθος τέκνων, ἐὰν ἡ τάξις τῶν ἐθῶν κωλύη μηδὲν ἀποτίθεσθαι τῶν γιγνομένων, ὡρίσθαι καὶ δεῖ τῆς τεκνοποίιας τὸ πλῆθος" adds, under certain circumstances, εμποιεῖσθαι δεῖ τὴν ἄμβλωσιν. Romulus and Lycurgus, like Aristotle and Plato, the two real as well as the two imaginary legislators, assume the right of determining the number of each family. Dion. Halicar. ii. 88, Sylburg.

posal, not of the state, but of God, and belonging not only to an earthly parent, but to an heavenly protector; it becomes clear that any ordinance which legalizes the destruction of an innocent human being, is not less impious than barbarous. This was apparent to Plato himself on another occasion, when he required an argument against suicide; and it is curious to observe from such an instance, how little even the most philosophical mind is able to follow a consistent line of steady practice through the various bearings of human action, if the foundation of authoritative rules is wanting. "Man," says

Socrates by the pen of Plato, "is in the possession of the gods *." A conviction of this, not occasional and speculative, but effective and habitual, will alone account for the superior morality of the Jewish law. If an infant is born for his country

* Phædo. From him Cic. Tusc. Disp. i. 30, Vetat dominans ille in nobis Deus, injussu hinc suo nos demigrare, &c. Vide et Somn. Scip.

† Ὁ νόμος γυναιξὶν ἀπεῖπεν μήτ' αμβλῶν τὸ σπαρὲν, μήτε διαφθεί ρειν· ἀλλὰ ἦν φανείη, τεκνοκτόνος ἄν εἴη ψυχὴν ἀφανίζεσα, καὶ τὸ γένος arloa. Joseph. contra Apion. ii. 24. Vide et Phil. Jud. ii. 318. It appears clearly from the language of these two authors, as well as from the national practice, that

VOL. I.

only, and his parents submit to live under the established laws; it is for his country to dispose of him, according to the legislator's notions of his utility*. But if there is a supreme Creator, as was believed and acted upon by the Jews, according to whose will each individual is ushered into the world, and to whom he is accountable, human existence rises inestimably in value; and a new law becomes obligatory, paramount to the supposed necessity of confining the level of population within the standard of subsistence. The practice, therefore, of infanticide may be considered to a certain degree as a test of national faith†; since it is impossible, wherever it

the Jews gave a just interpretation to the seventh commandment, and extended its obligation to infanticide. Doubtless, the expectation of the Messiah coincided with the general law against murder. But the sacred importance in which human life is invariably held throughout the history, shows that this alone would be an insufficient explanation of the fact.

εκ

* Πρῶτον μέν ἐν ἐκ ἰδίως ἡγεῖτο τῶν πατέρων τὰς παῖδας, άλλα κοινὸς τῆς πόλεως ὁ Λυκῶργος. Plut. Vit. Lyc. 105.

† A negative indeed, rather than a positive test. The Thebans, with a religion no purer than the other Grecians possessed, punished infanticide with death. Ælian. Var. Hist. ii. 7. And Tacitus records of the ancient

prevails, that the belief of a Supreme Disposer of events should exist in any distinctness or purity.

Thirdly, whoever enacts or sanctions a law, is offended when it is broken. If God has appointed rules by which mankind are to be governed, God will avenge the infringement of those rules; if the state has the sole direction of moral actions, the violation of her commands is only cognizable by the state*. We must expect, therefore, among a people professing a sense of a superintending Deity, not only a purer morality, as has been already shown, but different motives to the practice of morality. And, in fact, offences which with other nations are treated merely as hurtful either to the society, or the of

Germans, numerum liberorum finire, aut quenquam ex agnatis (forte, natis) necare flagitium habetur. Thé custom was first forbidden in the Roman empire by an express law by Valens and Gratian. Reimar on Dio Cass. b. i. par. 16. This difference between the practice of the Jews and other nations is also remarked by Tacitus augendæ multitudini consulitur; necare quenquam ex agnatis (forte, natis) nefas. Hist. 1. 5.

* Plato argues this point, de Rep. 1. 4.