in the earliest infancy. This practice was very common, and is not mentioned by any author of those times with the horror it deserves, or scarce52 even with disapprobation. Plutarch—the humane, good-natured Plutarch53—recommends it as a virtue in Attalus, King of Pergamus, that he murdered, or, if you will, exposed all his own children in order to leave his crown to the son of his brother, Eumenes, signalising in this manner his gratitude and affection to Eumenes, who had left him his heir preferable to that son. It was Solon, the most celebrated of the sages of Greece, who gave parents permission by law to kill their children.
Shall we then allow these two circumstances to compensate each other—viz., monastic vows and the exposing of children, and to be unfavourable in equal degrees to the propagation of mankind? I doubt the advantage is here on the side of antiquity. Perhaps, by an odd connection of causes, the barbarous practice of the ancients might rather render those times more populous. By removing the terrors of too numerous a family it would engage many people in marriage, and such is the force of natural affection that very few in comparison would have resolution enough to carry into execution their former intentions.