fix a limit

—This wer' a downleveling, my friend; yoū need, to assure me, Fix a limit to the folk; else, as their number is increas't, Their happiness may dwindle away, & what was at outset Goal & prize, the provoker of all your wise revolution, 50 Will by subdivision disappear in course of atainment.

Then follows a glowing picture of how the Filipinos are going to love us after we rescue them from the hated Tagal, but with this circumspect reservation: “He would be rash who, with the teachings of contemporary history, would fix a limit” as to how long it will take to produce such a state of affairs.

You will ask me: Who am I that I dare to fix a limit to an existence which God alone controls?

Sexual power also varies so much in individuals that it is hardly possible to fix a limit between the normal and the pathological.

Where property has been clothed with the public interest, the legislature may fix a limit to that which shall in law be reasonable for its use.