may reasonably expect from his marriage and as he cannot in the mean time, gratify his pas*sions, without violating an express command of 66 66 God, and running a great risk of injuring himself, or some of his fellow creatures, considerations of " his own interest and happiness will dictate to him "the strongest obligation to moral restraint. " However powerful may be the impulses of passion they are generally in some degree modified by reason. "And it does not seem entirely visionary to suppose, "that if the true and permanent cause of poverty were clearly explained," [This I take to be that the rich have more than the poor] "and forcibly brought "home to each man's bosom, it would have some, " and perhaps not an inconsiderable, influence on "his conduct; at least, the experiment has never It is astonishing, what a propensity Mr. Malthus has to try experiments, if there is any mischief to be done by them. He has a perfect horror of experiments that are to be tried on the higher qualities of our nature, from which any great, unmixed, and general good is to be expected. But in proportion as the end is low, and the means base, he acquires confidence, his tremours forsake him, and he approaches boldly to the task with nerves of iron. His humanity is of a singular cast. What is grand and elevated, seems to be his aversion. Pure benefits are of too cloying a quality to please his taste. He is willing to improve the morals of the people by extirpating the common feelings of mankind, and will submit to the introduction of a greater degree of plenty and comfort, provided it is prefaced by famine. His ardour is kindled not so much in proportion to the difficulty, as to the disgusting nature of the task. He is a kind of sentimental nightman, an amateur chimney-sweeper, a patriotic Jack-ketch. The spirit of adventure is roused in him only by the prospect of dirty roads, and narrow, crooked paths. He never flinches where there is any evil to be done, that good may come of it! His present plan is an admirable one of the kind-Omne tulit punctum-it comprises both extremes of vice and misery. The poor are to make a formal surrender of their right to private charity or parish assistance, that the rich may be able to lay out all their money on their vices. "Till these erroneous ideas have been corrected, " and the language of nature and reason has been ge nerally heard on the subject of population, instead " of the language of error and prejudice, it cannot be " said that any fair experiment has been made with " " the understandings of the common people; and we cannot justly accuse them of improvidence and want of industry, till they act as they do now, "after it has been brought home to their comprehen " sions, that they are themselves the cause of their own poverty; that the means of redress are in their own hands, and in the hands of no other per sons whatever; that the society in which they live, and the government which presides over it, are totally " without power in this respect; and however ardently "they may desire to relieve them, and whatever at tempts they may make to do so, they are really " and truly unable to execute what they benevo-. lently wish, but unjustly promise; that when the wages of labour will not maintain a family, it is an "incontrovertible sign that their king and country do " not want more subjects, or at least that they cannot support them; that if they marry in this case, so far " from fulfilling a duty to society, they are throwing "a useless burden on it, at the same time that they " are plunging themselves into distress; and that they are acting directly contrary to the will of God, and bringing down upon themselves various diseases, "which might all, or in a great part, have been avoided, if they had attended to the repeated ad" monitions which he gives, by the general laws of nature, to every being capable of reason *. * But a moment ago the subject was involved in the most profound obscurity, and great advantages were expected from the manner in which Mr. Malthus was to bring it home to each man's comprehension. In the passage immediately following the above, our author quotes Dr. Paley's Moral Philosophy, and as he often refers to this work, I shall here take the liberty of entering my protest against it. It is a school in which a man learns to tamper with his own mind, and will become any thing sooner than an honest man. It is a directory, shewing him how to disguise and palliate his real motives (however unworthy) by metaphysical subterfuges, and where to look for every infirmity which can beset him, with its appropriate apology, taken from the common topics of religion and morality. All that is good in Paley is taken from Tucker; and even his morality is not the most bracing that can be imagined. The erroneous ideas of which Mr. Malthus here complains as prevailing in the minds of the common people, to the prejudice of the language of reason and nature, are, as he states just before, that their poverty and distress are in part owing to their not get ting more for their labour, to the slowness with which the parish assist them, to the avarice of the rich, and to the institutions of society, or to fortune which has assigned them a place so beset with difficulties and dependence! No, poverty is owing to none of these causes, but it is owing entirely to itself. Mr. Burke has said, that people will not be argued into slavery. Our author attempts more than this. He tries to persuade them out of their senses, and to argue them into slavery and famine besides. There is a distinction which it is sometimes dangerous to insist on in common life; but which it is necessary to attend to in matters of reasoning, and that is the dis. tinction between truth and falsehood. For instance, Mr. Malthus asserts, that the means of remedying their complaints are in the hands of the poor, and in the hands of no other persons whatever. Now this is not true. It is not true that the society in which they live and the government which presides over it are totally without power in this respect. It is not true that however ardently they may wish to relieve them, they are utterly unable to execute their benevolent intentions. It is not an incontrovertible sign that their king and country do not want more subjects, and that they cannot support them, when the common wages of labour will not maintain a family. As Mr. Malthus's positions exist no where but in the Essay of Population, they will hardly support those weighty practical conclusions which he wishes to build upon them. Some persons may perhaps be at a loss to understand what Mr. Malthus can mean by his assertions. The following may be some clue to what in itself has very much the appearance of irony. 66 "Among the other prejudices which have pre"vailed on the subject of population, it has been ge"nerally thought, that while there is either waste among the rich, or land remaining uncultivated in any country, the complaint for want of food cannot " be justly founded, or, at least, that the pressure of " distress upon the poor is to be attributed to the ill"conduct of the higher classes of society, and the " bad management of the land. The real effect, " however, of these two circumstances, is merely to narrow the limit of the actual population; but they " have little or no influence on what may be called "the average pressure of distress on the poorer mem"bers of society. If our ancestors had been so frugal " and industrious, and had transmitted such habits to " their posterity, that nothing superfluous was now " consumed by the higher classes, no horses were " used for pleasure, and no land was left uncultivated, " a striking difference would appear in the state of "the actual population; but probably none what" ever, in the state of the lower classes of people, " with respect to the price of labour, and the facility.. " of supporting a family. The waste among the " rich and the horses kept for pleasure, have indeed a AA |