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Malthus, or any one else, from representing every degree of practical improvement as an approximation to this deplorable crisis, from binding up the slips and scyons of human happiness with this great trunk of evil, and root of all our woe, from marking with his slider and graduated scale all our advances towards this ideal perfec tion, however partial or necessary, as so many deviations from the strict line of our duty, and only sphere of our permanent happiness? It is evident, that the only danger of all imaginary schemes of improvement arises from their being exaggerations of the real capacities of our nature, from supposing that we can pick out all the dross, and leave nothing but the gold; that is, from their being carried to excess, and aiming at more than is practicable. But if we allow that improvement is an evil in the abstract, and that the greater the improvement, the greater the mischief, that the actual and complete success of all such schemes would be infinitely worse even than their failure, for that the most complete and extensive improvement would only prepare the way for the most deplorable wretchedness, and that the very next step after reaching the summit of human glory would plunge us into the lowest abyss of vice and misery, why truly there will be little encouragement to set out on a journey that promises so very disagreeable a conclusion; such a representation of the matter will not add wings to our zeal for practical reform, but will rather make us stop short in our career, and refuse to advance one step farther in a road, that is beset with danger and destruction. People will begin to look with a jaundiced eye at the most obvious advantages, to resist every useful regulation, and dread every change for the better. Our feelings are governed very much by common-place associations, and are most influenced by that sort of logic which is the shortest. Thus, " that the " parts are contained in the whole," is a general rule which is found to hold good in most of the concerns of life; and it is not therefore easy to drive it out of people's heads. For this reason, it will always be difficult to persuade the generality of mankind that a less degree of improvement is a good thing, though a greater would be a bad thing, or that the subordinate parts of a system, that would in reality embody all the ills of life, can be very desirable in themselves. Mr. Malthus has however by no means left this conclusion to the mere mechanical operation of our feelings. He endeavours formally to establish it. The following passage seems the connecting link in the chain, which unites the two worlds of theory and practice together; it cements the argument, gives solidity and roundness to it, and renders it complete against all improvement, real or imaginary, present or future, against all absolute perfection or imperfect attempts at it, and gradual approaches to it. It fairly blocks up the road,

"It cannot but be a matter of astonishment that all the writers on the perfectibility of man, " and of society, who have noticed the argu"ment of an overcharged population, treat it "always very slightly, and invariably represent "the difficulties arising from it, as at a great, and "almost immeasurable distance. Even Mr. " Wallace, who thought the argument itself of " so much weight as to destroy his whole sys" tem of equality, did not seem to be aware " that any difficulty would occur from this "cause, till the whole earth had been cultivated " like a garden, and was incapable of any further "increase of produce. Were this really the " case, and were a beautiful system of equality " in other respects practicable, I cannot think " that our ardour in the pursuit of such a scheme " ought to be damped by the contemplation of so " remote a difficulty. An event at such a dis"tance might fairly be left to providence; but " the truth is, that if the view of the argument " given in this Essay be just, the difficulty so far " from being remote, would be imminent and " immediate. At every period during the pro"gress of cultivation, from the present moment "to the time when the whole earth was become "like a garden, the distress for want of food " would be constantly pressing on all mankind, if "they were equal. Though the produce of "the earth might be increasing every year, popu"lation would be increasing much faster; and the "redundancy must necessarily be repressed by "the periodical or constant action of vice and " misery."*

In answer to this statement (allowing however that it is a fair inference from Wallace's reason. ing, and from our author's own principle) I would simply ask, whether during this progress of cultivation, the distress for want of food would be constantly pressing on all mankind more than it does at present. Let us suppose that men remain just as vicious, as imprudent, as regard. less of their own interests and those of others as they are at present, let us suppose them to continue just what they are, through all the stages of improved cultivation to the time when the whole earth was become like a garden, would this in the smallest degree detract from the benefit? Would nothing indeed be gained by the earth's being cultivated like a garden, that is, by its producing ten times the quantity of food that it does at present, and being able to maintain ten times the quantity of inhabitants in the same degree of comfort and happiness that it does at present, because forsooth they would not at the same time be ten times better off than they are now ? Is it an argument against adding to the happiness of mankind ten-fold, by increasing their number, their condition remaining the same, that we cannot add to it a hundred-fold, by increasing their nuínber and improving their condition proportionably? Or is it any objection to increasing the means: of subsistence by the improved cultivation of the earth, that the population would keep pace with it? It appears to me that there must be a particular perversity, some egregious bias in the mind of any person who can either deny the inference to be drawn from these questions, or evade it as a matter of indifference, by equivocation and subterfuge. We might as well assert that because it is most likely that the inhabitants of the rest of Europe are not better, nor indeed

* In the second edition, it says, moral restraint, vice or misery. What are we to think of a man who writes a book to prove that vice and misery are the only security for the happiness of the human race, and then writes another to say, that vice and folly are not the only security, but that our only resource must be either in vice and folly, or in wisdom and virtue? This is like making a white skin part of the definition of a man, and defending it by saying that they are all white, except those who are black or tawny.

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