528 The Population Question. [MAY, 



experience a pang of distress, against the natural wants of the defence- 

 less peasant-born race that cried at their gates for bread. Who defends 

 that system ? Old Blue-and- Yellow ! The pledged companion in arms 

 of public and common rights, reform, low rents, and the thousand and 

 one watch-words and signal-lights of the much abused and misled 

 people ! We do not care for the small fry ' the minnows that 

 have danced on the surface of the stream in the sun-light of this 

 luminary of modern whiggisrn ; they come in their season, and go away 

 unnoticed. We never expected steadfastness of them, and they are 

 welcome to their petty treachery ; but Old Blue-and- Yellow has sold 

 the pass too notoriously to escape his proper amount of open punishment. 



The flagrant apostacy is interwoven in the history of the Population 

 Question, and will, suggest its own incidents to our readers as we proceed 

 in our details. But in order to a clear understanding of the whole, and 

 that. none of its many branches may be confused, it is our intention to 

 state as succinctly as we can, in the first instance, the grounds of the 

 case as it lies between Mr. Malthus and Mr. Sadler, before we address 

 ourselves to the immediate opponents of the latter, with Old Blue-and- 

 Yellow at their head. 



At a very early stage of society, when men formed themselves into 

 communities such as we may venture to suspect wolves do, to prey upon 

 all surrounding creatures, or, in deficiency of food, upon each other, it 

 was thought that there was a tendency in mankind to increase in numbers 

 beyond the means provided by nature for his support. The belief was 

 in perfect keeping and harmony with the character of the era. It was 

 the philosophy of a time when the first appeal .was that of hunger : 

 when Morals lingered on the heels of Appetite ; and Man, the express 

 image of his Maker, was no more than Man, the animal. In that age 

 the Selfish qualities took the place of the Intellectual ; and it was an 

 inevitable consequence of a degraded and prowling state of being, that 

 each person should fancy his neighbours cormorants, and wish he had 

 fewer, lest they should eat up " all the corn in Egypt;" and that go- 

 vernment should be equally apprehensive of the growing strength and 

 numerical importance of the people. To flatter both fears of the sen- 

 sualist and the despot this ingenious, but, at that period, not very 

 luminous dogma was invented. It answered for its day : but knowledge 

 advanced, and children increased, and food was found everywhere on 

 the bosom of the fertile earth, and at last the Famine Creed melted 

 away, like a mist, and was forgotten. 



Each condition of corporeal things has its own delusion. When 

 people were pressing onward to prosperity they feared a blight would 

 strike them back ; when they reached the height of prosperity they 

 discovered a new source of terror in the apprehension that they would 

 not be allowed to enjoy it, and that the numbers of Man would diminish, 

 and that some desert-curse was hovering over them. When they were 

 struggling for food they shrunk from human increase, and when they 

 had food in abundance they trembled at the prospect of loneliness ! 

 These are the only legends connected with the Population Question, 

 and, although they are authentic enough, yet they made so slight an 

 impression upon the actual conduct of mankind, in the bulk, or so little 

 affected his views, that they may be dismissed as preliminary trifles 

 are by the German writers, when they are approaching the pith of their 

 horrible demon-stories. 



