MALTHUS’S ESSAY ON POPULATION. 296 
which reason direets to be left in common. 
No man had been goaded to the breach of 
order by unjust laws. Benevoleace had es- 
tablished her reign in all hearts. And yet in 
so short a period as fifty years, violence, op- 
pression, falseliood, misery, every hateful 
vice, and every form of distress, which de- 
grade and sadden the present state of society, 
seem to have been generated by the most im- 
perious circumstances, by laws inherent in 
the nature of man, and absolutely indepen- 
dent of all human regulations. 
“« If we be not yet too well convinced of 
the reality of this melancholy picture, let us 
but look for a moment, into the next period 
of twenty-five years, and we shall see 44 
millions of human beings without the means 
of support: and at the conclusion of the 
first century, the population would be 176 
aillions, and the bot only sufficient for 55 
taillions, leaving 121 millions unprovided 
for. In these aves, want, indeed, would be 
triumphant, and rapine and murder must 
reign at large: and yet all this time we are 
supposing the produce of the earth absolute- 
Jy unlimited, and the yearly increase greater 
than the boldest speculator can imagine.” 
The pop-gun made a loud report in 
the world, and effectually smote down 
the champion against whom it was le- 
velled. Mr. Malthus could not have ob- 
tained more credit in the eighth century 
for laying the devil, than he has in the 
eighteenth for laying Mr. Godwin. The 
question contended was, whether or not 
there wese any hopes of mankind ; whe- 
‘ther wisdom would be progressive with 
knowledge, and virtue with wisdom, 
and happiness with virtue. Shame on 
the age we live in that this question 
should be disputed ! Shame on the coun- 
try we live in, that such a2 question 
should be debated by no better advo- 
cates than Messrs. Godwin and Malthus! 
Menelaus and Paris were not more un- 
worthy representatives of the collected 
heroism of Greece and Troy, than these 
men of the knowledge and intellect of . 
England To Mr. Godwin’s presump- 
tion his antagonist is indebted for his 
victory ; only such a Goliath could have 
called forth such a David. Mr. Godwin 
had confounded together all principles 
pure and impure ; he had attempted to 
amalgamate stoicism ard _ sensuality ; 
' he had diluted the wisdom of the antients 
with his own folly; he had kneaded 
up their wheat, and barley, and millet, 
with his own alum grecum, and this pre- 
cious wafer was to be swallowed as the 
bread of life—the sacrament of philoso- 
phy! What wonder that this should 
mispire equal talents with the hope of 
equal success? If the Nervous Cordial 
sells, so also may the Balm of Gilead. 
Dr. Solomon is perfectly justifiable in 
calling Dr. Brodum a quack ; and in the 
country where one of these worthies can 
ride in his carriage, it must be the other’s 
own fault if he continues to walk a-foot. 
** Mr. Malthus appeared, and we heard 
no more of Mr. Godwin,”—so it was 
said in that style of panegyric which 
may be called the brief sublime. And in- 
deed Mr.Godwinhimself hasadmittedthe 
whole force of his antagonist’s argument. 
In animals, the benevolent system of 
destruction keeps down their numbers 
to a due proportion with their food. 
Wisely did the Hindoos unite the creator, 
the preserver, and the destroyer, in their 
triunal God,—and what better proof of 
wisdom and benevolence than that death 
should be made subservient to life? No 
such check exists to the multiplication 
of the human race, but among them 
moral and physical evil (each producing 
the other in alternation) supply its place, 
till wisdom having perfected virtue, shall 
destroy all evil by rendering it no long- 
er necessary. An optimist might thus 
express the substance of his creed. Mr. 
Malthus also is an optimist, but of the 
Pangloss school, holding that the pre- 
sent state of society is, with all its evils, 
the best of all possible states, and that 
it never can be better. To some such 
point of attainable perfection, for argu- 
ments sake, he supposes the human race 
to have attained, and then attempting 
the reductio ad absurdum, he argues against 
the blessing from its excess. The prin- 
ciple of population, he says, would in 
one generation disturb, and in a second, 
destroy this state of happiness, and man- 
kind must then revert to the present 
system. Mr. Godwin yields, proposing, 
however, exposure and abortion as reme- 
dies ; but these, says his victorious rival, 
«« clearly come under the head of vice.”? 
It is to the last degree idle to write 
in this way without having stated the 
meaning of the words vice and yirtue. 
‘That these are vices in the present state 
of society, who doubts? so was celibacy 
in the patriarchal ages. Vice and virtue 
subsist in the agreement of the habits 
of aman with his reason and conscience, 
and these can have but one moral guide 
—utility, or the virtue and happiness of 
rational beings. We mention this, not 
under the miserable notion that any 
state of society will render these actions 
capable of being performed with con- 
U 4 
