HISTORICAL 29 



eighteenth century. There had also been much discussion as to 

 whether the population of England was increasing or decreasing.^ 

 Again, in part owing to the industrial revolution, and in part owing 

 to the war, questions as to poverty had attracted much attention, 

 and to them Malthus's book had direct reference. Thus it is not 

 surprising that the success of the first edition was great and 

 immediate.^ Godwin admitted that it had ' converted friends of 

 progress by the hundred '.^ Pitt dropped his Poor Law Bill in 

 1800 partly because of the opposition of those who had been 

 influenced by the Essay. The earlier supporters of Malthus 

 belonged, for the most part, to the Whig and Utilitarian schools. 

 Pitt, Paley, Copleston, James Mill, Senior, Ricardo, Macintosh, and 

 Whitbread all adhered to Malthus. In 1819 Brougham referred to 

 the ' principle of population as one of the soundest principles of 

 political economy '.* Support for Malthus w^as especially strong 

 among the Utilitarians. Referring to about the year 1825 J. S. Mill 

 says : ' Malthus's principle was quite as much a banner and 

 a point of union among us as any opinion especially belonging to 

 Bentham.'^ 



Opposition was chiefly to be found among the Tories, Revolu- 

 tionaries, and Radicals. Godwin published a reply to Malthus in 

 1801, and several years later, finding that the ' principle ' still 

 gained ground, made another attempt to refute it, which met with 

 as little success as the earlier attempt. As an example of the 

 attitude of the followers of Godwin towards Malthus, the following 

 remarks by Shelley may be quoted. ' Metaphysics and inquiries 

 into moral and political science have become little else than 

 vain attempts to revive exploded superstitions, or sophisms like" 

 those of Mr. Malthus, calculated to lull the oppressors of mankind, 

 into a security of everlasting triumph.' ^ The Tory element of the 

 opposition was influenced by the feeling that the ordering of 

 human affairs could not be so innately bad as the Essay seemed 



' In the eighteenth century it was commonly supposed that the population of 

 England was decreasing. Arthur Young was one of the few who did not share 

 this view. (Mirabeau indeed thought that the population of the whole of Europe 

 was increasing.) All kinds of reasons were brought forward to explain the supposed 

 decrease. Price thought that it was due to the enclosures ; Horace Walpole 

 suggested excessive drinking as the cause. 



^ It is not correct to say that ' the essay attracted comparatively little attention 

 until 1803 ' (Political History of England, vol. xi, p. 421). * Bonar, loc. cit., 



p. 43. * Bonar, loc. cit., p. 363. '•" Mill, Autobiography, p. 105. It is 



interesting to note that one of the reasons why Coleridge left the Utilitarians was 

 the popularity of the Essay among them. See Benn, History of Rationalism, 

 vol. i, p. 238. * Shelley, Preface to the Revolt of Islam, p. xi. 



