478 APPENDIX. 



efforts ; still I could not with any semblance of justice be 

 ■ accused of considering vice and misery as the remedies of 

 these evils, instead of the very evils themselves. As well 

 nearly might I be open to Mr. Grahame's imputations of 

 considering the famine and disease necessarily arising from a 

 scarcity of food as a benevolent remedy for the evils which 

 this scarcity occasions. 



But 1 have not so stated the proposition. 1 have not 

 considered the evils of vice and misery arising from a redun- 

 dant population as unavoidable, and incapable of being dimi- 

 nished. On the contrary, I have pointed out a mode by 

 which these evils may be removed or mitigated by removing 

 or mitigating their cause. I have endeavoured to shew that 

 this may be done consistently with human virtue and hap- 

 piness. I have never considered any possible increase of 

 population as an evil, except as far as it might increase the 

 proportion of vice and misery. Vice and misery, and these 

 alone, are the evils which it has been iny great object to 

 contend against. I have expressly proposed moral restraint 

 as their rational and proper remedy ; and whether the remedy 

 be good or bad, adequate or inadequate, the proposal itself, 

 and the stress which I have laid upon it, is an incontrover- 

 tible proof that I never can have considered vice and misery 

 as themselves remedies. 



But not only does the general tenour of my work, and the 

 specific object of the latter part of it, clearly shew that 1 do 

 not consider vice and misery as remedies; but particular 

 passages in various parts of it are so distinct on the subject, 

 as not to admit of being misunderstood by the most perverse 

 blindness. 



It is therefore quite inconceivable that any writer with the 

 slightest pretension to respectability should venture to bring 

 forward such imputations ; and it must be allowed to shew 

 either such a degree of ignorance, or such a total want of 

 candour, as utterly to disqualify him for the discussion of 

 such subjects. 



But Mr. Grahame's misrepresentations are not confined 

 to the passage above referred to. In his introduction he 

 observes that, in order to check a redundant population, the 

 evils of which I consider as much nearer than Mr. Wallace, 

 I " recommend immediate recourse to human efforts, to the 

 restraints prescribed by Condorcet, for the correction or 



