1800.] Objections to Mr. Malthus’s Theory of Population. 254 
be stationary, or nearly so, as it is im- 
possible that the “same spot of ground 
should produce more and more every 
year, by additions of the sane equal 
qui antity ? Whether the finding out a 
rate of increase fora thing, hy which it 
never does increase, but always in a-ra- 
tio either greater or less, is to be ‘con- 
sidered, as “philosophical discovery ; «nd 
whether the laying down an arbitrary and 
fanciful illustration, as a fundamental 
theorem, niust not rather tend to penplex 
and confound, than to explain the sub- 
ject?* 
4, Whether the citing of parish regis- 
ters and bills of'mortality, merely to i- 
lustrate a general principle, without add- 
ing any thi: ig to it, even though a man 
should fill a folio spanlcale with ‘them, en- 
titles him to the character ‘of an original 
ph as sr in philosophy ? 
- Whether, if Mr. Malthus. has ‘not 
sfobaree to himself more originality 
than he possessed, his admirers have not 
done soforhim, and rendered it neces- 
sary that his pretensions in this respect 
should be strictly inquired i Into ? 
6. Whether the whole tenor and scope 
of Mr. Malthus’s first edition, which was 
to overturn all schemes of buman perfec- 
tibilty from the sole principle of popula- 
tion, does not involve a direct con- 
* Food, as well as population, that ‘is to 
say, all vegetables and all animals, as well 
as man, increase in @ geometrical ratio, and 
most of them in one much higher than man. 
Ff is not the want of _power in the principle — 
of production, but the want of room that con- 
‘fines the means of subsistence within such 
narrow limits. As long as it has room to in- 
crease and multiply, a ‘seed of corn will pro- 
pagate its species much ‘faster than man.— 
This circumstance, though noticed by Frank- 
lin, seems to have been overlooked by the 
author of the Essay. The principle which 
determines the quantity of the means ‘of sub- 
‘sistence, therefore depends on the «room 
they have to grow in, and thus’keep pace 
with the progress of “human life. And 
hence it follows, that the fundamental dif- 
ference, between the power of increase in the 
principle of population and the means of sub- 
sistence, cannot be expressed by a geometri- 
cal and arithmetical series, unless we Suppose 
the space assigned for the production of food, 
and the sdraad of vegetation, that’ is, the 
size of the whole earth itself, to have beén 
otiginally.no larger than to supply the imme- 
“diate wants of the first inhabitants, “and‘that 
‘this space had been’ gradually enlarging itself 
ever since,,and would continue ‘to do so, ‘by 
perpetual additions of -a certain arithmetical 
‘quantity yearly, 
radiction?. For was it notthe.object of 
Mr. M.’s Essay to shew, that if ever it 
should so happen, that mankind were to 
become superior to every ape and selfish 
motive, and to regulate their whole con. 
duct by the dictates of wisdom and vir- 
tue, so that the checks to population 
from vice and misery should cease, they 
would immediately lose all power of 
controul over this principle; and, fron 
the most perfect order, virtue, and happic 
ness nothing ‘but famine, Ae ale S10on, and 
unexampled vice and’inisery could en- 
sue? Is not thus to say, that, if mankind 
were governed entirely by rational mo- 
‘tives, they would have no effect’on thera 
at all.; that in proportion as we have 
more command over our passions, we 
shall have less; and that whenever i¢ 
shall come to pass, that the community 
in general are actuated solely by a re- 
gard to the consequences of their actio: us, 
that then they will innmediately and in- 
fallibly rash headlong to destruction? 
7. Whether a writer, who can betray 
such a want of logic as to have composed 
a work on this: confusion of ideas, can be 
“implicitly relied.on in other matters, par- 
sie arly of an abstruse and metaphysical 
vature? Or whether Mr. Malthus may 
peas in ‘his own defence, that he was 
led hastily to'adopt this errer by his too 
great admiration of the speculations of 
Wallace, being but the dupe of another 
man’s sophistry : ° 
§. Whether the two following ,points 
are not fully and 'repeatediy established, 
though in a loose and desultory nanner, 
and inixed up with a.good deal of : levity 
and some digressions, in the reply to the 
‘Essay on Population, and neibes they 
do not go to the foundation of } Mr. M.'s 
“system—namely, 
First, That if we admit (as Mr. Mal- 
thus formerly contended), that vice 
aud misery are the only checks to .po- 
pulation, that then very new and iinpor- 
tant consequences will undoubtedly fol- 
low from his theory, but that the posi- 
‘tion, from which these - extraordinary 
consequences are to follow, viz. son 
vice and misery are the only check 
to population, ¥s in itself oe Mr. 
Malthus’s own acknowledoem ment) u utterky 
false, unfounded, aud paradoxical.—Se- 
condly, ‘that if we adopt the improved 
doctrine of the later editions, and ‘SAY, 
thatnot vice and misery alone, hut vice 
misery, and moral. restraint, ar piuden- 
tial motives, taken together, are-the oa! ¥ 
checks to ;population, that this indeed is 
true, butthat, witht his qualification, Gore 
of 
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