252 Objections to Mr. Malthus’s T heory of Population. [April 1, 
of those wonderful discoveries and inge- 
nious paradoxes, which have excited the 
spleen of one half of the world, and the 
admiration of the other, will have any 
solid foundation to rest upon, but that 
we must retura back (however reluce 
tantly) to the common sense and vulgar 
notions of mankind ? Or, in other words, 
whether it does not strictly follew, from 
Mr. Malthus’s first statement (that 
- vice and misery are the only possible 
'ehecks to excessive population), that 
a certain quantity of them is. abso- 
lutely necessary for this purpose, that 
if they could, they ought not to be 
removed, and that the total absence of 
them would be the greatest mischief that 
could happen; and, on the other hand, 
whether it' does not as strictly follow 
from admitting that moral restraint, i. e. . 
yeason, prudence, manners, &c. may 
and do operate as checks to population, 
that vice and misery are no longer either 
necessary or desirable, that the. more 
moral restraint, or the more wisdom and 
virtue, and the less vice and misery there 
‘is inthe world, the better; and that if 
the influence of moral restraint could be 
substituted wholly for that of vice and 
misery, it would not be the greatest evil, 
but the greatest good that could possibly 
take place? This latter view of the sub- 
ject indeed is nearer the truth, but it 
wants that air of originality w hich recom- 
mended Mr. M.’s first sera tothe 
notice of the public. 
9. Whether the author of the Essay. 
need have-taken so much pains to prove 
merely the existence, or actual operation 
of vice aud misery, or the difficulty of 
bringing nrankind to act from motives of 
pure reason? 
difficulty ; but it was:believed, that if 
they could:be brought to act from such 
‘motives, it would be well for them; and 
Mr. Malthus, to the great joy of some 
persons, was supposed to nave proved 
‘that this was a mistake, or that all the 
vils in society were absolutely neces- 
sary evils. » He has retracted a great part. 
of his theory; but ic required a degree of 
fortitude, not to be expected even froma 
‘philosopher hké Mr. Malthus, to do this 
- In such a manner, as not to leave -the 
general plan of his work full of imcon- 
~ sistencies and almost unintelligible. 
40. Whether Mr. M. did not contrive 
‘to represent the tendency of population 
to increase beyond the means of sub- 
sistente, “as something of a very alarm- 
ing and dangerous nature? Its tendency 
to-excess, except as this was repressed 
No one ever disputed this- 
by positive vice and misery, being in pro- 
portion to its powers of increase, and this 
naturally becoming greater according to 
its actual progress, the farther the prin- 
ciple of population had been allowed to 
proceed, the more dangerous it would 
become, and the more ‘mischiefs would 
be required to carry off, or prevent its 
excesses. It seemed, therefore (on the 
old maxim of Morbo venienti occur rete } 
to be the chief duty of the state—first, 
to thin or keep population down as low 
as possible, to prevent this germ and 
root of all evil, population, from spreading 
its baneful influence beyond the reach of 
controul: secondly, to keep the popula- 
tion that remained, sufficiently vicious 
and miserable, 
11. Whether the author of the Reply 
has not detected the fallacy of this rea- 
‘soning, by shewing that the tendency of 
population, to increase in all cases what- 
ever, isot in proportion to its power of 
Increase; but to its power of mcrease, 
accompanied and checked by the pros- 
pect of not being able to provide for that 
increase, which 1s a totally different thing 
either from actual vise or tisery? For : 
in all stages of society, and of human in- 
tellect and virtue, so long as man retains 
the common facuities of his nature, the 
tendency of population to excess, or to 
‘produce mischief, must be repressed and 
counterbalanced by the prospect of the- 
inconveniences to ensue ; and this motive 
must operate more forcibly in proportion 
to the inconveniencies apprehended, that 
is, according to the degree in which it ‘fs 
likely to becotne excessive. So that the 
daiteds of excessive population is one 
that lessens in proportion as the excess 
becomes greater, that naturally corrects 
itself, and can never go beyond a certain 
point. Nor when the excess does be- 
come great, does this arise from the 
previous actual state of population, or 
‘from the absence of vice and misery to 
repress it, but from’ the degradation of 
morals, and an indifference to cense- 
quences, on the consideration of which 
the true, natural, preventive check to 
pgpulation depends. Hence it ‘follows, 
that the increase of population is not in 
itself an alarming circumstance, and ‘that 
the best way of preventing its excess is 
by diffusing rational principles, and the 
notions of ‘decency and comfort, as wide- 
ly as possible ; two positions not incul- 
cated in the most unequivocal manner in 
Mr. Malthus’s writings. 
12: Whether, in a word, Mr. Mal- 
thus, by giving up the necessity of vice 
4 and 
