1809.] 
and misery as exclusive checks to popu- 
lation, has not done away all the prac- 
tical inferences. to be drawn from. his 
system, both with respect to the indif- 
ference, or rather horror, with which we 
should look upon the thing itself, and the 
methods we should take to prevent it? 
13.. Whether, what Mr. Malthus lays 
down as alaw of nature, namely, that 
no one has a right to beget children after 
the world is fully stocked, or when the 
produce of the earth is not more than 
sufficient to maintain its inhabitants, and 
the limitation which he has given of this 
law, namely, that no one asa right to do 
this, but those who are rich enough to 
provide for them, do not directly con- 
tradict each other? Since, if there were 
no more food left, the rich man could 
not possibly provide for his children any 
more than the poor man; and if there 
is a surplus over which the rich man has 
a command, or if the produce of the 
earth is more than sufficient for the inha- 
bitants, then it ceases to be a law of na- 
ture, that the poor man should not be al- 
lowed to bring children into the world, 
because: ‘¢ at nature’s mighty feast there 
is no vacant cover for them !”—Whether 
there is one law of nature for the poor, 
and another for the rich? The provi- 
sions of different families must depend on 
the different distribution of the wealth of 
the community, that is, on the laws of 
the land (which, however, in the present 
instance Mr. M. wishes to see altered, 
because they are more favourable to the 
pour than he could wish), but can have 
nothing to do with the laws of nature, or 
the inability of the earth to furnish sub- 
sistence for more than a certain number 
of inhabitants. 
14. Whether, as a rule of common 
prudence, every man did not know, that - 
he should have more dificulty in maip- 
taining a wife and family than in shifting 
for himself only, quite as well before as 
since the publication of Mr, Malthus’s 
Essay ? 
These questions, fairly answered, will, 
I suspect, go near to establish the three 
points whic! <he letter-writer undertakes 
to prove. First, ‘that Mr. M.’s reason- 
ing, whatever its merit might be, was 
‘not his own, Secondly, that, as applied 
to the question of the perfectibility of 
mankind, it was an evident contradiction. 
Thirdly, that in a general and practical 
view of the subject, the position laid down 
by Mr. Malthus, of the disproportion be- 
tween the possible increase of population 
and the possible inerease in the means of 
Monrnry Mas, No. 183. 
Error in the Edinburgh Review. 
253" 
subsisterice, does not overturn any of the 
received principles of potitical economy, 
or social improvement. 
Your’s, &c. 
y PurLo. 
un, 9 
To_the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, : 
HE following observations on the 
remarks made inthe Edinburgh 
Review, vol. 25, on Professor Vince’s 
Essay on Gravitation, may be thought 
of importance by many cf your philoso= 
phical readers. 
According to Sir I. Newton’s hypothe= 
sis, the force with which a planet is 
urged towards the sun, is the difference 
between the pressures of the fluids on the 
sides next and opposite to the sun. he 
pressures on these half surfaces (as the 
density of the fluid continually varies) 
can only be found by a fluxional calculus: 
and upon examining the Professor’s so- 
lution, it appears to be perfectly satis- 
factory. Now the Reviewer makes the 
pressure towards the sun to be as the 
fluxion of the density: this is manifestly 
false. If a series of qnantities increase 
according to any law, is the difference of 
the first and last terms, the same as the 
difference between the sums of the first 
half and the second half of the series ?— 
For something of this kind must have en- 
tered into the mind of the Reviewer, if 
he had any meaning at all in what he 
has stated. Farther, the fluxion of the 
‘density of the fluid is independent of the 
density of the planet; and yet in estimat- 
ing the torce of the planct to the sun, 
the density of the planet necessarily en- 
ters into the calculation, the accelerative 
force being as the moving force, divided 
by the quantity of matter in the planet, 
or by its magnitude and density con- 
jointly. These -palpable, blunders, into 
which the reviewer has fallen, can. be 
imputed only to his total ignorance of the 
subject. Besides the absurdity of Le 
Sage’s hypothesis, it is not true.as ase 
serted by the Reviewer, that any two bo- 
dies will, upon that supposition, be urged 
towards cach other by forces varying in 
versely as the squares of their distances. 
T have noticed two strong propensities in 
these Reviewers :. one, thatcof endeavour- 
ing to discover errors where there are 
none, and to conceal merit where there 
is any; the other, to make their Review 
a Vehicle fur prupagating their own opis 
nions, 
Your's, &cc. 
ul Te 
Sn ee I 8 a ee 
rt ene . 
~an 
