1804.] Reply to Remarks on Malthus’s Principles of Population. 
and that there, the danger to the happi- 
nefs of the lower claffes of people from 
this caufe is, in fome degree, feen and un- 
derftood : the evidence of Mr. Townfend, 
who travelled through Spain, is al‘o oe 
looked. 
To afk of your Cone pondene, how 
“¢ Providence,”’ or ‘the general laws and 
conftitutions of Nature,” | might ‘as well 
have been called an «ffed?,”? may, perhaps, 
be conficered by him as a challenge to 
wage war either with ignorance or con- 
ceit;’? but I venture to afk an explana- 
tion. 
Mr. Malthus propofes | no *‘horrid auxi- 
liaries” to co-operate in deftroying the 
human race, as your Correfpondent in- 
fnuates ; but he gives inttances from au- 
thertic hiftory, where war, infanticide, 
and feveral other horrid crimes exifted in 
fociety, without being able to prevent the 
increafe cf population beyond the food 
which the country produced ; and where 
difeale, occafioned by privation cf whol¢- 
fome food, was the ultimate means of pre- 
ferving the due balance. 
As I have not Dr. Prices excellent 
work on Rewverfonary Payments betore 
» I fhall only remark, that Mr. Mal- 
thus fates, at page 228, that Dr. Price 
** often mentions the lifts of the yearly 
births and marriages as exprefing the 
sumber of children born to each mar- 
riage: thofe who have both the books 
befure them, will eafily fettle this point. 
Pilon ss nme @ document,” as your 
Correfpondent calls it, eee the po- 
beste of Lendon, will probably alfo be 
explained, without attaching particular 
blame to Dr. Price, if it fhould appear, 
that the accounts of the population of fome 
of our great towns were from aciual enu- 
meration, while the amount of the po- 
pulation of London was calculated by Dr. 
Price from dcubttul data, (See a pamphlet 
of the late Mr. Wales's on this fubject.) 
In the fubfequent part of his letter, your 
Correfpondent proves hinfelf a greater 
adept in mifqueting, or partially quoting, 
Mr. Malthus, than what even that gentle- 
ian 1s charged with by M.N. refpecting 
Dr. Price. The note alluded to by your 
Correfpondent, is upon the following pat: 
fage in the text, at page 228 :—** In f Gt, 
2s long as exactly half the bern live to ibe 
married, the annual births wril always be 
exactly quadruple the annual weddings, 
let the prolificnefs of marriages vary in 
any conceivable degrec*.”” 
* «¢ ‘That is, when a fufficient time is 
elapfed, to let the births afieét the marriages, 
Before this period, indeed, Dr. Price’s obferva- 
farts,” 
188 
The fupprefiion of the firft line of this 
note, gave occafion for your Correfpon- 
dent’s temporary triumph refpe€ting births 
affecting marriages, and on a term new to 
him in political arithmetic: the artifice 
0 introducing the paflage— that, prac- 
tically, population feidom increafes by 
as part cf the above note, (which 
the words at the bottom of page 95 im- 
ply,) is unworthy of any friend of Dr. 
Price’s. I turned over many pages of Mr. 
Malthus’s book, withou: finding fuch a 
paflage: wherever it is, I doubt rot but 
the context will explain it fatisfaétorily. 
That population may make a fart on any 
temporary increafe of food, without the 
women becoming all at once more prolt- 
fic, is amply explained in feveral parts of 
Mr. Mal:hus’s book, by the effect of fuch 
favourable circumftances upon fingle per- 
fons, to induce them to marry and beget 
children ; upon the health and vigour of 
the young, which are then rearing to in- 
creafe the population; and upon all ranks, 
as preferving life. 
Your Correfpondent’s acutenefs in dif- 
£OVaNne, “ obi uriny and incorrectnefs”’ 
in Mr. Malibus’s book, and ingenuoufnefs 
in qs voting therefrom, is apvarent in his 
omitting the latter part of the paffage 
from mpage 236 and 237; which runs 
thus 
ee Ie will be obferved, that when the 
pro; xortion between the births and burials 
is given, the period of doubli ing will be 
fhorter, the greater the mortality; be- 
caufe the births, as well as deaths, are 
increafed by this fuppofition; and they 
both beara greater proportion to t he whole 
population, than if mortality were {maller, 
and there were a greater n umber oe people 
in advanced life.” It is M. N. who ab- 
furdly atlumes the cafe, wherein the ratio 
of births to deaths are firft to be as eight 
to ten, and afterwards as abfurdly changed 
to eight to nine; although the words 
quoted by himfelf from Mr. Malthus, re- 
quire it to be a giwen ralio. ‘The length of 
life is intended by Mr, Malthus to be the 
variable quantity affecting the time of 
doubling the population. Had the whole 
of the above paffage been quoted, M. N. 
could not have claimed ths fame fact as 
tion would be jut; but, practically, it fel- 
dom happens that the women of a country 
become all at once more prolific than ufval ; 
and in the general tables of mortality, from 
which the dedu€tions are made, if they be not, 
fuch, as for the births to affe& the marriagesy, 
they cannot exprefs a juft average of any kind, 
and are in every point of vigw almott ule- 
lefey? 3 ae 
his 
