I have thus attempted to answer the different points of Mr. Malthus’s argument, and give a truer account of the various principles that actuate human nature. There is but one advantage that I can conceive of as resulting from the admission of his mechanical theory on the subject, which is that it would be the most effectual recipe for indifference that has yet been found out. No one need give himself any farther trouble about the progress of vice, or the extension of misery. The office of moral censor, that troublesome, uneasy office which every one is so ready to set up in his own breast, and which I verily believe is the occasion of more unhappiness than any one cause else, would be at an end. The professor’s chair of morality would become vacant, and no one would have more cause than I to rejoice at the breaking up for the holidays; for I have plagued myself a good deal about the distinctions of right and wrong. The pilot might let go the helm, and leave the vessel to drift carelessly before the stream. When we are once convinced that the degree of virtue and happiness can no more be influenced by human wisdom than the ebbing and flowing of the tide, it must be idle to give ourselves any more concern about them. The wise man might then enjoy an Epicurean languor and repose, without being conscious of the neglect of duty. Mr. Malthus’s system is one, ‘in which the wicked cease from troubling, and in which the weary are at rest.’ To persons of an irritable and nervous disposition, who are fond of kicking against the pricks, who have tasted of the bitterness of the knowledge of good and evil, and to whom whatever is amiss in others sticks not merely like a burr, but like a pitch-plaister, the advantage of such a system is incalculable.—
Happy are they, who live in the dream of their own existence, and see all things in the light of their own minds; who walk by faith and hope, not by knowledge; to whom the guiding-star of their youth still shines from afar, and into whom the spirit of the world has not entered! They have not been ‘hurt by the archers,’ nor has the iron entered their souls. They live in the midst of arrows, and of death, unconscious of harm. The evil thing comes not nigh them. The shafts of ridicule pass unheeded by, and malice loses its sting. Their keen perceptions do not catch at hidden mischiefs, nor cling to every folly. The example of vice does not rankle in their breasts, like the poisoned shirt of Nessus. Evil impressions fall off from them, like drops of water. The yoke of life is to them light and supportable. The world has no hold on them. They are in it, not of it; and a dream and a glory is ever about them.
EXTRACTS FROM THE ESSAY ON POPULATION
WITH A COMMENTARY, AND NOTES
I intended to have added another Letter on the principle of population as affecting the laws of property, and the condition of the poor. But I found it impossible to combat some of Mr. Malthus’s opinions without bringing vouchers for them. I might otherwise seem to be combating the chimeras of my own brain. There are some instances of perverse reasoning so gross and mischievous, that without seeing the confidence with which they are insisted on, it seems a waste of time to contradict them. The reader may perhaps have had something of this feeling already. By throwing the remainder of the work into the form of Extracts with notes I shall at least avoid the imputation of ascribing to Mr. Malthus singularities he never dreamt of, and have an opportunity of remarking upon some incidental passages, which appeared to me liable to objection in the perusal. My remarks will be confined almost entirely to the two last books of the work.
‘M. Condorcet’s Esquisse d’un tableau historique des progres de l’esprit humain, was written, it is said, under the pressure of that cruel proscription which terminated in his death. If he had no hopes of its being seen during his life, and of its interesting France in his favour, it is a singular instance of the attachment of a man to principles, which every day’s experience was, so fatally for himself, contradicting. To see the human mind, in one of the most enlightened nations of the world, debased by such a fermentation of disgusting passions, of fear, cruelty, malice, revenge, ambition, madness, and folly, as would have disgraced the most savage nations in the most barbarous age, must have been such a tremendous shock to his ideas of the necessary and inevitable progress of the human mind, that nothing but the firmest conviction of the truth of his principles, in spite of all appearances, could have withstood.’
Mr. Malthus in his pick-thank way, here takes occasion to sneer at Condorcet for his attachment to principles, which, he asserts, every day’s experience was contradicting. As this of mine is not a pick-thank work, I must take the liberty of observing, as I have never read M. Condorcet’s work, that if his ideas of the future progress of the human mind were the same as those of other writers on the subject, that debasement of character, and that mass of disgusting passions, which developed themselves in the events to which Mr. Malthus here alludes, were the strongest confirmation of the necessity of getting rid of those institutions which had thus degraded the human character, and under which such passions had been fostered: for to say that the progress of the human mind, in spite of those institutions, was necessary and inevitable, or that there were no such passions as fear, cruelty, malice, revenge, &c. belonging to the character generated by the old system in France (in which an immediate change could not be expected without a miracle) would have been such a contradiction to common sense, and to all their own favourite schemes of reform, as no madman in the height of revolutionary madness was ever guilty of. All that could ever be pretended by the advocates of reform was that there were capacities for improvement in the mind, which had hitherto notwithstanding the advantages of knowledge been thwarted by human institutions. The contradiction rests therefore not with Condorcet, but with our author. The same objection has been often made, and often refuted. But there are some reasoners who care little how often a fallacy has been exposed, if they know there are people who are still inclined to listen to it.
‘This posthumous publication is only a sketch of a much larger work which he proposed should be executed. It necessarily wants, therefore, that detail and application, which can alone prove the truth of any theory.’ [This remark I cannot admit. I do not think for instance that any detail or application is necessary to prove the truth of Mr. Malthus’s general principle of the disproportion between the power of increase in population, and in the productions of the earth, or to shew the bad consequences of an unrestricted increase of population.] ‘A few observations will be sufficient to shew how completely this theory is contradicted, when it is applied to the real and not to an imaginary state of things.’ [The contre-sens implied in this expression is not a slip of the pen, but a fixed principle in Mr. Malthus’s mind.] He has a very satisfactory method of answering all theories relating to any imaginary alterations or improvements in the condition of mankind, by shewing what would be the consequences of a certain state of society, if no such state of society really existed, but if every thing remained just as it is at present. He thinks it sound sense and true philosophy to judge of a theory which is confessedly imaginary or has never been realized by comparing it ‘with the real and not with an imaginary state of things.’ That is, he does not adopt the necessarian maxim that men will be always the same while the circumstances continue, but he insists upon it that they will be always the same, whether the circumstances are the same or not. Some instances have already appeared of this in the foregoing work. The following passage may serve as another instance. After supposing Mr. Godwin’s system of equality to be realized to its utmost extent, and the most perfect form of society established, he exclaims, ‘this would indeed be a happy state; but that it is merely an imaginary state with scarcely a feature near the truth, the reader, I am afraid, is already too well convinced.’ Mr. Godwin himself was I apprehend very well convinced that this imaginary state was very different from the truth or from the present state of things, when he wrote his book to shew how much better the one would be than the other is. He then goes on, ‘Man cannot live in the midst of plenty. All cannot share alike the bounties of nature. Were there no established administration of property, every man would be obliged to guard with force his little store. Selfishness would be triumphant. The subjects of contention would be perpetual,’ &c. If there were no established administration of property, while men continued as selfish as they are at present, (which is I suppose what Mr. Malthus means by applying the theory to the real state of things‘) the consequences here mentioned would no doubt follow. But it is supposed that there is no established administration of property, because the necessity for it has ceased or because selfishness is not triumphant, but vanquished. This is the supposition. Mr. Malthus however persists, that were there no established administration of property, ‘every man would be obliged to guard with force his little store since selfishness would still be as triumphant as ever.’ This is contrary to all the received rules of reasoning. He then proceeds to examine, how long Mr. Godwin’s theory if once realized might be expected to last, and how soon the present vices of men would discompose this perfect form of society, concluding very wisely that ‘a theory that will not admit of application cannot possibly be just.’ True: if a man tells you that a triangle has certain properties, he is bound to make good this theory with respect to a triangle, but not with respect to a circle.—The outcry which Mr. Malthus here makes about experience is without any meaning. It is evident that we cannot make this word a rule in all cases whatever. For instance, if a man who is in the habit of drinking a bottle of brandy every day of his life and consequently enjoys but an indifferent state of health, is advised by his physician to leave off this practice, and told that on this condition he may recover his health and appetite, it would not be considered as a proof of any great wisdom in the man, if he were to answer this reasoning of his physician by applying it to the real, and not to an imaginary state of things, or by saying, ‘The consequences you promise me from submitting to your regimen are indeed very desirable; but I cannot expect any such consequences from it: I have always been in very bad health from the habit I have constantly been in of drinking brandy; and it would be contrary to the experience of my whole life to suppose, that I should receive any benefit from leaving it off.’ In like manner, I conceive that it is not from any great depth of philosophy, but from the strength of his attachment to the good things of this life, that Mr. Malthus makes so many ill-judged appeals to experience. He is afraid of launching into the empty regions of abstraction, he stands shivering on the brink; or if he ventures a little way, soon turns back again, frightened out of his wits, and muttering something about population. His imagination cannot sustain for a moment the idea of any real improvement or elevation in the human character, but instantly drops down into the filth of vice and misery, out of which it had just crawled. His attempts at philosophy put me in mind of the exploits of those citizens who set out on a Sunday morning to take an excursion into the country, resolved to taste the fresh air, and not be confined for ever to the same spot, but who get no farther than Paddington, White Conduit-house, or Bagnigge-wells, unable to leave the smoke, the noise and dust, to which they have so long been used! Mr. Malthus is a perfect cockney in matters of philosophy.
M. Condorcet, allowing that there must in all stages of society be a number of individuals who have no other resource than their industry, or that ‘there exists a necessary cause of inequality, of dependence and even of misery,[[25]] which menaces without ceasing the most numerous and active class of the community,’ proposes to establish a fund, which should assure to the old an assistance, produced in part by their own former savings, and partly by the savings of others, who die before they reap the benefit of it; and that this fund might extend to women and children, who had lost their husbands or fathers, and afford a capital to young beginners, sufficient for the developement of their industry. To those who have not fathomed all the depths and shoals of the principle of population, this plan seems feasible enough. Mr. Malthus’s cautious reserved humanity, his anxious concern about the support of the aged, the infirm, the widow, and the orphan, his wish to give every encouragement to industry, and above all, his regard for the rights and independence of his fellows, lead him to see nothing but difficulties and objections in the way of such a plan.
‘Such establishments may appear very promising upon paper; but when applied to real life, they will be found to be absolutely nugatory. M. Condorcet allows, that a class of people which maintains itself entirely by industry is necessary to every state. Why does he allow this? No other reason can well be assigned, than because he conceives, that the labour necessary to procure subsistence for an extended population, will not be performed without the goad of necessity. If by establishments, upon the plans that have been mentioned, this spur to industry be removed; if the idle and negligent be placed upon the same footing with regard to their credit, and the future support of their wives and families, as the active and industrious, can we expect to see men exert that animated activity in bettering their condition, which now forms the master-spring of publick prosperity. If an inquisition were to be established to examine the claims of each individual, and to determine whether he had, or had not, exerted himself to the utmost, and to grant or refuse assistance accordingly, this would be little else than a repetition upon a larger scale, of the English poor laws, and would be completely destructive of the true principles of liberty and equality.’
This passage only shews the shyness of our author’s benevolence. He will hear of no short-cuts or obvious expedients for bettering the condition of the poor. All his benefits are extracted by the Cæsarean operation.—In the first place, he contradicts himself. He first supposes that labour cannot be performed without the goad of necessity, and then affirms that it is the prospect of bettering their condition, that makes men exert themselves, and forms the master-spring of public prosperity. But why is it necessary that the idle and negligent should be put upon the same footing with the industrious, with respect to their credit, the support of their families, &c.? As to the first of these, it is proposed to be only temporary, to serve as a beginning, and if a proper use is not made of it, the goad of necessity, to which Mr. Malthus is so ready to resort on all occasions, will soon begin to do its office. As to the second object, the support of a surviving family, in case of accidents, did Mr. Malthus never hear of any distress produced in this way, but in consequence of the idleness and negligence of the deceased? Is not a poor family necessarily reduced to distress by the death of the husband, let his industry and sobriety have been never so great, and even reduced to greater distress in proportion to his industry, as they must miss his help the more? Besides, it is not likely that the withholding this assistance from a man’s family after his death will be any inducement to the idle and negligent to exert themselves, when the sight of the actual distress in which their families are involved by their ill conduct has no effect upon them. I see no objection to proportioning the allowance to the old, or to those who have had time to make a provision for themselves, to the contributions they have really made to the fund in a given length of time. This would be a sufficient test of the validity of their pretensions, as they could not contribute largely, without proportionably straitening themselves, and the idle and profligate are not very apt to part with their present gains to provide for any speculative uncertainties or future difficulty. (Mr. Malthus may measure the support allotted to their families in the same way.) While the distinction of the idle and industrious continued, and while it was necessary to encourage the one and discountenance the other, I do not understand what objection there can be to this mode, or how it would trench upon the true principles of liberty and equality. True equality supposes equal merit and virtue. But Mr. Malthus is alarmed at this scheme, because, he says, it is little else than a repetition on a larger scale of the English poor laws. If the English poor laws are formed upon this principle, I should, I confess, be very sorry to see them abolished.