the surest guardian of the rights and feelings of human nature, especially in its lowest and most helpless state, through all succeeding ages.

(4) But it was reserved for the present day, not more prolific in new theories than in the resuscitation of obsolete ones, not only to revive the contrary principle, but to add to it an universality of application, of which it was never before supposed susceptible; the principle, as one of its chief advocates expresses himself, never having previously "been sufficiently pursued to its consequences," nor the necessary "practical inferences drawn from it1:" its only claims to novelty, therefore, are the daring terms in which it is now propounded, and the dreadful lengths to which it is pushed: a theory which, we must admit with the writer alluded to, is indeed "pre-eminently clear," both as to its nature and its effects. It pronounces that there exists an evil in the principle of population; an evil, not accidental, but inherent; not of occasional occurrence, but in perpețual operation; not light, transient, or mitigated, but productive of miseries, compared with which all those inflicted by human institutions, that is to say, by the weakness and wickedness of man, however instigated, are light:" an evil, finally, for which there is no remedy, save one, which had been long overlooked, and which is now enunciated in terms which evince any thing rather than confidence. It is a principle, moreover, pre-eminently bold, as well as "clear." With a presumption, to call it by no fitter name, of which it may be doubted whether literature, heathen or Christian, furnishes a parallel, it professes to trace this supposed evil to its source, "the laws of nature, which are those of GOD;" thereby implying, and indeed as

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1 Malthus's Essay on Population, Pre- quoted throughout, except when other face, p. v., quarto edition, which is wise expressed.

serting, that the law by which the Deity multiplies his offspring, and that by which he makes provision for their sustentation, are different, and, indeed, irreconcileable; that their adverse operation is not of such a nature as to produce superabundance and profusion, but insufficiency and want throughout all the tribes of animated nature; and that, as it respects mankind, in particular, these laws must be regulated by expedients, or rectified by checks, from the very contemplation of which humanity recoils.

(5) The moral effects of this theory, however, I leave for further and distinct consideration: but I cannot refrain from declaring, on the very threshold of the argument, that as, in the plain apprehension of the many, it lowers the character of the Deity in that attribute, which, as Rousseau has well observed, is the most essential to him, his goodness, or otherwise impugns his wisdom; as it disturbs our dependence upon Divine Providence, and weakens those feelings of complacency with which man ought to regard his fellow man, teaching human beings to view each other as rivals for an insufficient share in the bounties of nature, rather than as co-partners in an overflowing abundance, which still increases with their multiplication; and, above all, as it distinctly aims at destroying the sacred and long-established rights of poverty and distress,—it commits a deliberate outrage on the settled feelings and principles of mankind.

(6) This dispute, therefore, in which, let it be remembered, that this same system is the aggressor, cannot be conducted, as its advocates seem to expect, with the apathy of a metaphysical discussion or mathematical demonstration. If there be any themes on which "twere impious to be calm," this is unquestionably one of them. An indifference, whether affected or real, in discussing

a subject which so deeply concerns the welfare and even existence of myriads of human beings, has not even the semblance of a virtue: for myself, if I have not conformed to the "candour" of the present age, as it is termed, I have imitated the honesty of preceding ones, in expressing myself with the utmost plainness and freedom throughout; and would send those who may think that occasional warmth in such a cause demands any apology, to one of those authorities to whom I shall often have occasion to appeal: "Men cannot contend coldly and without affection," says Lord Bacon, "about things which they hold dear and precious."

(7) If anything can heighten our feelings of painful surprise at the revival, in the Christian era, of this darkest notion of the heathen ages, it is the period at which it has been again brought forward, and more especially, the country which has, in this respect, "the bad pre-eminence" of having been its principal promulgator. It may safely be asserted of the various nations that form the European family, that from their first establishment they have, generally speaking, gone on increasing in population, and that this progressive increase has been accompanied by a more than corresponding augmentation in the means of subsistence; so that, from their foundation to this hour, there probably never was a time in which the inhabitants were so numerous, and the comforts of life so liberally shared as at the present moment. Exceptions there are to this general remark, but they are such as flow into the current of the argument and strengthen its force. Thus there are countries in which the number of the inhabitants has diminished, but they are those in which their condition has consequently deteriorated.

(8) But, not to anticipate a branch of the succeeding argument, I shall proceed to remark, that it was in

England, one of the most densely peopled, and most plenteous countries of them all, and at a time, as it is now confessed on all hands, when the united energies of her entire population were not more than equal to the salvation of the empire, that the doctrine of the redundancy of human beings, and especially of our countrymen, was broached. It is still more emphatically repeated at the present moment, when we presume to think it is equally clear that the combined efforts of her entire numbers are quite as essential to her preservation. In the period that has intervened, events of the most tremendous import, varying and reversing the state of things in rapid succession, have occurred, events that have had no possible bearing upon the subject under consideration; yet still, in all these fluctuations, whether distress has been apparently occasioned by a scanty supply of the necessaries of life, or from an "over production" of them'; whether the market of labour, as it is called, has been under-stocked, or over-supplied; in periods of the deepest gloom or the brightest glory, the doctrine has not merely kept its ground, it has continued to spread its triumphs. In the diagnosis of this empirical principle, the political Sangrado of the age, every symptom equally indicates the one sole disease, and demands the same specific; the evil exists in redundant population, for which it exhibits its nostrum, a compound of its "checks."

(9) But the truth is, there are ingredients in this system which render it palatable at all seasons, and to a great variety of tastes. It appeals to the strongest passions of the human heart; it allays the fears and flatters the selfishness of those to whom it addresses itself; it graduates the virtues of social life, or even changes their very character, as expediency or interest

1 See Lord Liverpool's Speech, Feb. 1822.

dictates; and, above all, it absolves, in great measure, Wealth and Power from their deep responsibility; soothing the sloth and excusing the neglect, if not sanctioning the misrule, of those whose elevated duty it is to mitigate or remove the miseries of mankind, by attributing those miseries principally to the laws of nature', which it represents as propitious only to the prosperous, and inexorable to the destitute. It is thus, under the specious garb of an abstract truth, that the doctrine in question, whatever its advocates may advance to the contrary, becomes a pander to the mean esthough, alas! not the least prevalent or powerful passions of our nature, and is favoured accordingly.

(10) Another and a principal reason of the revival and spread of this notion is, that it has been adopted as the very basis of modern Political Economy, which is consequently placed upon a foundation unsupported by common sense, experience, or humanity. This system, made up of" shreds and patches," partly of truisms, partly of palpable blunders, but principally of a string of unconnected paradoxes, which, just as it happens, may be either, is self-elevated into the rank of a science, in which, such is the temptation, every one is at once a professor, and under a sort of immediate afflatus, utters oracles. Though all agree that the short and direct path of human interest has never been discovered, much less trodden, till their days, still no two of them concur as to its exact direction; on one point, however, they are unanimous, namely, in asserting the superfecundity of the human race, and consequently the necessity of checking its increase. It is in their capacity as zealots of this doctrine, that it becomes necessary to allude to them. It was the object of that true political philosophy which they despise, Malthus, Essay on Population, p. 367.