recapitulated, and which need not surely be refuted twice, how in such a state of happy equality population would go on increasing without limit, because all obstacles to it, "all anxiety about the future support of "children," would be entirely removed, though it would at the same time be attended in every stage of the progress with increasing and aggravated wretchedness, because those very obstacles, and the same difficulty of providing for the support of children would still remain.

"Here then," he says, "no human institu"tions existed, to the perverseness of which "Mr. Godwin ascribes the original sin of the 66 worst men. No opposition had been pro"duced by them between public and private

good. No monopoly had been created of "those advantages which reason directs to be " left in common. No man had been goaded to "the breach of order by unjust laws. Benevo"lence had established her reign in all hearts. "And yet in so short a period as fifty years, "violence, oppression, falsehood, misery, every "hateful vice, and every form of distress, which degrade and sadden the present state of so

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ciety, seem to have been generated by the "most imperious circumstances, by laws inhe

"rent in the nature of man, and absolutely independent of all human regulations."

"It is a perfectly just observation of Mr. Godwin, that there is a principle in human so

ciety by which population is perpetually kept "down to the level of the means of subsistence. "The sole question is, what is this principle? "Is it some obscure and occult cause? Is it

some mysterious interference of heaven, which "at a certain period strikes the men with impo"tence, and the women with barrenness? Or "is it a cause open to our researches, within "our view; a cause which has constantly been "observed to operate, though with varied force, "in every state in which man has been placed? "Is it not misery, and the fear of misery," [certainly two very different things] "the ne

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cessary and inevitable results of the laws of nature, which human institutions, so far from "aggravating, have tended considerably to miti

gate, though they can never remove." He then proceeds to shew how the distinctions of property and the other regulations of society would necessarily result from the principle of population, and adds, that "certainly if the "great principle of the Essay be admitted, it "affects Mr. Godwin's whole work, and essen

tially alters the foundations of political jus

"tice. A great part of his book consists of an "abuse of human institutions" [very sad indeed]" as productive of all or most of the evils "which afflict society. The acknowledgement "of a new and totally unconsidered cause of "misery must evidently alter the state of these arguments," [comfortable again] " and make "it absolutely necessary that they should be "either newly modified, or entirely rejected." How fortunate to have discovered that the evils in society are not owing to a cause which might be remedied, but to one that renders their res moval absolutely hopeless!

I might here, if I were to follow the impulse of my own levity, say that the yellow fever has I believe made its appearance since the first edition of the Political Justice, though I do not know that this circumstance would make it necessary entirely to new-model the arguments. As to Mr. Malthus's "new and unconsidered 66 cause of misery," I deny that the necessity of providing a proportionable quantity of food for an increase of people was new or unconsidered, All that Mr. Malthus has discovered is that the population would go on increasing, though there was nothing to support it!Our author has chosen to justify or palliate the real disorders which prevail in society by supposing a

case of fictitious distress; by which means he proves incontestably that the present vices and defects of political institutions, &c. are comparative blessings. He supposes that in a state of society where the public good was the constant guide of action, men would entirely lay aside the use of their reason, and think of nothing but begetting children, without considering in the least how they were to be maintained. Now I will also for a time take a license from common sense, and make a supposition as wise as Mr. Malthus's. I will suppose all the inhabitants of this town to come to a determination to live without eating, and do nothing but drink gin. What would be the consequence? Perpetual intoxication, quarrels, the fierceness of hunger, disease, idleness, filth, nakedness, maudlin misery, sallow faces, sights of famine and despair, meagre skeletons, the dying, and the dead. But why need I attempt to describe what has been already so much better described by Hogarth? Here then, I might exclaim, no human institutions existed, no unjust laws, no excessive labour, no unwholesome trades, no inequality, no malice, envy, lust, or revenge, to produce the dreadful catastrophe we have just witnessed yet in the short space of a single month or fortnight we see that scenes of distress, shocking beyond any thing of which we can at present form even a conception, would arise out

of the most imperious circumstances, from laws inherent in the nature and constitution of man, and absolutely independent of all human regulations, namely, from the unrestricted use of gin. The inference is direct and unavoidable, that we ought to submit patiently and thankfully to all the abuses, vices, and evils that are to be found in this great city, and flatter, excuse, and encourage them by all the means in our power, because they all of them together do not amount to a tenth part of the mischief that would be the consequence of the unrestrained indulgence of a single pernicious habit. This is something the way in which Mr. Malthus reasons about the unrestricted increase of population. But the absurdity is too gross even for burlesque.

The following is, I conceive, a fair summary of Mr. Malthus's theory. First, that the principle of population is a necessary, mechanical thing, that it is the "grinding law of necessity," unavoidably leading to a certain degree of vice and misery, and in fact accounting for almost all the evils in human life. Secondly, that all the other sources of vice and misery which have been so much and idly insisted on, have no ten. dency to increase the necessary evils of popula tion, but the contrary, or that the removal of those different sources of evil would instead of