"report of a provision for all that come, fills the "hall with numerous claimants. The order and "harmony of the feast is disturbed, the plenty that "before reigned is changed into scarcity; and the "happiness of the guests is destroyed by the spec"tacle of misery and dependence in every part of "the hall, and by the clamorous importunity of "those, who are justly enraged at not finding the "provision which they had been taught to expect. "The guests learn too late their error, in counter"acting those strict orders to all intruders, issued by "the great mistress of the feast, who, wishing that "all her guests should have plenty, and knowing "that she could not provide for unlimited numbers, "humanely refused to admit fresh comers when her " table was already full." This is a very brilliant description, and a pleasing allegory. Our author luxuriates in the dearth of nature: he cannot contain his triumph: he frolics with his subject in the gaiety of his heart, and his tongue grows wanton in praise of famine. But let us examine it not as a display of imagination, but as a piece of reasoning. In the first place, I cannot admit the assertion that "at nature's mighty feast there is no vacant cover "for the poor man." There are plenty of vacant covers but that the guests at the head of the table have seized upon all those at the lower end, before the table was full. Or if there were no vacant cover, it would be no great matter, he only asks for the crumbs which fall from rich men's tables, and the bones which they throw to their dogs.

She (nature) tells him to be gone, and will quickly

"execute her own orders, if he do not work on the "compassion of some of the guests." When I see a poor old man, who after a life of unceasing labour is obliged at last to beg his bread, driven from the door of the rich man by a surly porter, and half a dozen sleek well-fed dogs, kept for the pleasure of their master or mistress, jumping up from the fire-side, or bouncing out of their warm kennels upon him, I am, according to Mr. Malthus, in the whole of this scene, to fancy nature presiding in person and executing her own orders against this unwelcome intruder, who as he is bent fairly double with hard labour, and can no longer get employment in the regular market, has no claim of right (as our author emphatically expresses it) to the smallest portion of food, and in fact has no business to be where he is. The preference which is often given to the inferior animals over the human species by the institutions and customs of society is bad enough. But Mr. Malthus wishes to go farther. By the institutions of society a rich man is at liberty to give his superabundance either to the poor or to his dogs. Mr. Malthus will not allow him this liberty, but says that by the laws of nature he is bound to give it to his dogs, because if we suffer the poor to work upon our compassion at all, this will only embolden their importunity," and the order and harmony that before "reigned at nature's feast will be disturbed and "changed into want and confusion." This might probably be the consequence, if the rich, or the chief guests had provided the entertainment for themselves; or if nature, like a liberal hostess, had kindly pro

ided it for them, at her own proper cost and expence, without any obligations to the poor. It might be necessary in this case for those who had either provided the feast, or been expressly invited to it, to keep a pretty strict hand over those idle and disorderly persons, to whose importunity there was no end. But the question really is, not whether all those should be supplied who press forward into the hall without having contributed any thing to the plenty that abounds, but whether after the different guests have contributed largely, each of them having brought his share and more than his share, the proprietors of the mansion have a right to turn them all out again, and only leave a few scraps or coarse bits to be flung to them out of the windows, or handed to them outside the door. Or whether if every man was allowed to eat the mess which he had brought with him in quiet, he would immediately go out, and bring in half a dozen more, so that he would have nothing left for himself, and the hall would be instantly overcrowded. This statement is, I believe, considerably nearer the truth than Mr. Malthus's. And if so, we can have little difficulty in deciding whether there is any ground for Mr. Malthus's apprehensions of the danger of raising the condition of the poor, or relieving the distresses to which, in their present unnatural and unnecessary state of degradation, they are unavoidably subject. "The spectacle of misery and dependence" never arises from the scantiness of the provision, or from the nearly equal shares, in which it is divided, giving encouragement to a greater number of applicants; for those helpless intruders, against whom Mr.

Malthus issues such strict orders, namely the rising generation, never come into the world till they are sent for, and it is not likely that those who find themselves warm in their seats with every thing comfortable about them and nothing to complain of, should when there is really no room for fresh comers, send for more people to shove them out of their places, and eat the victuals out of their mouths. "The "Abbé Raynal has said that, Avant toutes les loix "sociales l'homme avoit le droit de subsister.' He "might with just as much propriety have said, that "before the institution of social laws, every man had "a right to live a hundred years. Undoubtedly he had "then, and has still, a good right to live a hundred years, nay a thousand if he can, without interfering "with the right of others to live; but the affair, in both is principally an affair of power, not of right. Social laws very greatly increase this power, by enabling a much greater number to subsist than could "subsist without them, and so far very greatly enlarge "le droit de subsister; but neither before nor after the "institution of social laws, could an unlimited number "subsist; and before, as well as since, he who ceased "to have the power, ceased to have the right." In this passage Mr. Malthus" sharpens his understanding

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cases,

upon his flinty heart." The logic is smart and lively and unembarrased: it is not encumbered with any of the awkward feelings of humanity. After all, he misses his aim. For his argument proves that the right of subsistence or one man's right to live is only limited by its interfering with the right of others to live: that is, that a man has then only no right to

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live, when there is nothing for him to live upon; in which case the question becomes an affair of power, not of right. But it is not the question whether the proprietor should starve himself in order that the labourer may live; but whether the proprietor has a right to live in extravagance and luxury, while the labourer is starving. As to his absolute right to the produce of the soil, that is to say, of the labour of others, we have seen that he has no such right either to the whole of the surplus produce, or to as much of it as he pleases. With respect then to the share of the produce which the labourer has a right to demand, "it is not likely that he should exchange his labour, without receiving a sufficient quantity of food in return," to enable him to live, unless the right of the proprietor to exact the labour of others on what terms he chuses, is seconded by a kind of power, which has very little connection with the power of the earth to bring forth no more produce. As to the right of the rich, in a moral point of view, wantonly to starve the poor, it is I think best to say nothing about it. Social institutions, on which our author lays great stress as enlarging the power of subsistence and the right along with it, do not deny relief to the poor. For this very rcason Mr. Malthus wishes to shoulder them aside, in order to make room for certain regulations of his own, more agreeable to the laws of nature and the principle of population. A little farther on he says, "As a previous step even to any considerable altera"tion in the present system, which would contract or "stop the increase of the relief to be given, it appears to me that we are bound in justice and honour

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