speaking, intervene; always one, before the smiling infant, often the living nuisance of the theory I am opposing, asks a morsel from either the crops or the flocks of the earth; a demand which the exulting parent hears with gladness, and has already more than anticipated; I say more than anticipated, for it is the feeling which this infancy has excited, and continues to excite, that is the main stimulus of all those labours and exertions which have elevated the social state of man above the savage, and spread with plenty, and adorned with magnificence, the richest nations of the habitable globe. In a moral sense it has effected still more for mankind, converting exertions, which would be otherwise selfish and mercenary, into those prompted by disinterested and holy affections; purifying the feelings, and elevating the character of the human race. The serpents of vice and sloth are still strangled from the cradle!

(15) Mr. Malthus, in the passage referred to, talks somewhat complacently about illustrations; he calls them edged tools, and conceives, that in this allusion to infancy, he has turned them upon his antagonist, who does not know how to use them: how truly the reader must judge. Many there are who think he himself has not been very happy in either the construction, or application of his figures, I do not allude to his figures of arithmetic, those remain for an examination, which it will be seen how little able they are to bear; I mean his figures of rhetoric, in the use of which I think he has been as unfortunate as any of his opponents can have been. In his celebrated one of Nature and Nature's feast, to wit, from which the expiring poor are to be expelled, in favour of his privileged guests, he, too, has meddled with "an edged tool," which, while lacerating the feelings of those against

whom it was wielded, has incurably wounded his own cause, or, to change the metaphor, has blackened what he meant to illustrate. He has, I believe, at length, quietly withdrawn it, as well as many other similar passages, and seems quite indignant that it should not be forgotten; and so it should have been, by me at least, but that I see the principle, of which it is an apt exemplification, and indeed a necessary consequence, is retained to the full extent of all its revolting cruelty and insults. I make these observations in consequence of some of his own, in which he has expressed himself with much apparent displeaure on this head; and shall further remark, that, after claiming the merit of having "sufficiently pursued the principle to its consequences," and drawn the "practical inferences" from it', any subsequent attempt, for very obvious reasons, at an evasion of those consequences, and concealment of those practical inferences, by "softening conclusions," while tacitly retaining the whole of them, and recanting nothing, are but slight proofs, I think, of that candour to which it would afford me pleasure to admit his claim.

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CHAPTER VII.

OF THE PRECEDENCE OF POPULATION TO PRODUCTION, AND ITS BENEFICIAL EFFECTS ON THE CHARACTER AND

(1)

CONDITION OF MANKIND, CONCLUDED.

THE law of nature, which makes labour the condition of existence, or in other words, which establishes the precedence of population to food-is like all her other laws, and contrary to the spirit as well as the letter of the supposititious principle of population, -a law of benevolence. The necessity thus created is the great and sufficient instrument not merely of furnishing the means of subsistence, but of administering to the enjoyments, securing the health, and enlarging the abundance of mankind. It is the perpetual guardian of the morals, and the preceptor of the intellect of the human race. In accomplishing these sacred purposes, it is the main, the infallible, and indeed the sole, instrument. It has no substitute. It is unnecessary to enlarge on these points, they have been previously alluded to, and will probably be resumed. But, in the mean time, it cannot be too often repeated, at least till the contrary opinion is fully exploded, that the precedence of population to production is not merely to be defended as a truth, but to be asserted as a principle upon which the prosperity of mankind depends. If the food of the inferior animals is placed, by the Supreme Donor, at some distance, as it were, from them, so that one part of them must seek, and the other pursue it,-that of man is still more remote from him, and bestowed upon conditions more strict

and multiplied; hence the exercise not merely of his bodily powers, but of his mental faculties, is rendered necessary to his very existence, nor can the terms be evaded. Even in the least civilized state, when he exists almost as a mere animal of prey, every element that furnishes his food imposes seeming obstacles in the way of his obtaining it. He cannot pursue his prey into the air, or through the waters; while, on his native earth, the beasts of the chase are either too fleet for him to take, or too powerful for him to contend with, single and unaided. Hence, his necessities, in the very lowest stage of his existence, excite and exercise his ingenuity, foresight and perseverance; thence, too, originates that association which constitutes the rudiments of civil society. His faculties, mental and bodily, become thus developed and enlarged; and, if he do not "keep down his numbers to the level of the means of subsistence," which are to be so obtained, he will multiply till he will be carried forwards into a superior state; and, like the hero in the inimitable story referred to in the last chapter, necessity will prompt him to tame and domesticate some of the most useful of the surrounding animals, so as to render his supply of food more sure and abundant; pastoral habits will, therefore, be superinduced upon predatory ones. Here again the intellect becomes more enlarged, and I need not remind the reader, that to this stage of society the sublimest branch of human knowledge is generally traced'. But mankind continue to multiply, and necessity therefore dictates further advances. The agricultural arts, the offspring of human intellect, and peculiar to man, succeed; arts which, either in reference to their essential utility, or the elevation of their character,

the ancients invariably attributed to the tuition of their deities'. Pursuing these, every husbandman is necessarily a practical philosopher. He studies the soil, notes the seasons, selects the seed, interchanges the crops, adapts the composts; in a word, by means the most studied, and efforts the most varied, he succeeds in meliorating and multiplying the fruits of the earth, as well as the animals destined for his use, far beyond the first promises of Nature, even in the most fertile soils and the most favoured climates; subduing to his purposes the very impediments which she seems to interpose in his career. Population increases, and elevates him to a higher step in the scale of existence. Horticulture is now added, to which agriculture perhaps will be found at last to be but the precursor; and with the earth thus tilled, still an increasing number are unemployed in the operation; to whom necessity dictates different occupations, the results of which become successively and increasingly essential to mankind thus circumstanced; and which are exchanged for the grosser products of labour,— the means of subsistence, Nor can all these avocations afford employment to an entire population rapidly advancing in civilization. That leisure, therefore, is created, which numbers, similarly urged, must devote to those more intellectual pursuits by which so many have distinguished themselves, and served and benefited their fellow-creatures; purifying their morals, enlarging their knowledge, and exalting their genius. Still, by whomsoever these elevated paths may be opened to human research, necessity is the main cause of their exploration. All the liberal arts owe their origin and consummation to this principle. Nay, the struggle for the distinctions of life,-for independence,

1 Diodorus Siculus, 1, i,