lished an Essay on the Principle of Population, and applied his theory not only to disperse the dreams of M. de Condorcet in France, but those of Mr. Godwin in England.

A word to explain Mr. Malthus's principle will be sufficient. Population had always been said to depend on the quantity of food that could be procured: but this was to say nothing; it was only to say that man could not live without eating. Mr. Malthus said more. He observed that the principle of population had always a tendency to proceed at a greater rate than the produce of the soil in any limited space could possibly follow it; that in new countries, indeed, like North America, where fresh land could be had in any quantity that was required, the sexes might marry early, and population go on all this time at its natural rate of increase; but in every other situation of a community, this rate of increase must at every moment be directly or indirectly, visibly or invisibly, restrained and kept back by some check or other; adding by way of illustration, that the one increase (that of the sexes), would naturally proceed in a geometrical, the other, that of the land, necessarily in a sort of arithmetical ratio. This is the principle; one that is a sort of intuitive truth, the instant it is proposed to the mind. A few sentences taken out of different paragraphs in Mr. Malthus's tenth chapter of his first edition, will show you the reasoning that was addressed by him to Mr. Godwin.

"Let us suppose then," says Mr. Malthus, "all the causes of vice and misery in this island removed; all men are equal; the necessary labours of agriculture are shared amicably among all; the commerce of the sexes is established upon principles of the most perfect freedom; the spirit of benevolence, guided by impartial justice, divides the produce of the soil among all the members of the society according to their wants; with these extraordinary encouragements to population, and every contrary cause, as we have supposed, removed, the numbers would increase faster than in any society that has ever been known. Suppose them only doubled in twenty-five years, a rate of increase which has been known to take place repeatedly in America, it may be doubted whether the whole average produce of the soil could be doubled in the same time. But suppose all the grazing countries ploughed up,

and the food, though almost entirely vegetable, sufficient to support in health, this doubled population. Let us start again, during the next period of doubling, where is now the food to be found? where is now the fresh land to turn up? and what becomes then of the picture, where man lived in plenty, where selfishness did not exist, where the mind was to be delivered from all anxiety about corporeal support, and free to expatiate in the field of thought which was congenial to it?

The hateful passions on the contrary reappear, and the mighty law of self-preservation expels all the softer emotions. After showing in this manner, that the system of Mr. Godwin is at an end, Mr. Malthus then proceeds to show, that under the circumstances supposed, some institution of property would be established, some institution of marriage; inequalities of condition follow, and all the supposed objectionable characteristics of our present condition reappear. In short, that a society, constituted according to the most beautiful form that imagination can conceive, with benevolence for its moving principle, instead of self-love, and with every evil disposition in all its members, corrected by reason, and not force, would, from the regular and inevitable laws of nature, degenerate into a society, constructed upon a plan, not essentially different from that which prevails in every known state at present; a society divided into a class of proprietors, and a class of labourers; and with self-love for the main spring of the great machine, and the usual instincts, feelings, and intuitions, sense of duty, and sense of religion, to maintain and regulate its movements.

Mr. Malthus published his essay in June, 1798, and in the revolutionary state of the world at the time, the importance of the principle, on which he depended, was instantly perceived; and it has formed the groundwork of the reasonings of all intelligent men, on the affairs of mankind, ever since. It is not a principle in itself very agreeable to the mind; and various considerations have been produced by amiable men, under cover of which they might escape from acknowledging it to be true, but with no success; the law of over-production seems to be every where the law, through all parts of creation, by which the permanent existence of every living

thing is secured. Each may thus be made the food of the other, and the quantity of sentient happiness immeasurably increased, beyond what it could be on any other system; and Mr. Malthus finds in this law, as others may find, a philosophic confirmation of the wisdom and the necessity with which the duty of chastity is so strictly, so earnestly, and so repeatedly insisted upon in the pages of the New Testament. In the works of Arthur Young, and more particularly in Mr. Townshend's "Journey through Spain," the principle of Mr. Malthus clearly appears; but neither did these writers so state it, as to show its importance, and excite public attention: nor could public attention have been excited, when society was not as yet disturbed; but it was instantly excited by any profound speculation, like this, when every mind was agitated, appalled, or electrified, by the tremendous event of the Revolution in France; by the unpopularity of old opinions; by the success of new; by a field being thrown open for every dreaming philosopher, or shallow demagogue, to produce his visions of perfectibility, and his ideal republics. Such experiments of daring or mistaken men upon the brute selfishness, the natural ignorance, or the sanguine folly of mankind, are now, it is to be hoped, at an end. The times have been very revolutionary, at least often very perilous and trying, since Mr. Malthus first wrote. In the course of the struggle that existed between the old opinions and the new, the great nations of Europe have been so exhausted, that they remain exhausted still.

Statesmen are obliged to search into the remotest elements of the existence and prosperity of the communities, over which they preside. The book of Mr. Malthus has got possession of the public mind, and it is a most fortunate circumstance for mankind, that this should be the case. The great cause of the improvement of the condition of our fellow creatures may now be conducted, I must again say, it is to be hoped, on rational principles, and with some chance of success; and above all, when the times become more serious, and great alterations are meditated or approaching, the influence of this work may be, it may surely be expected, distinctly felt by those who engage in revolutions; of such men many may be actuated by motives the most selfish, ferocious, and detest

able, but the majority have been, and will probably always be, persons of warm and sanguine minds, and often of great

benevolence.

Books like Mr. Godwin's (and I have therefore called your attention to his work, merely as a specimen of all other revolutionary works and reasonings), have a fatal tendency to animate and exasperate men of sanguine and benevolent minds, with false ideas of the perfectibility of human nature, and erroneous estimates of the evils they see existing; they create in them a hasty, unreasonable impatience and scorn, for the more humble and unassuming principles upon which, those who would meliorate the condition of their fellow creatures, must proceed; they prepare the way for the appearance and success of daring and bad men; of revolutionists of the worst description; and while they profess to further the great cause of liberty, and the improvement of mankind, they bring into suspicion and contempt some of the noblest and best virtues of the human character; they make patriotism useless, and benevolence ridiculous.

I

LECTURE XXXVII.

FALL OF THE GIRONDISTS.

You

HAVE detained you some time, for the reasons, I have mentioned, with what was passing in England. might be referred in like manner to Germany, Switzerland, and Italy; but you must already have some general impression (it can never, as you live not at the time, be more than a faint and inadequate one) of the situation of the world at this particular period; and we must now turn to France. We must turn to the darkest page that is to be found in the records of the human species. What we have to consider, is the history of the reign of Robespierre and the Jacobins. very sound is a sound of fear to this hour. What must it have been to those who suffered!

The

Observe what we are supposed already to have seen and known of the Jacobins. With Danton at their head, their first great leader, they have perpetrated the massacres of September. Afterwards you have seen them bring to trial and execute the king. You are next to see them attack and destroy the Girondists, the subject of the present lecture. Of these Girondists, I have already spoken. I have already offered you my opinion on the subject of these very distinguished men; but now that you are to behold them perish, I must request you to consider their nature and character once more. There are perhaps none, that from their merits and their faults, have created greater interest among the friends of freedom.

There are three different points of view, in which they may be placed. You may think, with Mr. Burke, that they were men of furious ambition, unrestrained by principle, desperate, bad men; whom it is not worth the trouble and indeed not possible to distinguish from the Jacobins; as even worse than