of the multiplication of the species, which the object Mr. Malthus had in view obliged him to illustrate and enlarge upon, are SO unprepossessing, that many persons have forcibly shut their eyes against the completeness of the induction, and the extent of the evidence by which the force of the principle is indisputably proved. Others, unable to withstand conviction, have been inclined to class this among the "boisterous doubts and sturdy objections, wherewith, in philosophy, as well as in divinity, the unhappiness of our know. ledge too nearly acquaints us." They have considered it as an anomaly in the system of divine administration; a provision for entailing upon mankind much laborious poverty, expositor of the principle, in his excellent chapter upon moral restraint. Had it made part of his subject to trace its moral as far as its physical effects, I imagine there would have been as little room left for subsequent observations in one branch of the argument as the other. + Sir Thomas Brown, Religio Medici. continues the excellent author, "More of these," 66 no man has known than myself; which I confess I conquered, not in a martial posture, but on my knees. and some painful indigence. The antidote, however, is commonly found to grow within reach of the poison. The instinctive principle by which every country in the world is replenished with inhabitants as fast as its fertility allows, when more generally understood, and more fully reflected upon, will be appealed to as a proof, that as our knowledge and researches extend, they discover to us, in the moral as well as in the natural world, new proofs of most comprehensive wisdom in the Creator. It is, in fact, the mighty engine, which, operating constantly and uniformly, keeps our world in that state which is most agreeable to the design of the creation, and renders mankind the spontaneous instrument of their Maker, in filling and civilizing the habitable globe. We may not, perhaps, be able to discover all the bearings, or follow all the consequences of a of a principle which is undoubtedly the primary, though secret agent, in producing all the boundless varieties of the human condition. It ought, however, to satisfy us, if, as our inquiries penetrate farther into the general laws of the animate and inanimate creation, we clearly discover a wonderful subserviency of appointed means to the accomplishment of some uniform design: affording, even where the design is but partially understood, such testimony of wisdom in the means, as obliges us to rely in humble acquiescence upon the Supreme Disposer of both. |