sion of desultory thought and blindfold speculation, to the dignity and precision of philosophical inquiry; nay more, to the highest rank of philosophy, viz. the knowledge of the principles upon which the practical improvement of mankind, moral and political, is to be conducted. When we reflect that the confusion previously existing was reduced in the Essay to a regular and tangible system, scientifically arranged, fairly argued, and founded upon principles not merely speculative, but drawn from facts candidly stated though perhaps somewhat misapplied, it is impossible not to admit that valuable progress was made towards the establishment of truth. Those who differ the most from the conclusions must at least be thankful for the facilities afforded to the argument. They certainly ought to admit that their own minds would neither have been so well informed, nor their ideas so well arranged, nor their means of reply so amply furnished, without the lucid order and indefatigable industry displayed in the Essay. As one of those who differ the most from the Author's conclusions, I am not ashamed to confess my obligations to him, and my admiration that so much was effected upon a first attempt, rather than any regret at what I conceive to be the untenable nature of his principles, and their consequences. It is of inexpressible advantage to a fair controversialist to have the power of at once proceeding to the merits of his case. This Mr. Malthus has conferred upon all who oppose him; and had they universally availed themselves of it, it would have been as advantageous to their own credit as to the cause of truth. If I may presume to rank myself among his fair adversaries, it is not because I enter

tain the slightest doubt that we are both honestly engaged in the same pursuit, viz. the improvement of society; but because it is impossible to discuss a question which he has so ably and logically argued, with any material difference of opinion, without carrying the opposition up to the principles from which the conclusions appear to be so fairly deduced. Nor indeed should I have had the vanity to constitute myself in any degree his adversary, if the question concerning the Principle of Population could have been fundamentally treated, without continual and almost exclusive reference to the only writer, of whom it may be said with reference to this subject, that his prism has collected the scattered rays of light from the literary firmament, and refracted them in their regular series of lively colours upon the fair surface of his pages. In a word, I consider Mr. Malthus's Essay upon Population to be the point from which every subsequent discussion of the subject must necessarily diverge. With these preliminary remarks I proceed at once to the statement of my subject.

Statement of the Subject.

THE first command of God to man was that he should increase and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it, that is, labour upon it for his subsistence. Experience and common sense inform us, that as man cannot live without eating, the spe-cies can only increase and multiply in proportion as food can be raised from the earth by human industry: and we learn from the whole tenor of the sacred.

writings, as well as from the suggestions of natural 'conscience, that none of these objects are to be attempted by means inconsistent with virtue.

The fair result of these three propositions seems to be, that it is incumbent, as a moral duty, upon governments and individuals, to use every exertion which appears conducive to the multiplication of the human species, together with, and in proportion to, the extension of industry and civilization, which ensure subsistence and happiness. In other words, the object of a sound politician should be to place his country in that progressive state, which Dr. Adam Smith, in his Treatise on the Wages of Labour, has justly and clearly shown to be the cheerful and hearty state to all the different orders of the community.* (Wealth of Nations, b. i. c. 8.) And the final view of all rational politics being, as Dr. Paley observes, to produce the greatest quantity of happiness in a given tract of country, it follows that it is also our duty to use every exertion for the purpose of preventing a country from resting in the stationary condition, which Dr. Smith designates as "hard" and "dull," or from sinking into the declining state, which is described as "miserable" and "melancholy."

* The passage is as follows: "It deserves to be remarked, perhaps, that it is in the progressive state, while the society is advancing to the further acquisition, rather than when it has acquired it's full complement of riches, that the condition of the labouring poor, of the great body of the people, seems to be the happiest and most comfortable. It is hard in the stationary, and miserable in the declining state. The progressive state is in reality the cheerful and the hearty state to all the different orders of the society. The stationary is dull-the declining melancholy,"

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Any system, which professes to found the happiness of a people upon measures having a tendency to produce either of these last-mentioned states, must be no less fallacious and unnatural than a scheme which should seek the same end by means inconsistent with sound political morality. In the following Treatise, therefore, I shall think myself at perfect liberty to argue that the Principle of Population has been adjusted with a view to the following truth, viz. that the condition best adapted to the nature of social man is that which most completely fulfils the end of his Creator in placing him in a social state; namely, a condition of progressive prosperity and of moral improvement.

Now if the moral and political progress of a people constitute the main ingredient in any estimate of their power and happiness, a particular inquiry into the mode in which the principle of population operates among them becomes essentially requisite to the correctness of such estimate. For whenever the due proportion between population and the food provided for its support is to any material extent deranged, a corresponding weakness will be infallibly introduced into some of the vital powers of the commonwealth, by an immediate deterioration in the moral and political state of the people. This consequence has seldom been positively denied: but politicians (of late years especially) have widely and warmly differed both with respect to the quantum of each which constitutes the due proportion between food and population, and to the means by which such proportion is to be maintained, when once established. Now it is evident that the solution of these questions must very much depend upon the

relative progress which population and the production of food would naturally make in the state of society in which the country whose means we are investigating may happen to exist. If indeed, as hath been lately maintained,* " population hath in all cases a natural tendency to exceed the supply of food for it's support," the task of the politician is plain and obvious: he must, in all cases and in every state of society, exert his faculties in preventing the exuberance of the one, and supplying the deficiency of the other. But if, as I venture to contend in the following pages, the natural progress of popu lation varies in its tendency with every variation in the state of society, and seldom, if ever, tends to a vicious exuberance, the duties of the politician must then be regulated according to the circumstances of each particular case; that is to say, he may encourage an increase of population under some conditions of society, although he may discourage it under others. It will, however, be a comfortable discovery, if it shall appear (as I think it will) that in most cases he will best fulfil his duty by leaving things in the hands of Providence; who will probably be admitted to be the most competent legislator in a case which concerns the whole world, and who, contemplating the natural man as a being compounded of mind and body, has been very far (as contended by Mr. Malthus) from regulating the laws relating to the increase of his species by the same calculations which govern the increase of the inanimate or brute creatures, the principle of whose multiplication has

See Mr. Malthus on Population, passim; Edinburgh Review; Christian Observer, &c.