1 files changed, 5724 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/4239.txt b/4239.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ea2b7a9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/4239.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5724 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Essay on the Principle of Population, by 
+Thomas Malthus
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: An Essay on the Principle of Population
+
+Author: Thomas Malthus
+
+Posting Date: July 23, 2009 [EBook #4239]
+Release Date: July, 2003
+First Posted: December 14, 2001
+Last Updated: June 30, 2007
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAY--PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+An Essay on the Principle of Population
+
+Thomas Malthus
+
+
+
+1798
+
+
+
+
+
+AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION, AS IT AFFECTS THE FUTURE
+IMPROVEMENT OF SOCIETY WITH REMARKS ON THE SPECULATIONS OF MR. GODWIN,
+M. CONDORCET, AND OTHER WRITERS.
+
+LONDON, PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, IN ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD, 1798.
+
+
+
+
+Preface
+
+
+The following Essay owes its origin to a conversation with a friend, on
+the subject of Mr Godwin's essay on avarice and profusion, in his
+Enquirer. The discussion started the general question of the future
+improvement of society, and the Author at first sat down with an
+intention of merely stating his thoughts to his friend, upon paper, in
+a clearer manner than he thought he could do in conversation. But as
+the subject opened upon him, some ideas occurred, which he did not
+recollect to have met with before; and as he conceived that every least
+light, on a topic so generally interesting, might be received with
+candour, he determined to put his thoughts in a form for publication.
+
+The Essay might, undoubtedly, have been rendered much more complete by
+a collection of a greater number of facts in elucidation of the general
+argument. But a long and almost total interruption from very particular
+business, joined to a desire (perhaps imprudent) of not delaying the
+publication much beyond the time that he originally proposed, prevented
+the Author from giving to the subject an undivided attention. He
+presumes, however, that the facts which he has adduced will be found to
+form no inconsiderable evidence for the truth of his opinion respecting
+the future improvement of mankind. As the Author contemplates this
+opinion at present, little more appears to him to be necessary than a
+plain statement, in addition to the most cursory view of society, to
+establish it.
+
+It is an obvious truth, which has been taken notice of by many writers,
+that population must always be kept down to the level of the means of
+subsistence; but no writer that the Author recollects has inquired
+particularly into the means by which this level is effected: and it is
+a view of these means which forms, to his mind, the strongest obstacle
+in the way to any very great future improvement of society. He hopes it
+will appear that, in the discussion of this interesting subject, he is
+actuated solely by a love of truth, and not by any prejudices against
+any particular set of men, or of opinions. He professes to have read
+some of the speculations on the future improvement of society in a
+temper very different from a wish to find them visionary, but he has
+not acquired that command over his understanding which would enable him
+to believe what he wishes, without evidence, or to refuse his assent to
+what might be unpleasing, when accompanied with evidence.
+
+The view which he has given of human life has a melancholy hue, but he
+feels conscious that he has drawn these dark tints from a conviction
+that they are really in the picture, and not from a jaundiced eye or an
+inherent spleen of disposition. The theory of mind which he has
+sketched in the two last chapters accounts to his own understanding in
+a satisfactory manner for the existence of most of the evils of life,
+but whether it will have the same effect upon others must be left to
+the judgement of his readers.
+
+If he should succeed in drawing the attention of more able men to what
+he conceives to be the principal difficulty in the way to the
+improvement of society and should, in consequence, see this difficulty
+removed, even in theory, he will gladly retract his present opinions
+and rejoice in a conviction of his error.
+
+                                     7 June 1798
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+Question stated--Little prospect of a determination of it, from the
+enmity of the opposing parties--The principal argument against the
+perfectibility of man and of society has never been fairly
+answered--Nature of the difficulty arising from population--Outline of
+the principal argument of the Essay
+
+
+The great and unlooked for discoveries that have taken place of late
+years in natural philosophy, the increasing diffusion of general
+knowledge from the extension of the art of printing, the ardent and
+unshackled spirit of inquiry that prevails throughout the lettered and
+even unlettered world, the new and extraordinary lights that have been
+thrown on political subjects which dazzle and astonish the
+understanding, and particularly that tremendous phenomenon in the
+political horizon, the French Revolution, which, like a blazing comet,
+seems destined either to inspire with fresh life and vigour, or to
+scorch up and destroy the shrinking inhabitants of the earth, have all
+concurred to lead many able men into the opinion that we were touching
+on a period big with the most important changes, changes that would in
+some measure be decisive of the future fate of mankind.
+
+It has been said that the great question is now at issue, whether man
+shall henceforth start forwards with accelerated velocity towards
+illimitable, and hitherto unconceived improvement, or be condemned to a
+perpetual oscillation between happiness and misery, and after every
+effort remain still at an immeasurable distance from the wished-for
+goal.
+
+Yet, anxiously as every friend of mankind must look forwards to the
+termination of this painful suspense, and eagerly as the inquiring mind
+would hail every ray of light that might assist its view into futurity,
+it is much to be lamented that the writers on each side of this
+momentous question still keep far aloof from each other. Their mutual
+arguments do not meet with a candid examination. The question is not
+brought to rest on fewer points, and even in theory scarcely seems to
+be approaching to a decision.
+
+The advocate for the present order of things is apt to treat the sect
+of speculative philosophers either as a set of artful and designing
+knaves who preach up ardent benevolence and draw captivating pictures
+of a happier state of society only the better to enable them to destroy
+the present establishments and to forward their own deep-laid schemes
+of ambition, or as wild and mad-headed enthusiasts whose silly
+speculations and absurd paradoxes are not worthy the attention of any
+reasonable man.
+
+The advocate for the perfectibility of man, and of society, retorts on
+the defender of establishments a more than equal contempt. He brands
+him as the slave of the most miserable and narrow prejudices; or as the
+defender of the abuses of civil society only because he profits by
+them. He paints him either as a character who prostitutes his
+understanding to his interest, or as one whose powers of mind are not
+of a size to grasp any thing great and noble, who cannot see above five
+yards before him, and who must therefore be utterly unable to take in
+the views of the enlightened benefactor of mankind.
+
+In this unamicable contest the cause of truth cannot but suffer. The
+really good arguments on each side of the question are not allowed to
+have their proper weight. Each pursues his own theory, little
+solicitous to correct or improve it by an attention to what is advanced
+by his opponents.
+
+The friend of the present order of things condemns all political
+speculations in the gross. He will not even condescend to examine the
+grounds from which the perfectibility of society is inferred. Much less
+will he give himself the trouble in a fair and candid manner to attempt
+an exposition of their fallacy.
+
+The speculative philosopher equally offends against the cause of truth.
+With eyes fixed on a happier state of society, the blessings of which
+he paints in the most captivating colours, he allows himself to indulge
+in the most bitter invectives against every present establishment,
+without applying his talents to consider the best and safest means of
+removing abuses and without seeming to be aware of the tremendous
+obstacles that threaten, even in theory, to oppose the progress of man
+towards perfection.
+
+It is an acknowledged truth in philosophy that a just theory will
+always be confirmed by experiment. Yet so much friction, and so many
+minute circumstances occur in practice, which it is next to impossible
+for the most enlarged and penetrating mind to foresee, that on few
+subjects can any theory be pronounced just, till all the arguments
+against it have been maturely weighed and clearly and consistently
+refuted.
+
+I have read some of the speculations on the perfectibility of man and
+of society with great pleasure. I have been warmed and delighted with
+the enchanting picture which they hold forth. I ardently wish for such
+happy improvements. But I see great, and, to my understanding,
+unconquerable difficulties in the way to them. These difficulties it is
+my present purpose to state, declaring, at the same time, that so far
+from exulting in them, as a cause of triumph over the friends of
+innovation, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see them
+completely removed.
+
+The most important argument that I shall adduce is certainly not new.
+The principles on which it depends have been explained in part by Hume,
+and more at large by Dr Adam Smith. It has been advanced and applied to
+the present subject, though not with its proper weight, or in the most
+forcible point of view, by Mr Wallace, and it may probably have been
+stated by many writers that I have never met with. I should certainly
+therefore not think of advancing it again, though I mean to place it in
+a point of view in some degree different from any that I have hitherto
+seen, if it had ever been fairly and satisfactorily answered.
+
+The cause of this neglect on the part of the advocates for the
+perfectibility of mankind is not easily accounted for. I cannot doubt
+the talents of such men as Godwin and Condorcet. I am unwilling to
+doubt their candour. To my understanding, and probably to that of most
+others, the difficulty appears insurmountable. Yet these men of
+acknowledged ability and penetration scarcely deign to notice it, and
+hold on their course in such speculations with unabated ardour and
+undiminished confidence. I have certainly no right to say that they
+purposely shut their eyes to such arguments. I ought rather to doubt
+the validity of them, when neglected by such men, however forcibly
+their truth may strike my own mind. Yet in this respect it must be
+acknowledged that we are all of us too prone to err. If I saw a glass
+of wine repeatedly presented to a man, and he took no notice of it, I
+should be apt to think that he was blind or uncivil. A juster
+philosophy might teach me rather to think that my eyes deceived me and
+that the offer was not really what I conceived it to be.
+
+In entering upon the argument I must premise that I put out of the
+question, at present, all mere conjectures, that is, all suppositions,
+the probable realization of which cannot be inferred upon any just
+philosophical grounds. A writer may tell me that he thinks man will
+ultimately become an ostrich. I cannot properly contradict him. But
+before he can expect to bring any reasonable person over to his
+opinion, he ought to shew that the necks of mankind have been gradually
+elongating, that the lips have grown harder and more prominent, that
+the legs and feet are daily altering their shape, and that the hair is
+beginning to change into stubs of feathers. And till the probability of
+so wonderful a conversion can be shewn, it is surely lost time and lost
+eloquence to expatiate on the happiness of man in such a state; to
+describe his powers, both of running and flying, to paint him in a
+condition where all narrow luxuries would be contemned, where he would
+be employed only in collecting the necessaries of life, and where,
+consequently, each man's share of labour would be light, and his
+portion of leisure ample.
+
+I think I may fairly make two postulata.
+
+First, That food is necessary to the existence of man.
+
+Secondly, That the passion between the sexes is necessary and will
+remain nearly in its present state.
+
+These two laws, ever since we have had any knowledge of mankind, appear
+to have been fixed laws of our nature, and, as we have not hitherto
+seen any alteration in them, we have no right to conclude that they
+will ever cease to be what they now are, without an immediate act of
+power in that Being who first arranged the system of the universe, and
+for the advantage of his creatures, still executes, according to fixed
+laws, all its various operations.
+
+I do not know that any writer has supposed that on this earth man will
+ultimately be able to live without food. But Mr Godwin has conjectured
+that the passion between the sexes may in time be extinguished. As,
+however, he calls this part of his work a deviation into the land of
+conjecture, I will not dwell longer upon it at present than to say that
+the best arguments for the perfectibility of man are drawn from a
+contemplation of the great progress that he has already made from the
+savage state and the difficulty of saying where he is to stop. But
+towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes, no progress
+whatever has hitherto been made. It appears to exist in as much force
+at present as it did two thousand or four thousand years ago. There are
+individual exceptions now as there always have been. But, as these
+exceptions do not appear to increase in number, it would surely be a
+very unphilosophical mode of arguing to infer, merely from the
+existence of an exception, that the exception would, in time, become
+the rule, and the rule the exception.
+
+Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of
+population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to
+produce subsistence for man.
+
+Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
+Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight
+acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in
+comparison of the second.
+
+By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of
+man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.
+
+This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from
+the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere and
+must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind.
+
+Through the animal and vegetable kingdoms, nature has scattered the
+seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand. She has
+been comparatively sparing in the room and the nourishment necessary to
+rear them. The germs of existence contained in this spot of earth, with
+ample food, and ample room to expand in, would fill millions of worlds
+in the course of a few thousand years. Necessity, that imperious all
+pervading law of nature, restrains them within the prescribed bounds.
+The race of plants and the race of animals shrink under this great
+restrictive law. And the race of man cannot, by any efforts of reason,
+escape from it. Among plants and animals its effects are waste of seed,
+sickness, and premature death. Among mankind, misery and vice. The
+former, misery, is an absolutely necessary consequence of it. Vice is a
+highly probable consequence, and we therefore see it abundantly
+prevail, but it ought not, perhaps, to be called an absolutely
+necessary consequence. The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation
+to evil.
+
+This natural inequality of the two powers of population and of
+production in the earth, and that great law of our nature which must
+constantly keep their effects equal, form the great difficulty that to
+me appears insurmountable in the way to the perfectibility of society.
+All other arguments are of slight and subordinate consideration in
+comparison of this. I see no way by which man can escape from the
+weight of this law which pervades all animated nature. No fancied
+equality, no agrarian regulations in their utmost extent, could remove
+the pressure of it even for a single century. And it appears,
+therefore, to be decisive against the possible existence of a society,
+all the members of which should live in ease, happiness, and
+comparative leisure; and feel no anxiety about providing the means of
+subsistence for themselves and families.
+
+Consequently, if the premises are just, the argument is conclusive
+against the perfectibility of the mass of mankind.
+
+I have thus sketched the general outline of the argument, but I will
+examine it more particularly, and I think it will be found that
+experience, the true source and foundation of all knowledge, invariably
+confirms its truth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+The different ratio in which population and food increase--The
+necessary effects of these different ratios of increase--Oscillation
+produced by them in the condition of the lower classes of
+society--Reasons why this oscillation has not been so much observed as
+might be expected--Three propositions on which the general argument of
+the Essay depends--The different states in which mankind have been
+known to exist proposed to be examined with reference to these three
+propositions.
+
+
+I said that population, when unchecked, increased in a geometrical
+ratio, and subsistence for man in an arithmetical ratio.
+
+Let us examine whether this position be just. I think it will be
+allowed, that no state has hitherto existed (at least that we have any
+account of) where the manners were so pure and simple, and the means of
+subsistence so abundant, that no check whatever has existed to early
+marriages, among the lower classes, from a fear of not providing well
+for their families, or among the higher classes, from a fear of
+lowering their condition in life. Consequently in no state that we have
+yet known has the power of population been left to exert itself with
+perfect freedom.
+
+Whether the law of marriage be instituted or not, the dictate of nature
+and virtue seems to be an early attachment to one woman. Supposing a
+liberty of changing in the case of an unfortunate choice, this liberty
+would not affect population till it arose to a height greatly vicious;
+and we are now supposing the existence of a society where vice is
+scarcely known.
+
+In a state therefore of great equality and virtue, where pure and
+simple manners prevailed, and where the means of subsistence were so
+abundant that no part of the society could have any fears about
+providing amply for a family, the power of population being left to
+exert itself unchecked, the increase of the human species would
+evidently be much greater than any increase that has been hitherto
+known.
+
+In the United States of America, where the means of subsistence have
+been more ample, the manners of the people more pure, and consequently
+the checks to early marriages fewer, than in any of the modern states
+of Europe, the population has been found to double itself in
+twenty-five years.
+
+This ratio of increase, though short of the utmost power of population,
+yet as the result of actual experience, we will take as our rule, and
+say, that population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every
+twenty-five years or increases in a geometrical ratio.
+
+Let us now take any spot of earth, this Island for instance, and see in
+what ratio the subsistence it affords can be supposed to increase. We
+will begin with it under its present state of cultivation.
+
+If I allow that by the best possible policy, by breaking up more land
+and by great encouragements to agriculture, the produce of this Island
+may be doubled in the first twenty-five years, I think it will be
+allowing as much as any person can well demand.
+
+In the next twenty-five years, it is impossible to suppose that the
+produce could be quadrupled. It would be contrary to all our knowledge
+of the qualities of land. The very utmost that we can conceive, is,
+that the increase in the second twenty-five years might equal the
+present produce. Let us then take this for our rule, though certainly
+far beyond the truth, and allow that, by great exertion, the whole
+produce of the Island might be increased every twenty-five years, by a
+quantity of subsistence equal to what it at present produces. The most
+enthusiastic speculator cannot suppose a greater increase than this. In
+a few centuries it would make every acre of land in the Island like a
+garden.
+
+Yet this ratio of increase is evidently arithmetical.
+
+It may be fairly said, therefore, that the means of subsistence
+increase in an arithmetical ratio. Let us now bring the effects of
+these two ratios together.
+
+The population of the Island is computed to be about seven millions,
+and we will suppose the present produce equal to the support of such a
+number. In the first twenty-five years the population would be fourteen
+millions, and the food being also doubled, the means of subsistence
+would be equal to this increase. In the next twenty-five years the
+population would be twenty-eight millions, and the means of subsistence
+only equal to the support of twenty-one millions. In the next period,
+the population would be fifty-six millions, and the means of
+subsistence just sufficient for half that number. And at the conclusion
+of the first century the population would be one hundred and twelve
+millions and the means of subsistence only equal to the support of
+thirty-five millions, which would leave a population of seventy-seven
+millions totally unprovided for.
+
+A great emigration necessarily implies unhappiness of some kind or
+other in the country that is deserted. For few persons will leave their
+families, connections, friends, and native land, to seek a settlement
+in untried foreign climes, without some strong subsisting causes of
+uneasiness where they are, or the hope of some great advantages in the
+place to which they are going.
+
+But to make the argument more general and less interrupted by the
+partial views of emigration, let us take the whole earth, instead of
+one spot, and suppose that the restraints to population were
+universally removed. If the subsistence for man that the earth affords
+was to be increased every twenty-five years by a quantity equal to what
+the whole world at present produces, this would allow the power of
+production in the earth to be absolutely unlimited, and its ratio of
+increase much greater than we can conceive that any possible exertions
+of mankind could make it.
+
+Taking the population of the world at any number, a thousand millions,
+for instance, the human species would increase in the ratio of--1, 2,
+4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, etc. and subsistence as--1, 2, 3, 4,
+5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc. In two centuries and a quarter, the population
+would be to the means of subsistence as 512 to 10: in three centuries
+as 4096 to 13, and in two thousand years the difference would be almost
+incalculable, though the produce in that time would have increased to
+an immense extent.
+
+No limits whatever are placed to the productions of the earth; they may
+increase for ever and be greater than any assignable quantity, yet
+still the power of population being a power of a superior order, the
+increase of the human species can only be kept commensurate to the
+increase of the means of subsistence by the constant operation of the
+strong law of necessity acting as a check upon the greater power.
+
+The effects of this check remain now to be considered.
+
+Among plants and animals the view of the subject is simple. They are
+all impelled by a powerful instinct to the increase of their species,
+and this instinct is interrupted by no reasoning or doubts about
+providing for their offspring. Wherever therefore there is liberty, the
+power of increase is exerted, and the superabundant effects are
+repressed afterwards by want of room and nourishment, which is common
+to animals and plants, and among animals by becoming the prey of others.
+
+The effects of this check on man are more complicated. Impelled to the
+increase of his species by an equally powerful instinct, reason
+interrupts his career and asks him whether he may not bring beings into
+the world for whom he cannot provide the means of subsistence. In a
+state of equality, this would be the simple question. In the present
+state of society, other considerations occur. Will he not lower his
+rank in life? Will he not subject himself to greater difficulties than
+he at present feels? Will he not be obliged to labour harder? and if he
+has a large family, will his utmost exertions enable him to support
+them? May he not see his offspring in rags and misery, and clamouring
+for bread that he cannot give them? And may he not be reduced to the
+grating necessity of forfeiting his independence, and of being obliged
+to the sparing hand of charity for support?
+
+These considerations are calculated to prevent, and certainly do
+prevent, a very great number in all civilized nations from pursuing the
+dictate of nature in an early attachment to one woman. And this
+restraint almost necessarily, though not absolutely so, produces vice.
+Yet in all societies, even those that are most vicious, the tendency to
+a virtuous attachment is so strong that there is a constant effort
+towards an increase of population. This constant effort as constantly
+tends to subject the lower classes of the society to distress and to
+prevent any great permanent amelioration of their condition.
+
+The way in which, these effects are produced seems to be this. We will
+suppose the means of subsistence in any country just equal to the easy
+support of its inhabitants. The constant effort towards population,
+which is found to act even in the most vicious societies, increases the
+number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The
+food therefore which before supported seven millions must now be
+divided among seven millions and a half or eight millions. The poor
+consequently must live much worse, and many of them be reduced to
+severe distress. The number of labourers also being above the
+proportion of the work in the market, the price of labour must tend
+toward a decrease, while the price of provisions would at the same time
+tend to rise. The labourer therefore must work harder to earn the same
+as he did before. During this season of distress, the discouragements
+to marriage, and the difficulty of rearing a family are so great that
+population is at a stand. In the mean time the cheapness of labour, the
+plenty of labourers, and the necessity of an increased industry amongst
+them, encourage cultivators to employ more labour upon their land, to
+turn up fresh soil, and to manure and improve more completely what is
+already in tillage, till ultimately the means of subsistence become in
+the same proportion to the population as at the period from which we
+set out. The situation of the labourer being then again tolerably
+comfortable, the restraints to population are in some degree loosened,
+and the same retrograde and progressive movements with respect to
+happiness are repeated.
+
+This sort of oscillation will not be remarked by superficial observers,
+and it may be difficult even for the most penetrating mind to calculate
+its periods. Yet that in all old states some such vibration does exist,
+though from various transverse causes, in a much less marked, and in a
+much more irregular manner than I have described it, no reflecting man
+who considers the subject deeply can well doubt.
+
+Many reasons occur why this oscillation has been less obvious, and less
+decidedly confirmed by experience, than might naturally be expected.
+
+One principal reason is that the histories of mankind that we possess
+are histories only of the higher classes. We have but few accounts that
+can be depended upon of the manners and customs of that part of mankind
+where these retrograde and progressive movements chiefly take place. A
+satisfactory history of this kind, on one people, and of one period,
+would require the constant and minute attention of an observing mind
+during a long life. Some of the objects of inquiry would be, in what
+proportion to the number of adults was the number of marriages, to what
+extent vicious customs prevailed in consequence of the restraints upon
+matrimony, what was the comparative mortality among the children of the
+most distressed part of the community and those who lived rather more
+at their ease, what were the variations in the real price of labour,
+and what were the observable differences in the state of the lower
+classes of society with respect to ease and happiness, at different
+times during a certain period.
+
+Such a history would tend greatly to elucidate the manner in which the
+constant check upon population acts and would probably prove the
+existence of the retrograde and progressive movements that have been
+mentioned, though the times of their vibrations must necessarily be
+rendered irregular from the operation of many interrupting causes, such
+as the introduction or failure of certain manufactures, a greater or
+less prevalent spirit of agricultural enterprise, years of plenty, or
+years of scarcity, wars and pestilence, poor laws, the invention of
+processes for shortening labour without the proportional extension of
+the market for the commodity, and, particularly, the difference between
+the nominal and real price of labour, a circumstance which has perhaps
+more than any other contributed to conceal this oscillation from common
+view.
+
+It very rarely happens that the nominal price of labour universally
+falls, but we well know that it frequently remains the same, while the
+nominal price of provisions has been gradually increasing. This is, in
+effect, a real fall in the price of labour, and during this period the
+condition of the lower orders of the community must gradually grow
+worse and worse. But the farmers and capitalists are growing rich from
+the real cheapness of labour. Their increased capitals enable them to
+employ a greater number of men. Work therefore may be plentiful, and
+the price of labour would consequently rise. But the want of freedom in
+the market of labour, which occurs more or less in all communities,
+either from parish laws, or the more general cause of the facility of
+combination among the rich, and its difficulty among the poor, operates
+to prevent the price of labour from rising at the natural period, and
+keeps it down some time longer; perhaps till a year of scarcity, when
+the clamour is too loud and the necessity too apparent to be resisted.
+
+The true cause of the advance in the price of labour is thus concealed,
+and the rich affect to grant it as an act of compassion and favour to
+the poor, in consideration of a year of scarcity, and, when plenty
+returns, indulge themselves in the most unreasonable of all complaints,
+that the price does not again fall, when a little rejection would shew
+them that it must have risen long before but from an unjust conspiracy
+of their own.
+
+But though the rich by unfair combinations contribute frequently to
+prolong a season of distress among the poor, yet no possible form of
+society could prevent the almost constant action of misery upon a great
+part of mankind, if in a state of inequality, and upon all, if all were
+equal.
+
+The theory on which the truth of this position depends appears to me so
+extremely clear that I feel at a loss to conjecture what part of it can
+be denied.
+
+That population cannot increase without the means of subsistence is a
+proposition so evident that it needs no illustration.
+
+That population does invariably increase where there are the means of
+subsistence, the history of every people that have ever existed will
+abundantly prove.
+
+And that the superior power of population cannot be checked without
+producing misery or vice, the ample portion of these too bitter
+ingredients in the cup of human life and the continuance of the
+physical causes that seem to have produced them bear too convincing a
+testimony.
+
+But, in order more fully to ascertain the validity of these three
+propositions, let us examine the different states in which mankind have
+been known to exist. Even a cursory review will, I think, be sufficient
+to convince us that these propositions are incontrovertible truths.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+The savage or hunter state shortly reviewed--The shepherd state, or the
+tribes of barbarians that overran the Roman Empire--The superiority of
+the power of population to the means of subsistence--the cause of the
+great tide of Northern Emigration.
+
+
+In the rudest state of mankind, in which hunting is the principal
+occupation, and the only mode of acquiring food; the means of
+subsistence being scattered over a large extent of territory, the
+comparative population must necessarily be thin. It is said that the
+passion between the sexes is less ardent among the North American
+Indians, than among any other race of men. Yet, notwithstanding this
+apathy, the effort towards population, even in this people, seems to be
+always greater than the means to support it. This appears, from the
+comparatively rapid population that takes place, whenever any of the
+tribes happen to settle in some fertile spot, and to draw nourishment
+from more fruitful sources than that of hunting; and it has been
+frequently remarked that when an Indian family has taken up its abode
+near any European settlement, and adopted a more easy and civilized
+mode of life, that one woman has reared five, or six, or more children;
+though in the savage state it rarely happens that above one or two in a
+family grow up to maturity. The same observation has been made with
+regard to the Hottentots near the Cape. These facts prove the superior
+power of population to the means of subsistence in nations of hunters,
+and that this power always shews itself the moment it is left to act
+with freedom.
+
+It remains to inquire whether this power can be checked, and its
+effects kept equal to the means of subsistence, without vice or misery.
+
+The North American Indians, considered as a people, cannot justly be
+called free and equal. In all the accounts we have of them, and,
+indeed, of most other savage nations, the women are represented as much
+more completely in a state of slavery to the men than the poor are to
+the rich in civilized countries. One half the nation appears to act as
+Helots to the other half, and the misery that checks population falls
+chiefly, as it always must do, upon that part whose condition is lowest
+in the scale of society. The infancy of man in the simplest state
+requires considerable attention, but this necessary attention the women
+cannot give, condemned as they are to the inconveniences and hardships
+of frequent change of place and to the constant and unremitting
+drudgery of preparing every thing for the reception of their tyrannic
+lords. These exertions, sometimes during pregnancy or with children at
+their backs, must occasion frequent miscarriages, and prevent any but
+the most robust infants from growing to maturity. Add to these
+hardships of the women the constant war that prevails among savages,
+and the necessity which they frequently labour under of exposing their
+aged and helpless parents, and of thus violating the first feelings of
+nature, and the picture will not appear very free from the blot of
+misery. In estimating the happiness of a savage nation, we must not fix
+our eyes only on the warrior in the prime of life: he is one of a
+hundred: he is the gentleman, the man of fortune, the chances have been
+in his favour and many efforts have failed ere this fortunate being was
+produced, whose guardian genius should preserve him through the
+numberless dangers with which he would be surrounded from infancy to
+manhood. The true points of comparison between two nations seem to be
+the ranks in each which appear nearest to answer to each other. And in
+this view, I should compare the warriors in the prime of life with the
+gentlemen, and the women, children, and aged, with the lower classes of
+the community in civilized states.
+
+May we not then fairly infer from this short review, or rather, from
+the accounts that may be referred to of nations of hunters, that their
+population is thin from the scarcity of food, that it would immediately
+increase if food was in greater plenty, and that, putting vice out of
+the question among savages, misery is the check that represses the
+superior power of population and keeps its effects equal to the means
+of subsistence. Actual observation and experience tell us that this
+check, with a few local and temporary exceptions, is constantly acting
+now upon all savage nations, and the theory indicates that it probably
+acted with nearly equal strength a thousand years ago, and it may not
+be much greater a thousand years hence.
+
+Of the manners and habits that prevail among nations of shepherds, the
+next state of mankind, we are even more ignorant than of the savage
+state. But that these nations could not escape the general lot of
+misery arising from the want of subsistence, Europe, and all the
+fairest countries in the world, bear ample testimony. Want was the goad
+that drove the Scythian shepherds from their native haunts, like so
+many famished wolves in search of prey. Set in motion by this all
+powerful cause, clouds of Barbarians seemed to collect from all points
+of the northern hemisphere. Gathering fresh darkness and terror as they
+rolled on, the congregated bodies at length obscured the sun of Italy
+and sunk the whole world in universal night. These tremendous effects,
+so long and so deeply felt throughout the fairest portions of the
+earth, may be traced to the simple cause of the superior power of
+population to the means of subsistence.
+
+It is well known that a country in pasture cannot support so many
+inhabitants as a country in tillage, but what renders nations of
+shepherds so formidable is the power which they possess of moving all
+together and the necessity they frequently feel of exerting this power
+in search of fresh pasture for their herds. A tribe that was rich in
+cattle had an immediate plenty of food. Even the parent stock might be
+devoured in a case of absolute necessity. The women lived in greater
+ease than among nations of hunters. The men bold in their united
+strength and confiding in their power of procuring pasture for their
+cattle by change of place, felt, probably, but few fears about
+providing for a family. These combined causes soon produced their
+natural and invariable effect, an extended population. A more frequent
+and rapid change of place became then necessary. A wider and more
+extensive territory was successively occupied. A broader desolation
+extended all around them. Want pinched the less fortunate members of
+the society, and, at length, the impossibility of supporting such a
+number together became too evident to be resisted. Young scions were
+then pushed out from the parent-stock and instructed to explore fresh
+regions and to gain happier seats for themselves by their swords. 'The
+world was all before them where to choose.' Restless from present
+distress, flushed with the hope of fairer prospects, and animated with
+the spirit of hardy enterprise, these daring adventurers were likely to
+become formidable adversaries to all who opposed them. The peaceful
+inhabitants of the countries on which they rushed could not long
+withstand the energy of men acting under such powerful motives of
+exertion. And when they fell in with any tribes like their own, the
+contest was a struggle for existence, and they fought with a desperate
+courage, inspired by the rejection that death was the punishment of
+defeat and life the prize of victory.
+
+In these savage contests many tribes must have been utterly
+exterminated. Some, probably, perished by hardship and famine. Others,
+whose leading star had given them a happier direction, became great and
+powerful tribes, and, in their turns, sent off fresh adventurers in
+search of still more fertile seats. The prodigious waste of human life
+occasioned by this perpetual struggle for room and food was more than
+supplied by the mighty power of population, acting, in some degree,
+unshackled from the consent habit of emigration. The tribes that
+migrated towards the South, though they won these more fruitful regions
+by continual battles, rapidly increased in number and power, from the
+increased means of subsistence. Till at length the whole territory,
+from the confines of China to the shores of the Baltic, was peopled by
+a various race of Barbarians, brave, robust, and enterprising, inured
+to hardship, and delighting in war. Some tribes maintained their
+independence. Others ranged themselves under the standard of some
+barbaric chieftain who led them to victory after victory, and what was
+of more importance, to regions abounding in corn, wine, and oil, the
+long wished for consummation, and great reward of their labours. An
+Alaric, an Attila, or a Zingis Khan, and the chiefs around them, might
+fight for glory, for the fame of extensive conquests, but the true
+cause that set in motion the great tide of northern emigration, and
+that continued to propel it till it rolled at different periods against
+China, Persia, Italy, and even Egypt, was a scarcity of food, a
+population extended beyond the means of supporting it.
+
+The absolute population at any one period, in proportion to the extent
+of territory, could never be great, on account of the unproductive
+nature of some of the regions occupied; but there appears to have been
+a most rapid succession of human beings, and as fast as some were mowed
+down by the scythe of war or of famine, others rose in increased
+numbers to supply their place. Among these bold and improvident
+Barbarians, population was probably but little checked, as in modern
+states, from a fear of future difficulties. A prevailing hope of
+bettering their condition by change of place, a constant expectation of
+plunder, a power even, if distressed, of selling their children as
+slaves, added to the natural carelessness of the barbaric character,
+all conspired to raise a population which remained to be repressed
+afterwards by famine or war.
+
+Where there is any inequality of conditions, and among nations of
+shepherds this soon takes place, the distress arising from a scarcity
+of provisions must fall hardest upon the least fortunate members of the
+society. This distress also must frequently have been felt by the
+women, exposed to casual plunder in the absence of their husbands, and
+subject to continual disappointments in their expected return.
+
+But without knowing enough of the minute and intimate history of these
+people, to point out precisely on what part the distress for want of
+food chiefly fell, and to what extent it was generally felt, I think we
+may fairly say, from all the accounts that we have of nations of
+shepherds, that population invariably increased among them whenever, by
+emigration or any other cause, the means of subsistence were increased,
+and that a further population was checked, and the actual population
+kept equal to the means of subsistence, by misery and vice.
+
+For, independently of any vicious customs that might have prevailed
+amongst them with regard to women, which always operate as checks to
+population, it must be acknowledged, I think, that the commission of
+war is vice, and the effect of it misery, and none can doubt the misery
+of want of food.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+State of civilized nations--Probability that Europe is much more
+populous now than in the time of Julius Caesar--Best criterion of
+population--Probable error of Hume in one the criterions that he
+proposes as assisting in an estimate of population--Slow increase of
+population at present in most of the states of Europe--The two
+principal checks to population--The first, or preventive check examined
+with regard to England.
+
+
+In examining the next state of mankind with relation to the question
+before us, the state of mixed pasture and tillage, in which with some
+variation in the proportions the most civilized nations must always
+remain, we shall be assisted in our review by what we daily see around
+us, by actual experience, by facts that come within the scope of every
+man's observation.
+
+Notwithstanding the exaggerations of some old historians, there can
+remain no doubt in the mind of any thinking man that the population of
+the principal countries of Europe, France, England, Germany, Russia,
+Poland, Sweden, and Denmark is much greater than ever it was in former
+times. The obvious reason of these exaggerations is the formidable
+aspect that even a thinly peopled nation must have, when collected
+together and moving all at once in search of fresh seats. If to this
+tremendous appearance be added a succession at certain intervals of
+similar emigrations, we shall not be much surprised that the fears of
+the timid nations of the South represented the North as a region
+absolutely swarming with human beings. A nearer and juster view of the
+subject at present enables us to see that the inference was as absurd
+as if a man in this country, who was continually meeting on the road
+droves of cattle from Wales and the North, was immediately to conclude
+that these countries were the most productive of all the parts of the
+kingdom.
+
+The reason that the greater part of Europe is more populous now than it
+was in former times, is that the industry of the inhabitants has made
+these countries produce a greater quantity of human subsistence. For I
+conceive that it may be laid down as a position not to be controverted,
+that, taking a sufficient extent of territory to include within it
+exportation and importation, and allowing some variation for the
+prevalence of luxury, or of frugal habits, that population constantly
+bears a regular proportion to the food that the earth is made to
+produce. In the controversy concerning the populousness of ancient and
+modern nations, could it be clearly ascertained that the average
+produce of the countries in question, taken altogether, is greater now
+than it was in the times of Julius Caesar, the dispute would be at once
+determined.
+
+When we are assured that China is the most fertile country in the
+world, that almost all the land is in tillage, and that a great part of
+it bears two crops every year, and further, that the people live very
+frugally, we may infer with certainty that the population must be
+immense, without busying ourselves in inquiries into the manners and
+habits of the lower classes and the encouragements to early marriages.
+But these inquiries are of the utmost importance, and a minute history
+of the customs of the lower Chinese would be of the greatest use in
+ascertaining in what manner the checks to a further population operate;
+what are the vices, and what are the distresses that prevent an
+increase of numbers beyond the ability of the country to support.
+
+Hume, in his essay on the populousness of ancient and modern nations,
+when he intermingles, as he says, an inquiry concerning causes with
+that concerning facts, does not seem to see with his usual penetration
+how very little some of the causes he alludes to could enable him to
+form any judgement of the actual population of ancient nations. If any
+inference can be drawn from them, perhaps it should be directly the
+reverse of what Hume draws, though I certainly ought to speak with
+great diffidence in dissenting from a man who of all others on such
+subjects was the least likely to be deceived by first appearances. If I
+find that at a certain period in ancient history, the encouragements to
+have a family were great, that early marriages were consequently very
+prevalent, and that few persons remained single, I should infer with
+certainty that population was rapidly increasing, but by no means that
+it was then actually very great, rather; indeed, the contrary, that it
+was then thin and that there was room and food for a much greater
+number. On the other hand, if I find that at this period the
+difficulties attending a family were very great, that, consequently,
+few early marriages took place, and that a great number of both sexes
+remained single, I infer with certainty that population was at a stand,
+and, probably, because the actual population was very great in
+proportion to the fertility of the land and that there was scarcely
+room and food for more. The number of footmen, housemaids, and other
+persons remaining unmarried in modern states, Hume allows to be rather
+an argument against their population. I should rather draw a contrary
+inference and consider it an argument of their fullness, though this
+inference is not certain, because there are many thinly inhabited
+states that are yet stationary in their population. To speak,
+therefore, correctly, perhaps it may be said that the number of
+unmarried persons in proportion to the whole number, existing at
+different periods, in the same or different states will enable us to
+judge whether population at these periods was increasing, stationary,
+or decreasing, but will form no criterion by which we can determine the
+actual population.
+
+There is, however, a circumstance taken notice of in most of the
+accounts we have of China that it seems difficult to reconcile with
+this reasoning. It is said that early marriages very generally prevail
+through all the ranks of the Chinese. Yet Dr Adam Smith supposes that
+population in China is stationary. These two circumstances appear to be
+irreconcilable. It certainly seems very little probable that the
+population of China is fast increasing. Every acre of land has been so
+long in cultivation that we can hardly conceive there is any great
+yearly addition to the average produce. The fact, perhaps, of the
+universality of early marriages may not be sufficiently ascertained. If
+it be supposed true, the only way of accounting for the difficulty,
+with our present knowledge of the subject, appears to be that the
+redundant population, necessarily occasioned by the prevalence of early
+marriages, must be repressed by occasional famines, and by the custom
+of exposing children, which, in times of distress, is probably more
+frequent than is ever acknowledged to Europeans. Relative to this
+barbarous practice, it is difficult to avoid remarking, that there
+cannot be a stronger proof of the distresses that have been felt by
+mankind for want of food, than the existence of a custom that thus
+violates the most natural principle of the human heart. It appears to
+have been very general among ancient nations, and certainly tended
+rather to increase population.
+
+In examining the principal states of modern Europe, we shall find that
+though they have increased very considerably in population since they
+were nations of shepherds, yet that at present their progress is but
+slow, and instead of doubling their numbers every twenty-five years
+they require three or four hundred years, or more, for that purpose.
+Some, indeed, may be absolutely stationary, and others even retrograde.
+The cause of this slow progress in population cannot be traced to a
+decay of the passion between the sexes. We have sufficient reason to
+think that this natural propensity exists still in undiminished vigour.
+Why then do not its effects appear in a rapid increase of the human
+species? An intimate view of the state of society in any one country in
+Europe, which may serve equally for all, will enable us to answer this
+question, and to say that a foresight of the difficulties attending the
+rearing of a family acts as a preventive check, and the actual
+distresses of some of the lower classes, by which they are disabled
+from giving the proper food and attention to their children, act as a
+positive check to the natural increase of population.
+
+England, as one of the most flourishing states of Europe, may be fairly
+taken for an example, and the observations made will apply with but
+little variation to any other country where the population increases
+slowly.
+
+The preventive check appears to operate in some degree through all the
+ranks of society in England. There are some men, even in the highest
+rank, who are prevented from marrying by the idea of the expenses that
+they must retrench, and the fancied pleasures that they must deprive
+themselves of, on the supposition of having a family. These
+considerations are certainly trivial, but a preventive foresight of
+this kind has objects of much greater weight for its contemplation as
+we go lower.
+
+A man of liberal education, but with an income only just sufficient to
+enable him to associate in the rank of gentlemen, must feel absolutely
+certain that if he marries and has a family he shall be obliged, if he
+mixes at all in society, to rank himself with moderate farmers and the
+lower class of tradesmen. The woman that a man of education would
+naturally make the object of his choice would be one brought up in the
+same tastes and sentiments with himself and used to the familiar
+intercourse of a society totally different from that to which she must
+be reduced by marriage. Can a man consent to place the object of his
+affection in a situation so discordant, probably, to her tastes and
+inclinations? Two or three steps of descent in society, particularly at
+this round of the ladder, where education ends and ignorance begins,
+will not be considered by the generality of people as a fancied and
+chimerical, but a real and essential evil. If society be held
+desirable, it surely must be free, equal, and reciprocal society, where
+benefits are conferred as well as received, and not such as the
+dependent finds with his patron or the poor with the rich.
+
+These considerations undoubtedly prevent a great number in this rank of
+life from following the bent of their inclinations in an early
+attachment. Others, guided either by a stronger passion, or a weaker
+judgement, break through these restraints, and it would be hard indeed,
+if the gratification of so delightful a passion as virtuous love, did
+not, sometimes, more than counterbalance all its attendant evils. But I
+fear it must be owned that the more general consequences of such
+marriages are rather calculated to justify than to repress the
+forebodings of the prudent.
+
+The sons of tradesmen and farmers are exhorted not to marry, and
+generally find it necessary to pursue this advice till they are settled
+in some business or farm that may enable them to support a family.
+These events may not, perhaps, occur till they are far advanced in
+life. The scarcity of farms is a very general complaint in England. And
+the competition in every kind of business is so great that it is not
+possible that all should be successful.
+
+The labourer who earns eighteen pence a day and lives with some degree
+of comfort as a single man, will hesitate a little before he divides
+that pittance among four or five, which seems to be but just sufficient
+for one. Harder fare and harder labour he would submit to for the sake
+of living with the woman that he loves, but he must feel conscious, if
+he thinks at all, that should he have a large family, and any ill luck
+whatever, no degree of frugality, no possible exertion of his manual
+strength could preserve him from the heart-rending sensation of seeing
+his children starve, or of forfeiting his independence, and being
+obliged to the parish for their support. The love of independence is a
+sentiment that surely none would wish to be erased from the breast of
+man, though the parish law of England, it must be confessed, is a
+system of all others the most calculated gradually to weaken this
+sentiment, and in the end may eradicate it completely.
+
+The servants who live in gentlemen's families have restraints that are
+yet stronger to break through in venturing upon marriage. They possess
+the necessaries, and even the comforts of life, almost in as great
+plenty as their masters. Their work is easy and their food luxurious
+compared with the class of labourers. And their sense of dependence is
+weakened by the conscious power of changing their masters, if they feel
+themselves offended. Thus comfortably situated at present, what are
+their prospects in marrying? Without knowledge or capital, either for
+business, or farming, and unused and therefore unable, to earn a
+subsistence by daily labour, their only refuge seems to be a miserable
+ale-house, which certainly offers no very enchanting prospect of a
+happy evening to their lives. By much the greater part, therefore,
+deterred by this uninviting view of their future situation, content
+themselves with remaining single where they are.
+
+If this sketch of the state of society in England be near the truth,
+and I do not conceive that it is exaggerated, it will be allowed that
+the preventive check to population in this country operates, though
+with varied force, through all the classes of the community. The same
+observation will hold true with regard to all old states. The effects,
+indeed, of these restraints upon marriage are but too conspicuous in
+the consequent vices that are produced in almost every part of the
+world, vices that are continually involving both sexes in inextricable
+unhappiness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+The second, or positive check to population examined, in England--The
+true cause why the immense sum collected in England for the poor does
+not better their condition--The powerful tendency of the poor laws to
+defeat their own purpose--Palliative of the distresses of the poor
+proposed--The absolute impossibility, from the fixed laws of our
+nature, that the pressure of want can ever be completely removed from
+the lower classes of society--All the checks to population may be
+resolved into misery or vice.
+
+
+The positive check to population, by which I mean the check that
+represses an increase which is already begun, is confined chiefly,
+though not perhaps solely, to the lowest orders of society.
+
+This check is not so obvious to common view as the other I have
+mentioned, and, to prove distinctly the force and extent of its
+operation would require, perhaps, more data than we are in possession
+of. But I believe it has been very generally remarked by those who have
+attended to bills of mortality that of the number of children who die
+annually, much too great a proportion belongs to those who may be
+supposed unable to give their offspring proper food and attention,
+exposed as they are occasionally to severe distress and confined,
+perhaps, to unwholesome habitations and hard labour. This mortality
+among the children of the poor has been constantly taken notice of in
+all towns. It certainly does not prevail in an equal degree in the
+country, but the subject has not hitherto received sufficient attention
+to enable anyone to say that there are not more deaths in proportion
+among the children of the poor, even in the country, than among those
+of the middling and higher classes. Indeed, it seems difficult to
+suppose that a labourer's wife who has six children, and who is
+sometimes in absolute want of bread, should be able always to give them
+the food and attention necessary to support life. The sons and
+daughters of peasants will not be found such rosy cherubs in real life
+as they are described to be in romances. It cannot fail to be remarked
+by those who live much in the country that the sons of labourers are
+very apt to be stunted in their growth, and are a long while arriving
+at maturity. Boys that you would guess to be fourteen or fifteen are,
+upon inquiry, frequently found to be eighteen or nineteen. And the lads
+who drive plough, which must certainly be a healthy exercise, are very
+rarely seen with any appearance of calves to their legs: a circumstance
+which can only be attributed to a want either of proper or of
+sufficient nourishment.
+
+To remedy the frequent distresses of the common people, the poor laws
+of England have been instituted; but it is to be feared, that though
+they may have alleviated a little the intensity of individual
+misfortune, they have spread the general evil over a much larger
+surface. It is a subject often started in conversation and mentioned
+always as a matter of great surprise that, notwithstanding the immense
+sum that is annually collected for the poor in England, there is still
+so much distress among them. Some think that the money must be
+embezzled, others that the church-wardens and overseers consume the
+greater part of it in dinners. All agree that somehow or other it must
+be very ill-managed. In short the fact that nearly three millions are
+collected annually for the poor and yet that their distresses are not
+removed is the subject of continual astonishment. But a man who sees a
+little below the surface of things would be very much more astonished
+if the fact were otherwise than it is observed to be, or even if a
+collection universally of eighteen shillings in the pound, instead of
+four, were materially to alter it. I will state a case which I hope
+will elucidate my meaning.
+
+Suppose that by a subscription of the rich the eighteen pence a day
+which men earn now was made up five shillings, it might be imagined,
+perhaps, that they would then be able to live comfortably and have a
+piece of meat every day for their dinners. But this would be a very
+false conclusion. The transfer of three shillings and sixpence a day to
+every labourer would not increase the quantity of meat in the country.
+There is not at present enough for all to have a decent share. What
+would then be the consequence? The competition among the buyers in the
+market of meat would rapidly raise the price from sixpence or
+sevenpence, to two or three shillings in the pound, and the commodity
+would not be divided among many more than it is at present. When an
+article is scarce, and cannot be distributed to all, he that can shew
+the most valid patent, that is, he that offers most money, becomes the
+possessor. If we can suppose the competition among the buyers of meat
+to continue long enough for a greater number of cattle to be reared
+annually, this could only be done at the expense of the corn, which
+would be a very disadvantagous exchange, for it is well known that the
+country could not then support the same population, and when
+subsistence is scarce in proportion to the number of people, it is of
+little consequence whether the lowest members of the society possess
+eighteen pence or five shillings. They must at all events be reduced to
+live upon the hardest fare and in the smallest quantity.
+
+It will be said, perhaps, that the increased number of purchasers in
+every article would give a spur to productive industry and that the
+whole produce of the island would be increased. This might in some
+degree be the case. But the spur that these fancied riches would give
+to population would more than counterbalance it, and the increased
+produce would be to be divided among a more than proportionably
+increased number of people. All this time I am supposing that the same
+quantity of work would be done as before. But this would not really
+take place. The receipt of five shillings a day, instead of eighteen
+pence, would make every man fancy himself comparatively rich and able
+to indulge himself in many hours or days of leisure. This would give a
+strong and immediate check to productive industry, and, in a short
+time, not only the nation would be poorer, but the lower classes
+themselves would be much more distressed than when they received only
+eighteen pence a day.
+
+A collection from the rich of eighteen shillings in the pound, even if
+distributed in the most judicious manner, would have a little the same
+effect as that resulting from the supposition I have just made, and no
+possible contributions or sacrifices of the rich, particularly in
+money, could for any time prevent the recurrence of distress among the
+lower members of society, whoever they were. Great changes might,
+indeed, be made. The rich might become poor, and some of the poor rich,
+but a part of the society must necessarily feel a difficulty of living,
+and this difficulty will naturally fall on the least fortunate members.
+
+It may at first appear strange, but I believe it is true, that I cannot
+by means of money raise a poor man and enable him to live much better
+than he did before, without proportionably depressing others in the
+same class. If I retrench the quantity of food consumed in my house,
+and give him what I have cut off, I then benefit him, without
+depressing any but myself and family, who, perhaps, may be well able to
+bear it. If I turn up a piece of uncultivated land, and give him the
+produce, I then benefit both him and all the members of the society,
+because what he before consumed is thrown into the common stock, and
+probably some of the new produce with it. But if I only give him money,
+supposing the produce of the country to remain the same, I give him a
+title to a larger share of that produce than formerly, which share he
+cannot receive without diminishing the shares of others. It is evident
+that this effect, in individual instances, must be so small as to be
+totally imperceptible; but still it must exist, as many other effects
+do, which, like some of the insects that people the air, elude our
+grosser perceptions.
+
+Supposing the quantity of food in any country to remain the same for
+many years together, it is evident that this food must be divided
+according to the value of each man's patent, or the sum of money that
+he can afford to spend on this commodity so universally in request. (Mr
+Godwin calls the wealth that a man receives from his ancestors a mouldy
+patent. It may, I think, very properly be termed a patent, but I hardly
+see the propriety of calling it a mouldy one, as it is an article in
+such constant use.) It is a demonstrative truth, therefore, that the
+patents of one set of men could not be increased in value without
+diminishing the value of the patents of some other set of men. If the
+rich were to subscribe and give five shillings a day to five hundred
+thousand men without retrenching their own tables, no doubt can exist,
+that as these men would naturally live more at their ease and consume a
+greater quantity of provisions, there would be less food remaining to
+divide among the rest, and consequently each man's patent would be
+diminished in value or the same number of pieces of silver would
+purchase a smaller quantity of subsistence.
+
+An increase of population without a proportional increase of food will
+evidently have the same effect in lowering the value of each man's
+patent. The food must necessarily be distributed in smaller quantities,
+and consequently a day's labour will purchase a smaller quantity of
+provisions. An increase in the price of provisions would arise either
+from an increase of population faster than the means of subsistence, or
+from a different distribution of the money of the society. The food of
+a country that has been long occupied, if it be increasing, increases
+slowly and regularly and cannot be made to answer any sudden demands,
+but variations in the distribution of the money of a society are not
+infrequently occurring, and are undoubtedly among the causes that
+occasion the continual variations which we observe in the price of
+provisions.
+
+The poor laws of England tend to depress the general condition of the
+poor in these two ways. Their first obvious tendency is to increase
+population without increasing the food for its support. A poor man may
+marry with little or no prospect of being able to support a family in
+independence. They may be said therefore in some measure to create the
+poor which they maintain, and as the provisions of the country must, in
+consequence of the increased population, be distributed to every man in
+smaller proportions, it is evident that the labour of those who are not
+supported by parish assistance will purchase a smaller quantity of
+provisions than before and consequently more of them must be driven to
+ask for support.
+
+Secondly, the quantity of provisions consumed in workhouses upon a part
+of the society that cannot in general be considered as the most
+valuable part diminishes the shares that would otherwise belong to more
+industrious and more worthy members, and thus in the same manner forces
+more to become dependent. If the poor in the workhouses were to live
+better than they now do, this new distribution of the money of the
+society would tend more conspicuously to depress the condition of those
+out of the workhouses by occasioning a rise in the price of provisions.
+
+Fortunately for England, a spirit of independence still remains among
+the peasantry. The poor laws are strongly calculated to eradicate this
+spirit. They have succeeded in part, but had they succeeded as
+completely as might have been expected their pernicious tendency would
+not have been so long concealed.
+
+Hard as it may appear in individual instances, dependent poverty ought
+to be held disgraceful. Such a stimulus seems to be absolutely
+necessary to promote the happiness of the great mass of mankind, and
+every general attempt to weaken this stimulus, however benevolent its
+apparent intention, will always defeat its own purpose. If men are
+induced to marry from a prospect of parish provision, with little or no
+chance of maintaining their families in independence, they are not only
+unjustly tempted to bring unhappiness and dependence upon themselves
+and children, but they are tempted, without knowing it, to injure all
+in the same class with themselves. A labourer who marries without being
+able to support a family may in some respects be considered as an enemy
+to all his fellow-labourers.
+
+I feel no doubt whatever that the parish laws of England have
+contributed to raise the price of provisions and to lower the real
+price of labour. They have therefore contributed to impoverish that
+class of people whose only possession is their labour. It is also
+difficult to suppose that they have not powerfully contributed to
+generate that carelessness and want of frugality observable among the
+poor, so contrary to the disposition frequently to be remarked among
+petty tradesmen and small farmers. The labouring poor, to use a vulgar
+expression, seem always to live from hand to mouth. Their present wants
+employ their whole attention, and they seldom think of the future. Even
+when they have an opportunity of saving they seldom exercise it, but
+all that is beyond their present necessities goes, generally speaking,
+to the ale-house. The poor laws of England may therefore be said to
+diminish both the power and the will to save among the common people,
+and thus to weaken one of the strongest incentives to sobriety and
+industry, and consequently to happiness.
+
+It is a general complaint among master manufacturers that high wages
+ruin all their workmen, but it is difficult to conceive that these men
+would not save a part of their high wages for the future support of
+their families, instead of spending it in drunkenness and dissipation,
+if they did not rely on parish assistance for support in case of
+accidents. And that the poor employed in manufactures consider this
+assistance as a reason why they may spend all the wages they earn and
+enjoy themselves while they can appears to be evident from the number
+of families that, upon the failure of any great manufactory,
+immediately fall upon the parish, when perhaps the wages earned in this
+manufactory while it flourished were sufficiently above the price of
+common country labour to have allowed them to save enough for their
+support till they could find some other channel for their industry.
+
+A man who might not be deterred from going to the ale-house from the
+consideration that on his death, or sickness, he should leave his wife
+and family upon the parish might yet hesitate in thus dissipating his
+earnings if he were assured that, in either of these cases, his family
+must starve or be left to the support of casual bounty. In China, where
+the real as well as nominal price of labour is very low, sons are yet
+obliged by law to support their aged and helpless parents. Whether such
+a law would be advisable in this country I will not pretend to
+determine. But it seems at any rate highly improper, by positive
+institutions, which render dependent poverty so general, to weaken that
+disgrace, which for the best and most humane reasons ought to attach to
+it.
+
+The mass of happiness among the common people cannot but be diminished
+when one of the strongest checks to idleness and dissipation is thus
+removed, and when men are thus allured to marry with little or no
+prospect of being able to maintain a family in independence. Every
+obstacle in the way of marriage must undoubtedly be considered as a
+species of unhappiness. But as from the laws of our nature some check
+to population must exist, it is better that it should be checked from a
+foresight of the difficulties attending a family and the fear of
+dependent poverty than that it should be encouraged, only to be
+repressed afterwards by want and sickness.
+
+It should be remembered always that there is an essential difference
+between food and those wrought commodities, the raw materials of which
+are in great plenty. A demand for these last will not fail to create
+them in as great a quantity as they are wanted. The demand for food has
+by no means the same creative power. In a country where all the fertile
+spots have been seized, high offers are necessary to encourage the
+farmer to lay his dressing on land from which he cannot expect a
+profitable return for some years. And before the prospect of advantage
+is sufficiently great to encourage this sort of agricultural
+enterprise, and while the new produce is rising, great distresses may
+be suffered from the want of it. The demand for an increased quantity
+of subsistence is, with few exceptions, constant everywhere, yet we see
+how slowly it is answered in all those countries that have been long
+occupied.
+
+The poor laws of England were undoubtedly instituted for the most
+benevolent purpose, but there is great reason to think that they have
+not succeeded in their intention. They certainly mitigate some cases of
+very severe distress which might otherwise occur, yet the state of the
+poor who are supported by parishes, considered in all its
+circumstances, is very far from being free from misery. But one of the
+principal objections to them is that for this assistance which some of
+the poor receive, in itself almost a doubtful blessing, the whole class
+of the common people of England is subjected to a set of grating,
+inconvenient, and tyrannical laws, totally inconsistent with the
+genuine spirit of the constitution. The whole business of settlements,
+even in its present amended state, is utterly contradictory to all
+ideas of freedom. The parish persecution of men whose families are
+likely to become chargeable, and of poor women who are near lying-in,
+is a most disgraceful and disgusting tyranny. And the obstructions
+continuity occasioned in the market of labour by these laws have a
+constant tendency to add to the difficulties of those who are
+struggling to support themselves without assistance.
+
+These evils attendant on the poor laws are in some degree irremediable.
+If assistance be to be distributed to a certain class of people, a
+power must be given somewhere of discriminating the proper objects and
+of managing the concerns of the institutions that are necessary, but
+any great interference with the affairs of other people is a species of
+tyranny, and in the common course of things the exercise of this power
+may be expected to become grating to those who are driven to ask for
+support. The tyranny of Justices, Church-wardens, and Overseers, is a
+common complaint among the poor, but the fault does not lie so much in
+these persons, who probably, before they were in power, were not worse
+than other people, but in the nature of all such institutions.
+
+The evil is perhaps gone too far to be remedied, but I feel little
+doubt in my own mind that if the poor laws had never existed, though
+there might have been a few more instances of very severe distress, yet
+that the aggregate mass of happiness among the common people would have
+been much greater than it is at present.
+
+Mr Pitt's Poor Bill has the appearance of being framed with benevolent
+intentions, and the clamour raised against it was in many respects ill
+directed, and unreasonable. But it must be confessed that it possesses
+in a high degree the great and radical defect of all systems of the
+kind, that of tending to increase population without increasing the
+means for its support, and thus to depress the condition of those that
+are not supported by parishes, and, consequently, to create more poor.
+
+To remove the wants of the lower classes of society is indeed an
+arduous task. The truth is that the pressure of distress on this part
+of a community is an evil so deeply seated that no human ingenuity can
+reach it. Were I to propose a palliative, and palliatives are all that
+the nature of the case will admit, it should be, in the first place,
+the total abolition of all the present parish-laws. This would at any
+rate give liberty and freedom of action to the peasantry of England,
+which they can hardly be said to possess at present. They would then be
+able to settle without interruption, wherever there was a prospect of a
+greater plenty of work and a higher price for labour. The market of
+labour would then be free, and those obstacles removed which, as things
+are now, often for a considerable time prevent the price from rising
+according to the demand.
+
+Secondly, premiums might be given for turning up fresh land, and it
+possible encouragements held out to agriculture above manufactures, and
+to tillage above grazing. Every endeavour should be used to weaken and
+destroy all those institutions relating to corporations,
+apprenticeships, etc., which cause the labours of agriculture to be
+worse paid than the labours of trade and manufactures. For a country
+can never produce its proper quantity of food while these distinctions
+remain in favour of artisans. Such encouragements to agriculture would
+tend to furnish the market with an increasing quantity of healthy work,
+and at the same time, by augmenting the produce of the country, would
+raise the comparative price of labour and ameliorate the condition of
+the labourer. Being now in better circumstances, and seeing no prospect
+of parish assistance, he would be more able, as well as more inclined,
+to enter into associations for providing against the sickness of
+himself or family.
+
+Lastly, for cases of extreme distress, county workhouses might be
+established, supported by rates upon the whole kingdom, and free for
+persons of all counties, and indeed of all nations. The fare should be
+hard, and those that were able obliged to work. It would be desirable
+that they should not be considered as comfortable asylums in all
+difficulties, but merely as places where severe distress might find
+some alleviation. A part of these houses might be separated, or others
+built for a most beneficial purpose, which has not been infrequently
+taken notice of, that of providing a place where any person, whether
+native or foreigner, might do a day's work at all times and receive the
+market price for it. Many cases would undoubtedly be left for the
+exertion of individual benevolence.
+
+A plan of this kind, the preliminary of which should be an abolition of
+all the present parish laws, seems to be the best calculated to
+increase the mass of happiness among the common people of England. To
+prevent the recurrence of misery, is, alas! beyond the power of man. In
+the vain endeavour to attain what in the nature of things is
+impossible, we now sacrifice not only possible but certain benefits. We
+tell the common people that if they will submit to a code of tyrannical
+regulations, they shall never be in want. They do submit to these
+regulations. They perform their part of the contract, but we do not,
+nay cannot, perform ours, and thus the poor sacrifice the valuable
+blessing of liberty and receive nothing that can be called an
+equivalent in return.
+
+Notwithstanding, then, the institution of the poor laws in England, I
+think it will be allowed that considering the state of the lower
+classes altogether, both in the towns and in the country, the
+distresses which they suffer from the want of proper and sufficient
+food, from hard labour and unwholesome habitations, must operate as a
+constant check to incipient population.
+
+To these two great checks to population, in all long occupied
+countries, which I have called the preventive and the positive checks,
+may be added vicious customs with respect to women, great cities,
+unwholesome manufactures, luxury, pestilence, and war.
+
+All these checks may be fairly resolved into misery and vice. And that
+these are the true causes of the slow increase of population in all the
+states of modern Europe, will appear sufficiently evident from the
+comparatively rapid increase that has invariably taken place whenever
+these causes have been in any considerable degree removed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6
+
+New colonies--Reasons for their rapid increase--North American
+Colonies--Extraordinary instance of increase in the back
+settlements--Rapidity with which even old states recover the ravages of
+war, pestilence, famine, or the convulsions of nature.
+
+
+It has been universally remarked that all new colonies settled in
+healthy countries, where there was plenty of room and food, have
+constantly increased with astonishing rapidity in their population.
+Some of the colonies from ancient Greece, in no very long period, more
+than equalled their parent states in numbers and strength. And not to
+dwell on remote instances, the European settlements in the new world
+bear ample testimony to the truth of a remark, which, indeed, has
+never, that I know of, been doubted. A plenty of rich land, to be had
+for little or nothing, is so powerful a cause of population as to
+overcome all other obstacles. No settlements could well have been worse
+managed than those of Spain in Mexico, Peru, and Quito. The tyranny,
+superstition, and vices of the mother-country were introduced in ample
+quantities among her children. Exorbitant taxes were exacted by the
+Crown. The most arbitrary restrictions were imposed on their trade. And
+the governors were not behind hand in rapacity and extortion for
+themselves as well as their master. Yet, under all these difficulties,
+the colonies made a quick progress in population. The city of Lima,
+founded since the conquest, is represented by Ulloa as containing fifty
+thousand inhabitants near fifty years ago. Quito, which had been but a
+hamlet of indians, is represented by the same author as in his time
+equally populous. Mexico is said to contain a hundred thousand
+inhabitants, which, notwithstanding the exaggerations of the Spanish
+writers, is supposed to be five times greater than what it contained in
+the time of Montezuma.
+
+In the Portuguese colony of Brazil, governed with almost equal tyranny,
+there were supposed to be, thirty years since, six hundred thousand
+inhabitants of European extraction.
+
+The Dutch and French colonies, though under the government of exclusive
+companies of merchants, which, as Dr Adam Smith says very justly, is
+the worst of all possible governments, still persisted in thriving
+under every disadvantage.
+
+But the English North American colonies, now the powerful people of the
+United States of America, made by far the most rapid progress. To the
+plenty of good land which they possessed in common with the Spanish and
+Portuguese settlements, they added a greater degree of liberty and
+equality. Though not without some restrictions on their foreign
+commerce, they were allowed a perfect liberty of managing their own
+internal affairs. The political institutions that prevailed were
+favourable to the alienation and division of property. Lands that were
+not cultivated by the proprietor within a limited time were declared
+grantable to any other person. In Pennsylvania there was no right of
+primogeniture, and in the provinces of New England the eldest had only
+a double share. There were no tithes in any of the States, and scarcely
+any taxes. And on account of the extreme cheapness of good land a
+capital could not be more advantageously employed than in agriculture,
+which at the same time that it supplies the greatest quantity of
+healthy work affords much the most valuable produce to the society.
+
+The consequence of these favourable circumstances united was a rapidity
+of increase probably without parallel in history. Throughout all the
+northern colonies, the population was found to double itself in
+twenty-five years. The original number of persons who had settled in
+the four provinces of new England in 1643 was 21,200.(I take these
+figures from Dr Price's two volumes of Observations; not having Dr
+Styles' pamphlet, from which he quotes, by me.) Afterwards, it is
+supposed that more left them than went to them. In the year 1760, they
+were increased to half a million. They had therefore all along doubled
+their own number in twenty-five years. In New Jersey the period of
+doubling appeared to be twenty-two years; and in Rhode island still
+less. In the back settlements, where the inhabitants applied themselves
+solely to agriculture, and luxury was not known, they were found to
+double their own number in fifteen years, a most extraordinary instance
+of increase. Along the sea coast, which would naturally be first
+inhabited, the period of doubling was about thirty-five years; and in
+some of the maritime towns, the population was absolutely at a stand.
+
+(In instances of this kind the powers of the earth appear to be fully
+equal to answer it the demands for food that can be made upon it by
+man. But we should be led into an error if we were thence to suppose
+that population and food ever really increase in the same ratio. The
+one is still a geometrical and the other an arithmetical ratio, that
+is, one increases by multiplication, and the other by addition. Where
+there are few people, and a great quantity of fertile land, the power
+of the earth to afford a yearly increase of food may be compared to a
+great reservoir of water, supplied by a moderate stream. The faster
+population increases, the more help will be got to draw off the water,
+and consequently an increasing quantity will be taken every year. But
+the sooner, undoubtedly, will the reservoir be exhausted, and the
+streams only remain. When acre has been added to acre, till all the
+fertile land is occupied, the yearly increase of food will depend upon
+the amelioration of the land already in possession; and even this
+moderate stream will be gradually diminishing. But population, could it
+be supplied with food, would go on with unexhausted vigour, and the
+increase of one period would furnish the power of a greater increase
+the next, and this without any limit.)
+
+These facts seem to shew that population increases exactly in the
+proportion that the two great checks to it, misery and vice, are
+removed, and that there is not a truer criterion of the happiness and
+innocence of a people than the rapidity of their increase. The
+unwholesomeness of towns, to which some persons are necessarily driven
+from the nature of their trades, must be considered as a species of
+misery, and every the slightest check to marriage, from a prospect of
+the difficulty of maintaining a family, may be fairly classed under the
+same head. In short it is difficult to conceive any check to population
+which does not come under the description of some species of misery or
+vice.
+
+The population of the thirteen American States before the war was
+reckoned at about three millions. Nobody imagines that Great Britain is
+less populous at present for the emigration of the small parent stock
+that produced these numbers. On the contrary, a certain degree of
+emigration is known to be favourable to the population of the mother
+country. It has been particularly remarked that the two Spanish
+provinces from which the greatest number of people emigrated to
+America, became in consequence more populous. Whatever was the original
+number of British emigrants that increased so fast in the North
+American Colonies, let us ask, why does not an equal number produce an
+equal increase in the same time in Great Britain? The great and obvious
+cause to be assigned is the want of room and food, or, in other words,
+misery, and that this is a much more powerful cause even than vice
+appears sufficiently evident from the rapidity with which even old
+states recover the desolations of war, pestilence, or the accidents of
+nature. They are then for a short time placed a little in the situation
+of new states, and the effect is always answerable to what might be
+expected. If the industry of the inhabitants be not destroyed by fear
+or tyranny, subsistence will soon increase beyond the wants of the
+reduced numbers, and the invariable consequence will be that population
+which before, perhaps, was nearly stationary, will begin immediately to
+increase.
+
+The fertile province of Flanders, which has been so often the seat of
+the most destructive wars, after a respite of a few years, has appeared
+always as fruitful and as populous as ever. Even the Palatinate lifted
+up its head again after the execrable ravages of Louis the Fourteenth.
+The effects of the dreadful plague in London in 1666 were not
+perceptible fifteen or twenty years afterwards. The traces of the most
+destructive famines in China and Indostan are by all accounts very soon
+obliterated. It may even be doubted whether Turkey and Egypt are upon
+an average much less populous for the plagues that periodically lay
+them waste. If the number of people which they contain be less now than
+formerly, it is, probably, rather to be attributed to the tyranny and
+oppression of the government under which they groan, and the consequent
+discouragements to agriculture, than to the loss which they sustain by
+the plague. The most tremendous convulsions of nature, such as volcanic
+eruptions and earthquakes, if they do not happen so frequently as to
+drive away the inhabitants, or to destroy their spirit of industry,
+have but a trifling effect on the average population of any state.
+Naples, and the country under Vesuvius, are still very populous,
+notwithstanding the repeated eruptions of that mountain. And Lisbon and
+Lima are now, probably, nearly in the same state with regard to
+population as they were before the last earthquakes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7
+
+A probable cause of epidemics--Extracts from Mr Suessmilch's
+tables--Periodical returns of sickly seasons to be expected in certain
+cases--Proportion of births to burials for short periods in any country
+an inadequate criterion of the real average increase of
+population--Best criterion of a permanent increase of population--Great
+frugality of living one of the causes of the famines of China and
+Indostan--Evil tendency of one of the clauses in Mr Pitt's Poor
+Bill--Only one proper way of encouraging population--Causes of the
+Happiness of nations--Famine, the last and most dreadful mode by which
+nature represses a redundant population--The three propositions
+considered as established.
+
+
+By great attention to cleanliness, the plague seems at length to be
+completely expelled from London. But it is not improbable that among
+the secondary causes that produce even sickly seasons and epidemics
+ought to be ranked a crowded population and unwholesome and
+insufficient food. I have been led to this remark, by looking over some
+of the tables of Mr Suessmilch, which Dr Price has extracted in one of
+his notes to the postscript on the controversy respecting the
+population of England and Wales. They are considered as very correct,
+and if such tables were general, they would throw great light on the
+different ways by which population is repressed and prevented from
+increasing beyond the means of subsistence in any country. I will
+extract a part of the tables, with Dr Price's remarks.
+
+
+  IN THE KINGDOM OF PRUSSIA, AND DUKEDOM OF LITHUANIA
+
+                                              Proportion   Proportion
+                   Births  Burials Marriages of Births to of Births to
+                                              Marriages     Burials
+  10 Yrs to 1702   21,963  14,718   5,928      37 to 10    150 to 100
+  5 Yrs to 1716    21,602  11,984   4,968      37 to 10    180 to 100
+  5 Yrs to 1756    28,392  19,154   5,599      50 to 10    148 to 100
+
+"N.B. In 1709 and 1710, a pestilence carried off 247,733 of the
+inhabitants of this country, and in 1736 and 1737, epidemics prevailed,
+which again checked its increase."
+
+
+It may be remarked, that the greatest proportion of births to burials,
+was in the five years after the great pestilence.
+
+
+  DUCHY OF POMERANIA
+
+                                              Proportion   Proportion
+  Annual Average   Births  Burials Marriages of Births to of Births to
+                                              Marriages     Burials
+  6 yrs to 1702   6,540     4,647   1,810      36 to 10    140 to 100
+  6 yrs to 1708   7,455     4,208   1,875      39 to 10    177 to 100
+  6 yrs to 1726   8,432     5,627   2,131      39 to 10    150 to 100
+  6 yrs to 1756  12,767     9,281   2,957      43 to 10    137 to 100
+
+"In this instance the inhabitants appear to have been almost doubled in
+fifty-six years, no very bad epidemics having once interrupted the
+increase, but the three years immediately follow ing the last period
+(to 1759) were so sickly that the births were sunk to 10,229 and the
+burials raised to 15,068."
+
+
+Is it not probable that in this case the number of inhabitants had
+increased faster than the food and the accommodations necessary to
+preserve them in health? The mass of the people would, upon this
+supposition, be obliged to live harder, and a greater number would be
+crowded together in one house, and it is not surely improbable that
+these were among the natural causes that produced the three sickly
+years. These causes may produce such an effect, though the country,
+absolutely considered, may not be extremely crowded and populous. In a
+country even thinly inhabited, if an increase of population take place,
+before more food is raised, and more houses are built, the inhabitants
+must be distressed in some degree for room and subsistence. Were the
+marriages in England, for the next eight or ten years, to be more
+prolifick than usual, or even were a greater number of marriages than
+usual to take place, supposing the number of houses to remain the same,
+instead of five or six to a cottage, there must be seven or eight, and
+this, added to the necessity of harder living, would probably have a
+very unfavourable effect on the health of the common people.
+
+
+  NEUMARK OF BRANDENBURGH
+
+                                              Proportion   Proportion
+  Annual Average   Births  Burials Marriages of Births to of Births to
+                                              Marriages    Burials
+  5 yrs to 1701    5,433    3,483  1,436      37 to 10    155 to 100
+  5 yrs to 1726    7,012    4,254  1,713      40 to 10    164 to 100
+  5 yrs to 1756    7,978    5,567  1,891      42 to 10    143 to 100
+
+"Epidemics prevailed for six years, from 1736, to 1741, which checked
+the increase."
+
+
+  DUKEDOM OF MAGDEBURGH
+
+                                              Proportion   Proportion
+  Annual Average   Births  Burials Marriages of Births to of Births to
+                                              Marriages    Burials
+  5 yrs to 1702    6,431   4,103   1,681      38 to 10    156 to 100
+  5 yrs to 1717    7,590   5,335   2,076      36 to 10    142 to 100
+  5 yrs to 1756    8,850   8,069   2,193      40 to 10    109 to 100
+
+"The years 1738, 1740, 1750, and 1751, were particularly sickly."
+
+
+For further information on this subject, I refer the reader to Mr
+Suessmilch's tables. The extracts that I have made are sufficient to
+shew the periodical, though irregular, returns of sickly seasons, and
+it seems highly probable that a scantiness of room and food was one of
+the principal causes that occasioned them.
+
+It appears from the tables that these countries were increasing rather
+fast for old states, notwithstanding the occasional seasons that
+prevailed. Cultivation must have been improving, and marriages,
+consequently, encouraged. For the checks to population appear to have
+been rather of the positive, than of the preventive kind. When from a
+prospect of increasing plenty in any country, the weight that represses
+population is in some degree removed, it is highly probable that the
+motion will be continued beyond the operation of the cause that first
+impelled it. Or, to be more particular, when the increasing produce of
+a country, and the increasing demand for labour, so far ameliorate the
+condition of the labourer as greatly to encourage marriage, it is
+probable that the custom of early marriages will continue till the
+population of the country has gone beyond the increased produce, and
+sickly seasons appear to be the natural and necessary consequence. I
+should expect, therefore, that those countries where subsistence was
+increasing sufficiency at times to encourage population but not to
+answer all its demands, would be more subject to periodical epidemics
+than those where the population could more completely accommodate
+itself to the average produce.
+
+An observation the converse of this will probably also be found true.
+In those countries that are subject to periodical sicknesses, the
+increase of population, or the excess of births above the burials, will
+be greater in the intervals of these periods than is usual, caeteris
+paribus, in the countries not so much subject to such disorders. If
+Turkey and Egypt have been nearly stationary in their average
+population for the last century, in the intervals of their periodical
+plagues, the births must have exceeded the burials in a greater
+proportion than in such countries as France and England.
+
+The average proportion of births to burials in any country for a period
+of five to ten years, will hence appear to be a very inadequate
+criterion by which to judge of its real progress in population. This
+proportion certainly shews the rate of increase during those five or
+ten years; but we can by no means thence infer what had been the
+increase for the twenty years before, or what would be the increase for
+the twenty years after. Dr Price observes that Sweden, Norway, Russia,
+and the kingdom of Naples, are increasing fast; but the extracts from
+registers that he has given are not for periods of sufficient extent to
+establish the fact. It is highly probable, however, that Sweden,
+Norway, and Russia, are really increasing their population, though not
+at the rate that the proportion of births to burials for the short
+periods that Dr Price takes would seem to shew. (See Dr Price's
+Observations, Vol. ii, postscript to the controversy on the population
+of England and Wales.) For five years, ending in 1777, the proportion
+of births to burials in the kingdom of Naples was 144 to 100, but there
+is reason to suppose that this proportion would indicate an increase
+much greater than would be really found to have taken place in that
+kingdom during a period of a hundred years.
+
+Dr Short compared the registers of many villages and market towns in
+England for two periods; the first, from Queen Elizabeth to the middle
+of the last century, and the second, from different years at the end of
+the last century to the middle of the present. And from a comparison of
+these extracts, it appears that in the former period the births
+exceeded the burials in the proportion of 124 to 100, but in the
+latter, only in the proportion of 111 to 100. Dr Price thinks that the
+registers in the former period are not to be depended upon, but,
+probably, in this instance they do not give incorrect proportions. At
+least there are many reasons for expecting to find a greater excess of
+births above the burials in the former period than in the latter. In
+the natural progress of the population of any country, more good land
+will, caeteris paribus, be taken into cultivation in the earlier stages
+of it than in the later. (I say 'caeteris paribus', because the
+increase of the produce of any country will always very greatly depend
+on the spirit of industry that prevails, and the way in which it is
+directed. The knowledge and habits of the people, and other temporary
+causes, particularly the degree of civil liberty and equality existing
+at the time, must always have great influence in exciting and directing
+this spirit.) And a greater proportional yearly increase of produce
+will almost invariably be followed by a greater proportional increase
+of population. But, besides this great cause, which would naturally
+give the excess of births above burials greater at the end of Queen
+Elizabeth's reign than in the middle of the present century, I cannot
+help thinking that the occasional ravages of the plague in the former
+period must have had some tendency to increase this proportion. If an
+average of ten years had been taken in the intervals of the returns of
+this dreadful disorder, or if the years of plague had been rejected as
+accidental, the registers would certainly give the proportion of births
+to burials too high for the real average increase of the population.
+For some few years after the great plague in 1666, it is probable that
+there was a more than usual excess of births above burials,
+particularly if Dr Price's opinion be founded, that England was more
+populous at the revolution (which happened only twenty-two years
+afterwards) than it is at present.
+
+Mr King, in 1693, stated the proportion of the births to the burials
+throughout the Kingdom, exclusive of London, as 115 to 100. Dr Short
+makes it, in the middle of the present century, 111 to 100, including
+London. The proportion in France for five years, ending in 1774, was
+117 to 100. If these statements are near the truth; and if there are no
+very great variations at particular periods in the proportions, it
+would appear that the population of France and England has accommodated
+itself very nearly to the average produce of each country. The
+discouragements to marriage, the consequent vicious habits, war,
+luxury, the silent though certain depopulation of large towns, and the
+close habitations, and insufficient food of many of the poor, prevent
+population from increasing beyond the means of subsistence; and, if I
+may use an expression which certainly at first appears strange,
+supercede the necessity of great and ravaging epidemics to repress what
+is redundant. Were a wasting plague to sweep off two millions in
+England, and six millions in France, there can be no doubt whatever
+that, after the inhabitants had recovered from the dreadful shock, the
+proportion of births to burials would be much above what it is in
+either country at present.
+
+In New Jersey, the proportion of births to deaths on an average of
+seven years, ending in 1743, was as 300 to 100. In France and England,
+taking the highest proportion, it is as 117 to 100. Great and
+astonishing as this difference is, we ought not to be so wonder-struck
+at it as to attribute it to the miraculous interposition of heaven. The
+causes of it are not remote, latent and mysterious; but near us, round
+about us, and open to the investigation of every inquiring mind. It
+accords with the most liberal spirit of philosophy to suppose that not
+a stone can fall, or a plant rise, without the immediate agency of
+divine power. But we know from experience that these operations of what
+we call nature have been conducted almost invariably according to fixed
+laws. And since the world began, the causes of population and
+depopulation have probably been as constant as any of the laws of
+nature with which we are acquainted.
+
+The passion between the sexes has appeared in every age to be so nearly
+the same that it may always be considered, in algebraic language, as a
+given quantity. The great law of necessity which prevents population
+from increasing in any country beyond the food which it can either
+produce or acquire, is a law so open to our view, so obvious and
+evident to our understandings, and so completely confirmed by the
+experience of every age, that we cannot for a moment doubt it. The
+different modes which nature takes to prevent or repress a redundant
+population do not appear, indeed, to us so certain and regular, but
+though we cannot always predict the mode we may with certainty predict
+the fact. If the proportion of births to deaths for a few years
+indicate an increase of numbers much beyond the proportional increased
+or acquired produce of the country, we may be perfectly certain that
+unless an emigration takes place, the deaths will shortly exceed the
+births; and that the increase that had taken place for a few years
+cannot be the real average increase of the population of the country.
+Were there no other depopulating causes, every country would, without
+doubt, be subject to periodical pestilences or famine.
+
+The only true criterion of a real and permanent increase in the
+population of any country is the increase of the means of subsistence.
+But even, this criterion is subject to some slight variations which
+are, however, completely open to our view and observations. In some
+countries population appears to have been forced, that is, the people
+have been habituated by degrees to live almost upon the smallest
+possible quantity of food. There must have been periods in such
+counties when population increased permanently, without an increase in
+the means of subsistence. China seems to answer to this description. If
+the accounts we have of it are to be trusted, the lower classes of
+people are in the habit of living almost upon the smallest possible
+quantity of food and are glad to get any putrid offals that European
+labourers would rather starve than eat. The law in China which permits
+parents to expose their children has tended principally thus to force
+the population. A nation in this state must necessarily be subject to
+famines. Where a country is so populous in proportion to the means of
+subsistence that the average produce of it is but barely sufficient to
+support the lives of the inhabitants, any deficiency from the badness
+of seasons must be fatal. It is probable that the very frugal manner in
+which the Gentoos are in the habit of living contributes in some degree
+to the famines of Indostan.
+
+In America, where the reward of labour is at present so liberal, the
+lower classes might retrench very considerably in a year of scarcity
+without materially distressing themselves. A famine therefore seems to
+be almost impossible. It may be expected that in the progress of the
+population of America, the labourers will in time be much less
+liberally rewarded. The numbers will in this case permanently increase
+without a proportional increase in the means of subsistence.
+
+In the different states of Europe there must be some variations in the
+proportion between the number of inhabitants and the quantity of food
+consumed, arising from the different habits of living that prevail in
+each state. The labourers of the South of England are so accustomed to
+eat fine wheaten bread that they will suffer themselves to be half
+starved before they will submit to live like the Scotch peasants. They
+might perhaps in time, by the constant operation of the hard law of
+necessity, be reduced to live even like the Lower Chinese, and the
+country would then, with the same quantity of food, support a greater
+population. But to effect this must always be a most difficult, and,
+every friend to humanity will hope, an abortive attempt. Nothing is so
+common as to hear of encouragements that ought to be given to
+population. If the tendency of mankind to increase be so great as I
+have represented it to be, it may appear strange that this increase
+does not come when it is thus repeatedly called for. The true reason is
+that the demand for a greater population is made without preparing the
+funds necessary to support it. Increase the demand for agricultural
+labour by promoting cultivation, and with it consequently increase the
+produce of the country, and ameliorate the condition of the labourer,
+and no apprehensions whatever need be entertained of the proportional
+increase of population. An attempt to effect this purpose in any other
+way is vicious, cruel, and tyrannical, and in any state of tolerable
+freedom cannot therefore succeed. It may appear to be the interest of
+the rulers, and the rich of a state, to force population, and thereby
+lower the price of labour, and consequently the expense of fleets and
+armies, and the cost of manufactures for foreign sale; but every
+attempt of the kind should be carefully watched and strenuously
+resisted by the friends of the poor, particularly when it comes under
+the deceitful garb of benevolence, and is likely, on that account, to
+be cheerfully and cordially received by the common people.
+
+I entirely acquit Mr Pitt of any sinister intention in that clause of
+his Poor Bill which allows a shilling a week to every labourer for each
+child he has above three. I confess, that before the bill was brought
+into Parliament, and for some time after, I thought that such a
+regulation would be highly beneficial, but further reflection on the
+subject has convinced me that if its object be to better the condition
+of the poor, it is calculated to defeat the very purpose which it has
+in view. It has no tendency that I can discover to increase the produce
+of the country, and if it tend to increase the population, without
+increasing the produce, the necessary and inevitable consequence
+appears to be that the same produce must be divided among a greater
+number, and consequently that a day's labour will purchase a smaller
+quantity of provisions, and the poor therefore in general must be more
+distressed.
+
+I have mentioned some cases where population may permanently increase
+without a proportional increase in the means of subsistence. But it is
+evident that the variation in different states, between the food and
+the numbers supported by it, is restricted to a limit beyond which it
+cannot pass. In every country, the population of which is not
+absolutely decreasing, the food must be necessarily sufficient to
+support, and to continue, the race of labourers.
+
+Other circumstances being the same, it may be affirmed that countries
+are populous according to the quantity of human food which they
+produce, and happy according to the liberality with which that food is
+divided, or the quantity which a day's labour will purchase. Corn
+countries are more populous than pasture countries, and rice countries
+more populous than corn countries. The lands in England are not suited
+to rice, but they would all bear potatoes; and Dr Adam Smith observes
+that if potatoes were to become the favourite vegetable food of the
+common people, and if the same quantity of land was employed in their
+culture as is now employed in the culture of corn, the country would be
+able to support a much greater population, and would consequently in a
+very short time have it.
+
+The happiness of a country does not depend, absolutely, upon its
+poverty or its riches, upon its youth or its age, upon its being thinly
+or fully inhabited, but upon the rapidity with which it is increasing,
+upon the degree in which the yearly increase of food approaches to the
+yearly increase of an unrestricted population. This approximation is
+always the nearest in new colonies, where the knowledge and industry of
+an old state operate on the fertile unappropriated land of a new one.
+In other cases, the youth or the age of a state is not in this respect
+of very great importance. It is probable that the food of Great Britain
+is divided in as great plenty to the inhabitants, at the present
+period, as it was two thousand, three thousand, or four thousand years
+ago. And there is reason to believe that the poor and thinly inhabited
+tracts of the Scotch Highlands are as much distressed by an overcharged
+population as the rich and populous province of Flanders.
+
+Were a country never to be overrun by a people more advanced in arts,
+but left to its own natural progress in civilization; from the time
+that its produce might be considered as an unit, to the time that it
+might be considered as a million, during the lapse of many hundred
+years, there would not be a single period when the mass of the people
+could be said to be free from distress, either directly or indirectly,
+for want of food. In every state in Europe, since we have first had
+accounts of it, millions and millions of human existences have been
+repressed from this simple cause; though perhaps in some of these
+states an absolute famine has never been known.
+
+Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature. The
+power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce
+subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other
+visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able
+ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of
+destruction; and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should
+they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics,
+pestilence, and plague, advance in terrific array, and sweep off their
+thousands and ten thousands. Should success be still incomplete,
+gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow
+levels the population with the food of the world.
+
+Must it not then be acknowledged by an attentive examiner of the
+histories of mankind, that in every age and in every state in which man
+has existed, or does now exist.
+
+That the increase of population is necessarily limited by the means of
+subsistence.
+
+That population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence
+increase. And that the superior power of population it repressed, and
+the actual population kept equal to the means of subsistence, by misery
+and vice?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8
+
+Mr Wallace--Error of supposing that the difficulty arising from
+population is at a great distance--Mr Condorcet's sketch of the
+progress of the human mind--Period when the oscillation, mentioned by
+Mr Condorcet, ought to be applied to the human race.
+
+
+To a person who draws the preceding obvious inferences, from a view of
+the past and present state of mankind, it cannot but be a matter of
+astonishment that all the writers on the perfectibility of man and of
+society who have noticed the argument of an overcharged population,
+treat it always very slightly and invariably represent the difficulties
+arising from it as at a great and almost immeasurable distance. Even Mr
+Wallace, who thought the argument itself of so much weight as to
+destroy his whole system of equality, did not seem to be aware that any
+difficulty would occur from this cause till the whole earth had been
+cultivated like a garden and was incapable of any further increase of
+produce. Were this really the case, and were a beautiful system of
+equality in other respects practicable, I cannot think that our ardour
+in the pursuit of such a scheme ought to be damped by the contemplation
+of so remote a difficulty. An event at such a distance might fairly be
+left to providence, but the truth is that if the view of the argument
+given in this Essay be just the difficulty, so far from being remote,
+would be imminent and immediate. At every period during the progress of
+cultivation, from the present moment to the time when the whole earth
+was become like a garden, the distress for want of food would be
+constantly pressing on all mankind, if they were equal. Though the
+produce of the earth might be increasing every year, population would
+be increasing much faster, and the redundancy must necessarily be
+repressed by the periodical or constant action of misery or vice.
+
+Mr Condorcet's Esquisse d'un Tableau Historique des Progres de l'Esprit
+Humain, was written, it is said, under the pressure of that cruel
+proscription which terminated in his death. If he had no hopes of its
+being seen during his life and of its interesting France in his favour,
+it is a singular instance of the attachment of a man to principles,
+which every day's experience was so fatally for himself contradicting.
+To see the human mind in one of the most enlightened nations of the
+world, and after a lapse of some thousand years, debased by such a
+fermentation of disgusting passions, of fear, cruelty, malice, revenge,
+ambition, madness, and folly as would have disgraced the most savage
+nation in the most barbarous age must have been such a tremendous shock
+to his ideas of the necessary and inevitable progress of the human mind
+that nothing but the firmest conviction of the truth of his principles,
+in spite of all appearances, could have withstood.
+
+This posthumous publication is only a sketch of a much larger work,
+which he proposed should be executed. It necessarily, therefore, wants
+that detail and application which can alone prove the truth of any
+theory. A few observations will be sufficient to shew how completely
+the theory is contradicted when it is applied to the real, and not to
+an imaginary, state of things.
+
+In the last division of the work, which treats of the future progress
+of man towards perfection, he says, that comparing, in the different
+civilized nations of Europe, the actual population with the extent of
+territory, and observing their cultivation, their industry, their
+divisions of labour, and their means of subsistence, we shall see that
+it would be impossible to preserve the same means of subsistence, and,
+consequently, the same population, without a number of individuals who
+have no other means of supplying their wants than their industry.
+Having allowed the necessity of such a class of men, and adverting
+afterwards to the precarious revenue of those families that would
+depend so entirely on the life and health of their chief, he says, very
+justly: 'There exists then, a necessary cause of inequality, of
+dependence, and even of misery, which menaces, without ceasing, the
+most numerous and active class of our societies.' (To save time and
+long quotations, I shall here give the substance of some of Mr
+Condorcet's sentiments, and hope I shall not misrepresent them. But I
+refer the reader to the work itself, which will amuse, if it does not
+convince him.) The difficulty is just and well stated, and I am afraid
+that the mode by which he proposes it should be removed will be found
+inefficacious. By the application of calculations to the probabilities
+of life and the interest of money, he proposes that a fund should be
+established which should assure to the old an assistance, produced, in
+part, by their own former savings, and, in part, by the savings of
+individuals who in making the same sacrifice die before they reap the
+benefit of it. The same, or a similar fund, should give assistance to
+women and children who lose their husbands, or fathers, and afford a
+capital to those who were of an age to found a new family, sufficient
+for the proper development of their industry. These establishments, he
+observes, might be made in the name and under the protection of the
+society. Going still further, he says that, by the just application of
+calculations, means might be found of more completely preserving a
+state of equality, by preventing credit from being the exclusive
+privilege of great fortunes, and yet giving it a basis equally solid,
+and by rendering the progress of industry, and the activity of
+commerce, less dependent on great capitalists.
+
+Such establishments and calculations may appear very promising upon
+paper, but when applied to real life they will be found to be
+absolutely nugatory. Mr Condorcet allows that a class of people which
+maintains itself entirely by industry is necessary to every state. Why
+does he allow this? No other reason can well be assigned than that he
+conceives that the labour necessary to procure subsistence for an
+extended population will not be performed without the goad of
+necessity. If by establishments of this kind of spur to industry be
+removed, if the idle and the negligent are placed upon the same footing
+with regard to their credit, and the future support of their wives and
+families, as the active and industrious, can we expect to see men exert
+that animated activity in bettering their condition which now forms the
+master spring of public prosperity? If an inquisition were to be
+established to examine the claims of each individual and to determine
+whether he had or had not exerted himself to the utmost, and to grant
+or refuse assistance accordingly, this would be little else than a
+repetition upon a larger scale of the English poor laws and would be
+completely destructive of the true principles of liberty and equality.
+
+But independent of this great objection to these establishments, and
+supposing for a moment that they would give no check to productive
+industry, by far the greatest difficulty remains yet behind.
+
+Were every man sure of a comfortable provision for his family, almost
+every man would have one, and were the rising generation free from the
+'killing frost' of misery, population must rapidly increase. Of this Mr
+Condorcet seems to be fully aware himself, and after having described
+further improvements, he says:
+
+But in this process of industry and happiness, each generation will be
+called to more extended enjoyments, and in consequence, by the physical
+constitution of the human frame, to an increase in the number of
+individuals. Must not there arrive a period then, when these laws,
+equally necessary, shall counteract each other? When the increase of
+the number of men surpassing their means of subsistence, the necessary
+result must be either a continual diminution of happiness and
+population, a movement truly retrograde, or, at least, a kind of
+oscillation between good and evil? In societies arrived at this term,
+will not this oscillation be a constantly subsisting cause of
+periodical misery? Will it not mark the limit when all further
+amelioration will become impossible, and point out that term to the
+perfectibility of the human race which it may reach in the course of
+ages, but can never pass?
+
+He then adds,
+
+There is no person who does not see how very distant such a period is
+from us, but shall we ever arrive at it? It is equally impossible to
+pronounce for or against the future realization of an event which
+cannot take place but at an era when the human race will have attained
+improvements, of which we can at present scarcely form a conception.
+
+Mr Condorcet's picture of what may be expected to happen when the
+number of men shall surpass the means of their subsistence is justly
+drawn. The oscillation which he describes will certainly take place and
+will without doubt be a constantly subsisting cause of periodical
+misery. The only point in which I differ from Mr Condorcet with regard
+to this picture is the period when it may be applied to the human race.
+Mr Condorcet thinks that it cannot possibly be applicable but at an era
+extremely distant. If the proportion between the natural increase of
+population and food which I have given be in any degree near the truth,
+it will appear, on the contrary, that the period when the number of men
+surpass their means of subsistence has long since arrived, and that
+this necessity oscillation, this constantly subsisting cause of
+periodical misery, has existed ever since we have had any histories of
+mankind, does exist at present, and will for ever continue to exist,
+unless some decided change take place in the physical constitution of
+our nature.
+
+Mr Condorcet, however, goes on to say that should the period, which he
+conceives to be so distant, ever arrive, the human race, and the
+advocates for the perfectibility of man, need not be alarmed at it. He
+then proceeds to remove the difficulty in a manner which I profess not
+to understand. Having observed, that the ridiculous prejudices of
+superstition would by that time have ceased to throw over morals a
+corrupt and degrading austerity, he alludes, either to a promiscuous
+concubinage, which would prevent breeding, or to something else as
+unnatural. To remove the difficulty in this way will, surely, in the
+opinion of most men, be to destroy that virtue and purity of manners,
+which the advocates of equality, and of the perfectibility of man,
+profess to be the end and object of their views.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9
+
+Mr Condorcet's conjecture concerning the organic perfectibility of man,
+and the indefinite prolongation of human life--Fallacy of the argument,
+which infers an unlimited progress from a partial improvement, the
+limit of which cannot be ascertained, illustrated in the breeding of
+animals, and the cultivation of plants.
+
+
+The last question which Mr Condorcet proposes for examination is the
+organic perfectibility of man. He observes that if the proofs which
+have been already given and which, in their development will receive
+greater force in the work itself, are sufficient to establish the
+indefinite perfectibility of man upon the supposition of the same
+natural faculties and the same organization which he has at present,
+what will be the certainty, what the extent of our hope, if this
+organization, these natural faculties themselves, are susceptible of
+amelioration?
+
+From the improvement of medicine, from the use of more wholesome food
+and habitations, from a manner of living which will improve the
+strength of the body by exercise without impairing it by excess, from
+the destruction of the two great causes of the degradation of man,
+misery, and too great riches, from the gradual removal of transmissible
+and contagious disorders by the improvement of physical knowledge,
+rendered more efficacious by the progress of reason and of social
+order, he infers that though man will not absolutely become immortal,
+yet that the duration between his birth and natural death will increase
+without ceasing, will have no assignable term, and may properly be
+expressed by the word 'indefinite'. He then defines this word to mean
+either a constant approach to an unlimited extent, without ever
+reaching it, or an increase. In the immensity of ages to an extent
+greater than any assignable quantity.
+
+But surely the application of this term in either of these senses to
+the duration of human life is in the highest degree unphilosophical and
+totally unwarranted by any appearances in the laws of nature.
+Variations from different causes are essentially distinct from a
+regular and unretrograde increase. The average duration of human life
+will to a certain degree vary from healthy or unhealthy climates, from
+wholesome or unwholesome food, from virtuous or vicious manners, and
+other causes, but it may be fairly doubted whether there is really the
+smallest perceptible advance in the natural duration of human life
+since first we have had any authentic history of man. The prejudices of
+all ages have indeed been directly contrary to this supposition, and
+though I would not lay much stress upon these prejudices, they will in
+some measure tend to prove that there has been no marked advance in an
+opposite direction.
+
+It may perhaps be said that the world is yet so young, so completely in
+its infancy, that it ought not to be expected that any difference
+should appear so soon.
+
+If this be the case, there is at once an end of all human science. The
+whole train of reasonings from effects to causes will be destroyed. We
+may shut our eyes to the book of nature, as it will no longer be of any
+use to read it. The wildest and most improbable conjectures may be
+advanced with as much certainty as the most just and sublime theories,
+founded on careful and reiterated experiments. We may return again to
+the old mode of philosophising and make facts bend to systems, instead
+of establishing systems upon facts. The grand and consistent theory of
+Newton will be placed upon the same footing as the wild and eccentric
+hypotheses of Descartes. In short, if the laws of nature are thus
+fickle and inconstant, if it can be affirmed and be believed that they
+will change, when for ages and ages they have appeared immutable, the
+human mind will no longer have any incitements to inquiry, but must
+remain fixed in inactive torpor, or amuse itself only in bewildering
+dreams and extravagant fancies.
+
+The constancy of the laws of nature and of effects and causes is the
+foundation of all human knowledge, though far be it from me to say that
+the same power which framed and executes the laws of nature may not
+change them all 'in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.'  Such a
+change may undoubtedly happen. All that I mean to say is that it is
+impossible to infer it from reasoning. If without any previous
+observable symptoms or indications of a change, we can infer that a
+change will take place, we may as well make any assertion whatever and
+think it as unreasonable to be contradicted in affirming that the moon
+will come in contact with the earth tomorrow, as in saying that the sun
+will rise at its usual time.
+
+With regard to the duration of human life, there does not appear to
+have existed from the earliest ages of the world to the present moment
+the smallest permanent symptom or indication of increasing
+prolongation. The observable effects of climate, habit, diet, and other
+causes, on length of life have furnished the pretext for asserting its
+indefinite extension; and the sandy foundation on which the argument
+rests is that because the limit of human life is undefined; because you
+cannot mark its precise term, and say so far exactly shall it go and no
+further; that therefore its extent may increase for ever, and be
+properly termed indefinite or unlimited. But the fallacy and absurdity
+of this argument will sufficiently appear from a slight examination of
+what Mr Condorcet calls the organic perfectibility, or degeneration, of
+the race of plants and animals, which he says may be regarded as one of
+the general laws of nature.
+
+I am told that it is a maxim among the improvers of cattle that you may
+breed to any degree of nicety you please, and they found this maxim
+upon another, which is that some of the offspring will possess the
+desirable qualities of the parents in a greater degree. In the famous
+Leicestershire breed of sheep, the object is to procure them with small
+heads and small legs. Proceeding upon these breeding maxims, it is
+evident that we might go on till the heads and legs were evanescent
+quantities, but this is so palpable an absurdity that we may be quite
+sure that the premises are not just and that there really is a limit,
+though we cannot see it or say exactly where it is. In this case, the
+point of the greatest degree of improvement, or the smallest size of
+the head and legs, may be said to be undefined, but this is very
+different from unlimited, or from indefinite, in Mr Condorcet's
+acceptation of the term. Though I may not be able in the present
+instance to mark the limit at which further improvement will stop, I
+can very easily mention a point at which it will not arrive. I should
+not scruple to assert that were the breeding to continue for ever, the
+head and legs of these sheep would never be so small as the head and
+legs of a rat.
+
+It cannot be true, therefore, that among animals, some of the offspring
+will possess the desirable qualities of the parents in a greater
+degree, or that animals are indefinitely perfectible.
+
+The progress of a wild plant to a beautiful garden flower is perhaps
+more marked and striking than anything that takes place among animals,
+yet even here it would be the height of absurdity to assert that the
+progress was unlimited or indefinite.
+
+One of the most obvious features of the improvement is the increase of
+size. The flower has grown gradually larger by cultivation. If the
+progress were really unlimited it might be increased ad infinitum, but
+this is so gross an absurdity that we may be quite sure that among
+plants as well as among animals there is a limit to improvement, though
+we do not exactly know where it is. It is probable that the gardeners
+who contend for flower prizes have often applied stronger dressing
+without success. At the same time it would be highly presumptuous in
+any man to say that he had seen the finest carnation or anemone that
+could ever be made to grow. He might however assert without the
+smallest chance of being contradicted by a future fact, that no
+carnation or anemone could ever by cultivation be increased to the size
+of a large cabbage; and yet there are assignable quantities much
+greater than a cabbage. No man can say that he has seen the largest ear
+of wheat, or the largest oak that could ever grow; but he might easily,
+and with perfect certainty, name a point of magnitude at which they
+would not arrive. In all these cases therefore, a careful distinction
+should be made, between an unlimited progress, and a progress where the
+limit is merely undefined.
+
+It will be said, perhaps, that the reason why plants and animals cannot
+increase indefinitely in size is, that they would fall by their own
+weight. I answer, how do we know this but from experience?--from
+experience of the degree of strength with which these bodies are
+formed. I know that a carnation, long before it reached the size of a
+cabbage, would not be supported by its stalk, but I only know this from
+my experience of the weakness and want of tenacity in the materials of
+a carnation stalk. There are many substances in nature of the same size
+that would support as large a head as a cabbage.
+
+The reasons of the mortality of plants are at present perfectly unknown
+to us. No man can say why such a plant is annual, another biennial, and
+another endures for ages. The whole affair in all these cases, in
+plants, animals, and in the human race, is an affair of experience, and
+I only conclude that man is mortal because the invariable experience of
+all ages has proved the mortality of those materials of which his
+visible body is made:
+
+What can we reason, but from what we know?
+
+Sound philosophy will not authorize me to alter this opinion of the
+mortality of man on earth, till it can be clearly proved that the human
+race has made, and is making, a decided progress towards an illimitable
+extent of life. And the chief reason why I adduced the two particular
+instances from animals and plants was to expose and illustrate, if I
+could, the fallacy of that argument which infers an unlimited progress,
+merely because some partial improvement has taken place, and that the
+limit of this improvement cannot be precisely ascertained.
+
+The capacity of improvement in plants and animals, to a certain degree,
+no person can possibly doubt. A clear and decided progress has already
+been made, and yet, I think, it appears that it would be highly absurd
+to say that this progress has no limits. In human life, though there
+are great variations from different causes, it may be doubted whether,
+since the world began, any organic improvement whatever in the human
+frame can be clearly ascertained. The foundations, therefore, on which
+the arguments for the organic perfectibility of man rest, are unusually
+weak, and can only be considered as mere conjectures. It does not,
+however, by any means seem impossible that by an attention to breed, a
+certain degree of improvement, similar to that among animals, might
+take place among men. Whether intellect could be communicated may be a
+matter of doubt: but size, strength, beauty, complexion, and perhaps
+even longevity are in a degree transmissible. The error does not seem
+to lie in supposing a small degree of improvement possible, but in not
+discriminating between a small improvement, the limit of which is
+undefined, and an improvement really unlimited. As the human race,
+however, could not be improved in this way, without condemning all the
+bad specimens to celibacy, it is not probable that an attention to
+breed should ever become general; indeed, I know of no well-directed
+attempts of this kind, except in the ancient family of the
+Bickerstaffs, who are said to have been very successful in whitening
+the skins and increasing the height of their race by prudent marriages,
+particularly by that very judicious cross with Maud, the milk-maid, by
+which some capital defects in the constitutions of the family were
+corrected.
+
+It will not be necessary, I think, in order more completely to shew the
+improbability of any approach in man towards immortality on earth, to
+urge the very great additional weight that an increase in the duration
+of life would give to the argument of population.
+
+Many, I doubt not, will think that the attempting gravely to controvert
+so absurd a paradox as the immortality of man on earth, or indeed, even
+the perfectibility of man and society, is a waste of time and words,
+and that such unfounded conjectures are best answered by neglect. I
+profess, however, to be of a different opinion. When paradoxes of this
+kind are advanced by ingenious and able men, neglect has no tendency to
+convince them of their mistakes. Priding themselves on what they
+conceive to be a mark of the reach and size of their own
+understandings, of the extent and comprehensiveness of their views,
+they will look upon this neglect merely as an indication of poverty,
+and narrowness, in the mental exertions of their contemporaries, and
+only think that the world is not yet prepared to receive their sublime
+truths.
+
+On the contrary, a candid investigation of these subjects, accompanied
+with a perfect readiness to adopt any theory warranted by sound
+philosophy, may have a tendency to convince them that in forming
+improbable and unfounded hypotheses, so far from enlarging the bounds
+of human science, they are contracting it, so far from promoting the
+improvement of the human mind, they are obstructing it; they are
+throwing us back again almost into the infancy of knowledge and
+weakening the foundations of that mode of philosophising, under the
+auspices of which science has of late made such rapid advances. The
+present rage for wide and unrestrained speculation seems to be a kind
+of mental intoxication, arising, perhaps, from the great and unexpected
+discoveries which have been made of late years, in various branches of
+science. To men elate and giddy with such successes, every thing
+appeared to be within the grasp of human powers; and, under this
+illusion, they confounded subjects where no real progress could be
+proved with those where the progress had been marked, certain, and
+acknowledged. Could they be persuaded to sober themselves with a little
+severe and chastised thinking, they would see, that the cause of truth,
+and of sound philosophy, cannot but suffer by substituting wild flights
+and unsupported assertions for patient investigation, and well
+authenticated proofs.
+
+Mr Condorcet's book may be considered not only as a sketch of the
+opinions of a celebrated individual, but of many of the literary men in
+France at the beginning of the Revolution. As such, though merely a
+sketch, it seems worthy of attention.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10
+
+Mr Godwin's system of equality--Error of attributing all the vices of
+mankind to human institutions--Mr Godwin's first answer to the
+difficulty arising from population totally insufficient--Mr Godwin's
+beautiful system of equality supposed to be realized--Its utter
+destruction simply from the principle of population in so short a time
+as thirty years.
+
+
+In reading Mr Godwin's ingenious and able work on political justice, it
+is impossible not to be struck with the spirit and energy of his style,
+the force and precision of some of his reasonings, the ardent tone of
+his thoughts, and particularly with that impressive earnestness of
+manner which gives an air of truth to the whole. At the same time, it
+must be confessed that he has not proceeded in his inquiries with the
+caution that sound philosophy seems to require. His conclusions are
+often unwarranted by his premises. He fails sometimes in removing the
+objections which he himself brings forward. He relies too much on
+general and abstract propositions which will not admit of application.
+And his conjectures certainly far outstrip the modesty of nature.
+
+The system of equality which Mr Godwin proposes is, without doubt, by
+far the most beautiful and engaging of any that has yet appeared. An
+amelioration of society to be produced merely by reason and conviction
+wears much more the promise of permanence than any change effected and
+maintained by force. The unlimited exercise of private judgement is a
+doctrine inexpressibly grand and captivating and has a vast superiority
+over those systems where every individual is in a manner the slave of
+the public. The substitution of benevolence as the master-spring and
+moving principle of society, instead of self-love, is a consummation
+devoutly to be wished. In short, it is impossible to contemplate the
+whole of this fair structure without emotions of delight and
+admiration, accompanied with ardent longing for the period of its
+accomplishment. But, alas! that moment can never arrive. The whole is
+little better than a dream, a beautiful phantom of the imagination.
+These 'gorgeous palaces' of happiness and immortality, these 'solemn
+temples' of truth and virtue will dissolve, 'like the baseless fabric
+of a vision', when we awaken to real life and contemplate the true and
+genuine situation of man on earth. Mr Godwin, at the conclusion of the
+third chapter of his eighth book, speaking of population, says:
+
+There is a principle in human society, by which population is
+perpetually kept down to the level of the means of subsistence. Thus
+among the wandering tribes of America and Asia, we never find through
+the lapse of ages that population has so increased as to render
+necessary the cultivation of the earth.
+
+This principle, which Mr Godwin thus mentions as some mysterious and
+occult cause and which he does not attempt to investigate, will be
+found to be the grinding law of necessity, misery, and the fear of
+misery.
+
+The great error under which Mr Godwin labours throughout his whole work
+is the attributing almost all the vices and misery that are seen in
+civil society to human institutions. Political regulations and the
+established administration of property are with him the fruitful
+sources of all evil, the hotbeds of all the crimes that degrade
+mankind. Were this really a true state of the case, it would not seem a
+hopeless task to remove evil completely from the world, and reason
+seems to be the proper and adequate instrument for effecting so great a
+purpose. But the truth is, that though human institutions appear to be
+the obvious and obtrusive causes of much mischief to mankind, yet in
+reality they are light and superficial, they are mere feathers that
+float on the surface, in comparison with those deeper seated causes of
+impurity that corrupt the springs and render turbid the whole stream of
+human life.
+
+Mr Godwin, in his chapter on the benefits attendant on a system of
+equality, says:
+
+The spirit of oppression, the spirit of servility, and the spirit of
+fraud, these are the immediate growth of the established administration
+of property. They are alike hostile to intellectual improvement. The
+other vices of envy, malice, and revenge are their inseparable
+companions. In a state of society where men lived in the midst of
+plenty and where all shared alike the bounties of nature, these
+sentiments would inevitably expire. The narrow principle of selfishness
+would vanish. No man being obliged to guard his little store or provide
+with anxiety and pain for his restless wants, each would lose his
+individual existence in the thought of the general good. No man would
+be an enemy to his neighbour, for they would have no subject of
+contention, and, of consequence, philanthropy would resume the empire
+which reason assigns her. Mind would be delivered from her perpetual
+anxiety about corporal support, and free to expatiate in the field of
+thought, which is congenial to her. Each would assist the inquiries of
+all.
+
+This would, indeed, be a happy state. But that it is merely an
+imaginary picture, with scarcely a feature near the truth, the reader,
+I am afraid, is already too well convinced.
+
+Man cannot live in the midst of plenty. All cannot share alike the
+bounties of nature. Were there no established administration of
+property, every man would be obliged to guard with force his little
+store. Selfishness would be triumphant. The subjects of contention
+would be perpetual. Every individual mind would be under a constant
+anxiety about corporal support, and not a single intellect would be
+left free to expatiate in the field of thought.
+
+How little Mr Godwin has turned the attention of his penetrating mind
+to the real state of man on earth will sufficiently appear from the
+manner in which he endeavours to remove the difficulty of an
+overcharged population. He says:
+
+The obvious answer to this objection, is, that to reason thus is to
+foresee difficulties at a great distance. Three fourths of the
+habitable globe is now uncultivated. The parts already cultivated are
+capable of immeasurable improvement. Myriads of centuries of still
+increasing population may pass away, and the earth be still found
+sufficient for the subsistence of its inhabitants.
+
+I have already pointed out the error of supposing that no distress and
+difficulty would arise from an overcharged population before the earth
+absolutely refused to produce any more. But let us imagine for a moment
+Mr Godwin's beautiful system of equality realized in its utmost purity,
+and see how soon this difficulty might be expected to press under so
+perfect a form of society. A theory that will not admit of application
+cannot possibly be just.
+
+Let us suppose all the causes of misery and vice in this island
+removed. War and contention cease. Unwholesome trades and manufactories
+do not exist. Crowds no longer collect together in great and pestilent
+cities for purposes of court intrigue, of commerce, and vicious
+gratifications. Simple, healthy, and rational amusements take place of
+drinking, gaming, and debauchery. There are no towns sufficiently large
+to have any prejudicial effects on the human constitution. The greater
+part of the happy inhabitants of this terrestrial paradise live in
+hamlets and farmhouses scattered over the face of the country. Every
+house is clean, airy, sufficiently roomy, and in a healthy situation.
+All men are equal. The labours of luxury are at end. And the necessary
+labours of agriculture are shared amicably among all. The number of
+persons, and the produce of the island, we suppose to be the same as at
+present. The spirit of benevolence, guided by impartial justice, will
+divide this produce among all the members of the society according to
+their wants. Though it would be impossible that they should all have
+animal food every day, yet vegetable food, with meat occasionally,
+would satisfy the desires of a frugal people and would be sufficient to
+preserve them in health, strength, and spirits.
+
+Mr Godwin considers marriage as a fraud and a monopoly. Let us suppose
+the commerce of the sexes established upon principles of the most
+perfect freedom. Mr Godwin does not think himself that this freedom
+would lead to a promiscuous intercourse, and in this I perfectly agree
+with him. The love of variety is a vicious, corrupt, and unnatural
+taste and could not prevail in any great degree in a simple and
+virtuous state of society. Each man would probably select himself a
+partner, to whom he would adhere as long as that adherence continued to
+be the choice of both parties. It would be of little consequence,
+according to Mr Godwin, how many children a woman had or to whom they
+belonged. Provisions and assistance would spontaneously flow from the
+quarter in which they abounded, to the quarter that was deficient. (See
+Bk VIII, ch. 8; in the third edition, Vol II, p. 512) And every man
+would be ready to furnish instruction to the rising generation
+according to his capacity.
+
+I cannot conceive a form of society so favourable upon the whole to
+population. The irremediableness of marriage, as it is at present
+constituted, undoubtedly deters many from entering into that state. An
+unshackled intercourse on the contrary would be a most powerful
+incitement to early attachments, and as we are supposing no anxiety
+about the future support of children to exist, I do not conceive that
+there would be one woman in a hundred, of twenty-three, without a
+family.
+
+With these extraordinary encouragements to population, and every cause
+of depopulation, as we have supposed, removed, the numbers would
+necessarily increase faster than in any society that has ever yet been
+known. I have mentioned, on the authority of a pamphlet published by a
+Dr Styles and referred to by Dr Price, that the inhabitants of the back
+settlements of America doubled their numbers in fifteen years. England
+is certainly a more healthy country than the back settlements of
+America, and as we have supposed every house in the island to be airy
+and wholesome, and the encouragements to have a family greater even
+than with the back settlers, no probable reason can be assigned why the
+population should not double itself in less, if possible, than fifteen
+years. But to be quite sure that we do not go beyond the truth, we will
+only suppose the period of doubling to be twenty-five years, a ratio of
+increase which is well known to have taken place throughout all the
+Northern States of America.
+
+There can be little doubt that the equalization of property which we
+have supposed, added to the circumstance of the labour of the whole
+community being directed chiefly to agriculture, would tend greatly to
+augment the produce of the country. But to answer the demands of a
+population increasing so rapidly, Mr Godwin's calculation of half an
+hour a day for each man would certainly not be sufficient. It is
+probable that the half of every man's time must be employed for this
+purpose. Yet with such, or much greater exertions, a person who is
+acquainted with the nature of the soil in this country, and who
+reflects on the fertility of the lands already in cultivation, and the
+barrenness of those that are not cultivated, will be very much disposed
+to doubt whether the whole average produce could possibly be doubled in
+twenty-five years from the present period. The only chance of success
+would be the ploughing up all the grazing countries and putting an end
+almost entirely to the use of animal food. Yet a part of this scheme
+might defeat itself. The soil of England will not produce much without
+dressing, and cattle seem to be necessary to make that species of
+manure which best suits the land. In China it is said that the soil in
+some of the provinces is so fertile as to produce two crops of rice in
+the year without dressing. None of the lands in England will answer to
+this description.
+
+Difficult, however, as it might be to double the average produce of the
+island in twenty-five years, let us suppose it effected. At the
+expiration of the first period therefore, the food, though almost
+entirely vegetable, would be sufficient to support in health the
+doubled population of fourteen millions.
+
+During the next period of doubling, where will the food be found to
+satisfy the importunate demands of the increasing numbers? Where is the
+fresh land to turn up? Where is the dressing necessary to improve that
+which is already in cultivation? There is no person with the smallest
+knowledge of land but would say that it was impossible that the average
+produce of the country could be increased during the second twenty-five
+years by a quantity equal to what it at present yields. Yet we will
+suppose this increase, however improbable, to take place. The exuberant
+strength of the argument allows of almost any concession. Even with
+this concession, however, there would be seven millions at the
+expiration of the second term unprovided for. A quantity of food equal
+to the frugal support of twenty-one millions, would be to be divided
+among twenty-eight millions.
+
+Alas! what becomes of the picture where men lived in the midst of
+plenty, where no man was obliged to provide with anxiety and pain for
+his restless wants, where the narrow principle of selfishness did not
+exist, where Mind was delivered from her perpetual anxiety about
+corporal support and free to expatiate in the field of thought which is
+congenial to her. This beautiful fabric of imagination vanishes at the
+severe touch of truth. The spirit of benevolence, cherished and
+invigorated by plenty, is repressed by the chilling breath of want. The
+hateful passions that had vanished reappear. The mighty law of
+self-preservation expels all the softer and more exalted emotions of
+the soul. The temptations to evil are too strong for human nature to
+resist. The corn is plucked before it is ripe, or secreted in unfair
+proportions, and the whole black train of vices that belong to
+falsehood are immediately generated. Provisions no longer flow in for
+the support of the mother with a large family. The children are sickly
+from insufficient food. The rosy flush of health gives place to the
+pallid cheek and hollow eye of misery. Benevolence, yet lingering in a
+few bosoms, makes some faint expiring struggles, till at length
+self-love resumes his wonted empire and lords it triumphant over the
+world.
+
+No human institutions here existed, to the perverseness of which Mr
+Godwin ascribes the original sin of the worst men. (Bk VIII, ch. 3; in
+the third edition, Vol. II, p. 462) No opposition had been produced by
+them between public and private good. No monopoly had been created of
+those advantages which reason directs to be left in common. No man had
+been goaded to the breach of order by unjust laws. Benevolence had
+established her reign in all hearts: and yet in so short a period as
+within fifty years, violence, oppression, falsehood, misery, every
+hateful vice, and every form of distress, which degrade and sadden the
+present state of society, seem to have been generated by the most
+imperious circumstances, by laws inherent in the nature of man, and
+absolutely independent of it human regulations.
+
+If we are not yet too well convinced of the reality of this melancholy
+picture, let us but look for a moment into the next period of
+twenty-five years; and we shall see twenty-eight millions of human
+beings without the means of support; and before the conclusion of the
+first century, the population would be one hundred and twelve millions,
+and the food only sufficient for thirty-five millions, leaving
+seventy-seven millions unprovided for. In these ages want would be
+indeed triumphant, and rapine and murder must reign at large: and yet
+all this time we are supposing the produce of the earth absolutely
+unlimited, and the yearly increase greater than the boldest speculator
+can imagine.
+
+This is undoubtedly a very different view of the difficulty arising
+from population from that which Mr Godwin gives, when he says, 'Myriads
+of centuries of still increasing population may pass away, and the
+earth be still found sufficient for the subsistence of its inhabitants.'
+
+I am sufficiently aware that the redundant twenty-eight millions, or
+seventy-seven millions, that I have mentioned, could never have
+existed. It is a perfectly just observation of Mr Godwin, that, 'There
+is a principle in human society, by which population is perpetually
+kept down to the level of the means of subsistence.' The sole question
+is, what is this principle? is it some obscure and occult cause? Is it
+some mysterious interference of heaven which, at a certain period,
+strikes the men with impotence, and the women with barrenness? Or is it
+a cause, open to our researches, within our view, a cause, which has
+constantly been observed to operate, though with varied force, in every
+state in which man has been placed? Is it not a degree of misery, the
+necessary and inevitable result of the laws of nature, which human
+institutions, so far from aggravating, have tended considerably to
+mitigate, though they never can remove?
+
+It may be curious to observe, in the case that we have been supposing,
+how some of the laws which at present govern civilized society, would
+be successively dictated by the most imperious necessity. As man,
+according to Mr Godwin, is the creature of the impressions to which he
+is subject, the goadings of want could not continue long, before some
+violations of public or private stock would necessarily take place. As
+these violations increased in number and extent, the more active and
+comprehensive intellects of the society would soon perceive, that while
+population was fast increasing, the yearly produce of the country would
+shortly begin to diminish. The urgency of the case would suggest the
+necessity of some mediate measures to be taken for the general safety.
+Some kind of convention would then be called, and the dangerous
+situation of the country stated in the strongest terms. It would be
+observed, that while they lived in the midst of plenty, it was of
+little consequence who laboured the least, or who possessed the least,
+as every man was perfectly willing and ready to supply the wants of his
+neighbour. But that the question was no longer whether one man should
+give to another that which he did not use himself, but whether he
+should give to his neighbour the food which was absolutely necessary to
+his own existence. It would be represented, that the number of those
+that were in want very greatly exceeded the number and means of those
+who should supply them; that these pressing wants, which from the state
+of the produce of the country could not all be gratified, had
+occasioned some flagrant violations of justice; that these violations
+had already checked the increase of food, and would, if they were not
+by some means or other prevented, throw the whole community in
+confusion; that imperious necessity seemed to dictate that a yearly
+increase of produce should, if possible, be obtained at all events;
+that in order to effect this first, great, and indispensable purpose,
+it would be advisable to make a more complete division of land, and to
+secure every man's stock against violation by the most powerful
+sanctions, even by death itself.
+
+It might be urged perhaps by some objectors that, as the fertility of
+the land increased, and various accidents occurred, the share of some
+men might be much more than sufficient for their support, and that when
+the reign of self-love was once established, they would not distribute
+their surplus produce without some compensation in return. It would be
+observed, in answer, that this was an inconvenience greatly to be
+lamented; but that it was an evil which bore no comparison to the black
+train of distresses that would inevitably be occasioned by the
+insecurity of property; that the quantity of food which one man could
+consume was necessarily limited by the narrow capacity of the human
+stomach; that it was not certainly probable that he should throw away
+the rest; but that even if he exchanged his surplus food for the labour
+of others, and made them in some degree dependent on him, this would
+still be better than that these others should absolutely starve.
+
+It seems highly probable, therefore, that an administration of
+property, not very different from that which prevails in civilized
+states at present, would be established, as the best, though
+inadequate, remedy for the evils which were pressing on the society.
+
+The next subject that would come under discussion, intimately connected
+with the preceding, is the commerce between the sexes. It would be
+urged by those who had turned their attention to the true cause of the
+difficulties under which the community laboured, that while every man
+felt secure that all his children would be well provided for by general
+benevolence, the powers of the earth would be absolutely inadequate to
+produce food for the population which would inevitably ensue; that even
+if the whole attention and labour of the society were directed to this
+sole point, and if, by the most perfect security of property, and every
+other encouragement that could be thought of, the greatest possible
+increase of produce were yearly obtained; yet still, that the increase
+of food would by no means keep pace with the much more rapid increase
+of population; that some check to population therefore was imperiously
+called for; that the most natural and obvious check seemed to be to
+make every man provide for his own children; that this would operate in
+some respect as a measure and guide in the increase of population, as
+it might be expected that no man would bring beings into the world, for
+whom he could not find the means of support; that where this
+notwithstanding was the case, it seemed necessary, for the example of
+others, that the disgrace and inconvenience attending such a conduct
+should fall upon the individual, who had thus inconsiderately plunged
+himself and innocent children in misery and want.
+
+The institution of marriage, or at least, of some express or implied
+obligation on every man to support his own children, seems to be the
+natural result of these reasonings in a community under the
+difficulties that we have supposed.
+
+The view of these difficulties presents us with a very natural origin
+of the superior disgrace which attends a breach of chastity in the
+woman than in the man. It could not be expected that women should have
+resources sufficient to support their own children. When therefore a
+woman was connected with a man, who had entered into no compact to
+maintain her children, and, aware of the inconveniences that he might
+bring upon himself, had deserted her, these children must necessarily
+fall for support upon the society, or starve. And to prevent the
+frequent recurrence of such an inconvenience, as it would be highly
+unjust to punish so natural a fault by personal restraint or
+infliction, the men might agree to punish it with disgrace. The offence
+is besides more obvious and conspicuous in the woman, and less liable
+to any mistake. The father of a child may not always be known, but the
+same uncertainty cannot easily exist with regard to the mother. Where
+the evidence of the offence was most complete, and the inconvenience to
+the society at the same time the greatest, there it was agreed that the
+large share of blame should fall. The obligation on every man to
+maintain his children, the society would enforce, if there were
+occasion; and the greater degree of inconvenience or labour, to which a
+family would necessarily subject him, added to some portion of disgrace
+which every human being must incur who leads another into unhappiness,
+might be considered as a sufficient punishment for the man.
+
+That a woman should at present be almost driven from society for an
+offence which men commit nearly with impunity, seems to be undoubtedly
+a breach of natural justice. But the origin of the custom, as the most
+obvious and effectual method of preventing the frequent recurrence of a
+serious inconvenience to a community, appears to be natural, though not
+perhaps perfectly justifiable. This origin, however, is now lost in the
+new train of ideas which the custom has since generated. What at first
+might be dictated by state necessity is now supported by female
+delicacy, and operates with the greatest force on that part of society
+where, if the original intention of the custom were preserved, there is
+the least real occasion for it.
+
+When these two fundamental laws of society, the security of property,
+and the institution of marriage, were once established, inequality of
+conditions must necessarily follow. Those who were born after the
+division of property would come into a world already possessed. If
+their parents, from having too large a family, could not give them
+sufficient for their support, what are they to do in a world where
+everything is appropriated? We have seen the fatal effects that would
+result to a society, if every man had a valid claim to an equal share
+of the produce of the earth. The members of a family which was grown
+too large for the original division of land appropriated to it could
+not then demand a part of the surplus produce of others, as a debt of
+justice. It has appeared, that from the inevitable laws of our nature
+some human beings must suffer from want. These are the unhappy persons
+who, in the great lottery of life, have drawn a blank. The number of
+these claimants would soon exceed the ability of the surplus produce to
+supply. Moral merit is a very difficult distinguishing criterion,
+except in extreme cases. The owners of surplus produce would in general
+seek some more obvious mark of distinction. And it seems both natural
+and just that, except upon particular occasions, their choice should
+fall upon those who were able, and professed themselves willing, to
+exert their strength in procuring a further surplus produce; and thus
+at once benefiting the community, and enabling these proprietors to
+afford assistance to greater numbers. All who were in want of food
+would be urged by imperious necessity to offer their labour in exchange
+for this article so absolutely essential to existence. The fund
+appropriated to the maintenance of labour would be the aggregate
+quantity of food possessed by the owners of land beyond their own
+consumption. When the demands upon this fund were great and numerous,
+it would naturally be divided in very small shares. Labour would be ill
+paid. Men would offer to work for a bare subsistence, and the rearing
+of families would be checked by sickness and misery. On the contrary,
+when this fund was increasing fast, when it was great in proportion to
+the number of claimants, it would be divided in much larger shares. No
+man would exchange his labour without receiving an ample quantity of
+food in return. Labourers would live in ease and comfort, and would
+consequently be able to rear a numerous and vigorous offspring.
+
+On the state of this fund, the happiness, or the degree of misery,
+prevailing among the lower classes of people in every known state at
+present chiefly depends. And on this happiness, or degree of misery,
+depends the increase, stationariness, or decrease of population.
+
+And thus it appears, 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
+inevitable laws of nature, and not from any original depravity of man,
+in a very short period degenerate into a society constructed upon a
+plan not essentially different from that which prevails in every known
+state at present; I mean, a society divided into a class of
+proprietors, and a class of labourers, and with self-love the
+main-spring of the great machine.
+
+In the supposition I have made, I have undoubtedly taken the increase
+of population smaller, and the increase of produce greater, than they
+really would be. No reason can be assigned why, under the circumstances
+I have supposed, population should not increase faster than in any
+known instance. If then we were to take the period of doubling at
+fifteen years, instead of twenty-five years, and reflect upon the
+labour necessary to double the produce in so short a time, even if we
+allow it possible, we may venture to pronounce with certainty that if
+Mr Godwin's system of society was established in its utmost perfection,
+instead of myriads of centuries, not thirty years could elapse before
+its utter destruction from the simple principle of population.
+
+I have taken no notice of emigration for obvious reasons. If such
+societies were instituted in other parts of Europe, these countries
+would be under the same difficulties with regard to population, and
+could admit no fresh members into their bosoms. If this beautiful
+society were confined to this island, it must have degenerated
+strangely from its original purity, and administer but a very small
+portion of the happiness it proposed; in short, its essential principle
+must be completely destroyed, before any of its members would
+voluntarily consent to leave it, and live under such governments as at
+present exist in Europe, or submit to the extreme hardships of first
+settlers in new regions. We well know, from repeated experience, how
+much misery and hardship men will undergo in their own country, before
+they can determine to desert it; and how often the most tempting
+proposals of embarking for new settlements have been rejected by people
+who appeared to be almost starving.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11
+
+Mr Godwin's conjecture concerning the future extinction of the passion
+between the sexes--Little apparent grounds for such a
+conjecture--Passion of love not inconsistent either with reason or
+virtue.
+
+
+We have supported Mr Godwin's system of society once completely
+established. But it is supposing an impossibility. The same causes in
+nature which would destroy it so rapidly, were it once established,
+would prevent the possibility of its establishment. And upon what
+grounds we can presume a change in these natural causes, I am utterly
+at a loss to conjecture. No move towards the extinction of the passion
+between the sexes has taken place in the five or six thousand years
+that the world has existed. Men in the decline of life have in all ages
+declaimed against a passion which they have ceased to feel, but with as
+little reason as success. Those who from coldness of constitutional
+temperament have never felt what love is, will surely be allowed to be
+very incompetent judges with regard to the power of this passion to
+contribute to the sum of pleasurable sensations in life. Those who have
+spent their youth in criminal excesses and have prepared for
+themselves, as the comforts of their age, corporeal debility and mental
+remorse may well inveigh against such pleasures as vain and futile, and
+unproductive of lasting satisfaction. But the pleasures of pure love
+will bear the contemplation of the most improved reason, and the most
+exalted virtue. Perhaps there is scarcely a man who has once
+experienced the genuine delight of virtuous love, however great his
+intellectual pleasure may have been, that does not look back to the
+period as the sunny spot in his whole life, where his imagination loves
+to bask, which he recollects and contemplates with the fondest regrets,
+and which he would most wish to live over again. The superiority of
+intellectual to sensual pleasures consists rather in their filling up
+more time, in their having a larger range, and in their being less
+liable to satiety, than in their being more real and essential.
+
+Intemperance in every enjoyment defeats its own purpose. A walk in the
+finest day through the most beautiful country, if pursued too far, ends
+in pain and fatigue. The most wholesome and invigorating food, eaten
+with an unrestrained appetite, produces weakness instead of strength.
+Even intellectual pleasures, though certainly less liable than others
+to satiety, pursued with too little intermission, debilitate the body,
+and impair the vigour of the mind. To argue against the reality of
+these pleasures from their abuse seems to be hardly just. Morality,
+according to Mr Godwin, is a calculation of consequences, or, as
+Archdeacon Paley very justly expresses it, the will of God, as
+collected from general expediency. According to either of these
+definitions, a sensual pleasure not attended with the probability of
+unhappy consequences does not offend against the laws of morality, and
+if it be pursued with such a degree of temperance as to leave the most
+ample room for intellectual attainments, it must undoubtedly add to the
+sum of pleasurable sensations in life. Virtuous love, exalted by
+friendship, seems to be that sort of mixture of sensual and
+intellectual enjoyment particularly suited to the nature of man, and
+most powerfully calculated to awaken the sympathies of the soul, and
+produce the most exquisite gratifications.
+
+Mr Godwin says, in order to shew the evident inferiority of the
+pleasures of sense, 'Strip the commerce of the sexes of all its
+attendant circumstances, and it would be generally despised' (Bk. I,
+ch. 5; in the third edition, Vol. I, pp. 71-72). He might as well say
+to a man who admired trees: strip them of their spreading branches and
+lovely foliage, and what beauty can you see in a bare pole? But it was
+the tree with the branches and foliage, and not without them, that
+excited admiration. One feature of an object may be as distinct, and
+excite as different emotions, from the aggregate as any two things the
+most remote, as a beautiful woman, and a map of Madagascar. It is 'the
+symmetry of person, the vivacity, the voluptuous softness of temper,
+the affectionate kindness of feelings, the imagination and the wit' of
+a woman that excite the passion of love, and not the mere distinction
+of her being female. Urged by the passion of love, men have been driven
+into acts highly prejudicial to the general interests of society, but
+probably they would have found no difficulty in resisting the
+temptation, had it appeared in the form of a woman with no other
+attractions whatever but her sex. To strip sensual pleasures of all
+their adjuncts, in order to prove their inferiority, is to deprive a
+magnet of some of its most essential causes of attraction, and then to
+say that it is weak and inefficient.
+
+In the pursuit of every enjoyment, whether sensual or intellectual,
+reason, that faculty which enables us to calculate consequences, is the
+proper corrective and guide. It is probable therefore that improved
+reason will always tend to prevent the abuse of sensual pleasures,
+though it by no means follows that it will extinguish them.
+
+I have endeavoured to expose the fallacy of that argument which infers
+an unlimited progress from a partial improvement, the limits of which
+cannot be exactly ascertained. It has appeared, I think, that there are
+many instances in which a decided progress has been observed, where yet
+it would be a gross absurdity to suppose that progress indefinite. But
+towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes, no observable
+progress whatever has hitherto been made. To suppose such an
+extinction, therefore, is merely to offer an unfounded conjecture,
+unsupported by any philosophical probabilities.
+
+It is a truth, which history I am afraid makes too clear, that some men
+of the highest mental powers have been addicted not only to a moderate,
+but even to an immoderate indulgence in the pleasures of sensual love.
+But allowing, as I should be inclined to do, notwithstanding numerous
+instances to the contrary, that great intellectual exertions tend to
+diminish the empire of this passion over man, it is evident that the
+mass of mankind must be improved more highly than the brightest
+ornaments of the species at present before any difference can take
+place sufficient sensibly to affect population. I would by no means
+suppose that the mass of mankind has reached its term of improvement,
+but the principal argument of this essay tends to place in a strong
+point of view the improbability that the lower classes of people in any
+country should ever be sufficiently free from want and labour to obtain
+any high degree of intellectual improvement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12
+
+Mr Godwin's conjecture concerning the indefinite prolongation of human
+life--Improper inference drawn from the effects of mental stimulants on
+the human frame, illustrated in various instances--Conjectures not
+founded on any indications in the past not to be considered as
+philosophical conjectures--Mr Godwin's and Mr Condorcet's conjecture
+respecting the approach of man towards immortality on earth, a curious
+instance of the inconsistency of scepticism.
+
+
+Mr Godwin's conjecture respecting the future approach of man towards
+immortality on earth seems to be rather oddly placed in a chapter which
+professes to remove the objection to his system of equality from the
+principle of population. Unless he supposes the passion between the
+sexes to decrease faster than the duration of life increases, the earth
+would be more encumbered than ever. But leaving this difficulty to Mr
+Godwin, let us examine a few of the appearances from which the probable
+immortality of man is inferred.
+
+To prove the power of the mind over the body, Mr Godwin observes, "How
+often do we find a piece of good news dissipating a distemper? How
+common is the remark that those accidents which are to the indolent a
+source of disease are forgotten and extirpated in the busy and active?
+I walk twenty miles in an indolent and half determined temper and am
+extremely fatigued. I walk twenty miles full of ardour, and with a
+motive that engrosses my soul, and I come in as fresh and as alert as
+when I began my journey. Emotion excited by some unexpected word, by a
+letter that is delivered to us, occasions the most extraordinary
+revolutions in our frame, accelerates the circulation, causes the heart
+to palpitate, the tongue to refuse its office, and has been known to
+occasion death by extreme anguish or extreme joy. There is nothing
+indeed of which the physician is more aware than of the power of the
+mind in assisting or reading convalescence."
+
+The instances here mentioned are chiefly instances of the effects of
+mental stimulants on the bodily frame. No person has ever for a moment
+doubted the near, though mysterious, connection of mind and body. But
+it is arguing totally without knowledge of the nature of stimulants to
+suppose, either that they can be applied continually with equal
+strength, or if they could be so applied, for a time, that they would
+not exhaust and wear out the subject. In some of the cases here
+noticed, the strength of the stimulus depends upon its novelty and
+unexpectedness. Such a stimulus cannot, from its nature, be repeated
+often with the same effect, as it would by repetition lose that
+property which gives it its strength.
+
+In the other cases, the argument is from a small and partial effect, to
+a great and general effect, which will in numberless instances be found
+to be a very fallacious mode of reasoning. The busy and active man may
+in some degree counteract, or what is perhaps nearer the truth, may
+disregard those slight disorders of frame which fix the attention of a
+man who has nothing else to think of; but this does not tend to prove
+that activity of mind will enable a man to disregard a high fever, the
+smallpox, or the plague.
+
+The man who walks twenty miles with a motive that engrosses his soul
+does not attend to his slight fatigue of body when he comes in; but
+double his motive, and set him to walk another twenty miles, quadruple
+it, and let him start a third time, and so on; and the length of his
+walk will ultimately depend upon muscle and not mind. Powell, for a
+motive of ten guineas, would have walked further probably than Mr
+Godwin, for a motive of half a million. A motive of uncommon power
+acting upon a frame of moderate strength would, perhaps, make the man
+kill himself by his exertions, but it would not make him walk a hundred
+miles in twenty-four hours. This statement of the case shews the
+fallacy of supposing that the person was really not at all tired in his
+first walk of twenty miles, because he did not appear to be so, or,
+perhaps, scarcely felt any fatigue himself. The mind cannot fix its
+attention strongly on more than one object at once. The twenty thousand
+pounds so engrossed his thoughts that he did not attend to any slight
+soreness of foot, or stiffness of limb. But had he been really as fresh
+and as alert, as when he first set off, he would be able to go the
+second twenty miles with as much ease as the first, and so on, the
+third, &c. Which leads to a palpable absurdity. When a horse of spirit
+is nearly half tired, by the stimulus of the spur, added to the proper
+management of the bit, he may be put so much upon his mettle, that he
+would appear to a standerby, as fresh and as high spirited as if he had
+not gone a mile. Nay, probably, the horse himself, while in the heat
+and passion occasioned by this stimulus, would not feel any fatigue;
+but it would be strangely contrary to all reason and experience, to
+argue from such an appearance that, if the stimulus were continued, the
+horse would never be tired. The cry of a pack of hounds will make some
+horses, after a journey of forty miles on the road, appear as fresh,
+and as lively, as when they first set out. Were they then to be hunted,
+no perceptible abatement would at first be felt by their riders in
+their strength and spirits, but towards the end of a hard day, the
+previous fatigue would have its full weight and effect, and make them
+tire sooner. When I have taken a long walk with my gun, and met with no
+success, I have frequently returned home feeling a considerable degree
+of uncomfortableness from fatigue. Another day, perhaps, going over
+nearly the same extent of ground with a good deal of sport, I have come
+home fresh, and alert. The difference in the sensation of fatigue upon
+coming in, on the different days, may have been very striking, but on
+the following mornings I have found no such difference. I have not
+perceived that I was less stiff in my limbs, or less footsore, on the
+morning after the day of the sport, than on the other morning.
+
+In all these cases, stimulants upon the mind seem to act rather by
+taking off the attention from the bodily fatigue, than by really and
+truly counteracting it. If the energy of my mind had really
+counteracted the fatigue of my body, why should I feel tired the next
+morning? if the stimulus of the hounds had as completely overcome the
+fatigue of the journey in reality, as it did in appearance, why should
+the horse be tired sooner than if he had not gone the forty miles? I
+happen to have a very bad fit of the toothache at the time I am writing
+this. In the eagerness of composition, I every now and then, for a
+moment or two, forget it. Yet I cannot help thinking that the process,
+which causes the pain, is still going forwards, and that the nerves
+which carry the information of it to the brain are even during these
+moments demanding attention and room for their appropriate vibrations.
+The multiplicity of vibrations of another kind may perhaps prevent
+their admission, or overcome them for a time when admitted, till a
+shoot of extraordinary energy puts all other vibration to the rout,
+destroys the vividness of my argumentative conceptions, and rides
+triumphant in the brain. In this case, as in the others, the mind seems
+to have little or no power in counteracting or curing the disorder, but
+merely possesses a power, if strongly excited, of fixing its attention
+on other subjects.
+
+I do not, however, mean to say that a sound and vigorous mind has no
+tendency whatever to keep the body in a similar state. So close and
+intimate is the union of mind and body that it would be highly
+extraordinary if they did not mutually assist each other's functions.
+But, perhaps, upon a comparison, the body has more effect upon the mind
+than the mind upon the body. The first object of the mind is to act as
+purveyor to the wants of the body. When these wants are completely
+satisfied, an active mind is indeed apt to wander further, to range
+over the fields of science, or sport in the regions of. Imagination, to
+fancy that it has 'shuffled off this mortal coil', and is seeking its
+kindred element. But all these efforts are like the vain exertions of
+the hare in the fable. The slowly moving tortoise, the body, never
+fails to overtake the mind, however widely and extensively it may have
+ranged, and the brightest and most energetic intellects, unwillingly as
+they may attend to the first or second summons, must ultimately yield
+the empire of the brain to the calls of hunger, or sink with the
+exhausted body in sleep.
+
+It seems as if one might say with certainty that if a medicine could be
+found to immortalize the body there would be no fear of its [not] being
+accompanied by the immortality of the mind. But the immortality of the
+mind by no means seems to infer the immortality of the body. On the
+contrary, the greatest conceivable energy of mind would probably
+exhaust and destroy the strength of the body. A temperate vigour of
+mind appears to be favourable to health, but very great intellectual
+exertions tend rather, as has been often observed, to wear out the
+scabbard. Most of the instances which Mr Godwin has brought to prove
+the power of the mind over the body, and the consequent probability of
+the immortality of man, are of this latter description, and could such
+stimulants be continually applied, instead of tending to immortalize,
+they would tend very rapidly to destroy the human frame.
+
+The probable increase of the voluntary power of man over his animal
+frame comes next under Mr Godwin's consideration, and he concludes by
+saying, that the voluntary power of some men, in this respect, is found
+to extend to various articles in which other men are impotent. But this
+is reasoning against an almost universal rule from a few exceptions;
+and these exceptions seem to be rather tricks, than powers that may be
+exerted to any good purpose. I have never heard of any man who could
+regulate his pulse in a fever, and doubt much, if any of the persons
+here alluded to have made the smallest perceptible progress in the
+regular correction of the disorders of their frames and the consequent
+prolongation of their lives.
+
+Mr Godwin says, 'Nothing can be more unphilosophical than to conclude,
+that, because a certain species of power is beyond the train of our
+present observation, that it is beyond the limits of the human mind.' I
+own my ideas of philosophy are in this respect widely different from Mr
+Godwin's. The only distinction that I see, between a philosophical
+conjecture, and the assertions of the Prophet Mr Brothers, is, that one
+is founded upon indications arising from the train of our present
+observations, and the other has no foundation at all. I expect that
+great discoveries are yet to take place in all the branches of human
+science, particularly in physics; but the moment we leave past
+experience as the foundation of our conjectures concerning the future,
+and, still more, if our conjectures absolutely contradict past
+experience, we are thrown upon a wide field of uncertainty, and any one
+supposition is then just as good as another. If a person were to tell
+me that men would ultimately have eyes and hands behind them as well as
+before them, I should admit the usefulness of the addition, but should
+give as a reason for my disbelief of it, that I saw no indications
+whatever in the past from which I could infer the smallest probability
+of such a change. If this be not allowed a valid objection, all
+conjectures are alike, and all equally philosophical. I own it appears
+to me that in the train of our present observations, there are no more
+genuine indications that man will become immortal upon earth than that
+he will have four eyes and four hands, or that trees will grow
+horizontally instead of perpendicularly.
+
+It will be said, perhaps, that many discoveries have already taken
+place in the world that were totally unforeseen and unexpected. This I
+grant to be true; but if a person had predicted these discoveries
+without being guided by any analogies or indications from past facts,
+he would deserve the name of seer or prophet, but not of philosopher.
+The wonder that some of our modern discoveries would excite in the
+savage inhabitants of Europe in the times of Theseus and Achilles,
+proves but little. Persons almost entirely unacquainted with the powers
+of a machine cannot be expected to guess at its effects. I am far from
+saying, that we are at present by any means fully acquainted with the
+powers of the human mind; but we certainly know more of this instrument
+than was known four thousand years ago; and therefore, though not to be
+called competent judges, we are certainly much better able than savages
+to say what is, or is not, within its grasp. A watch would strike a
+savage with as much surprise as a perpetual motion; yet one is to us a
+most familiar piece of mechanism, and the other has constantly eluded
+the efforts of the most acute intellects. In many instances we are now
+able to perceive the causes, which prevent an unlimited improvement in
+those inventions, which seemed to promise fairly for it at first. The
+original improvers of telescopes would probably think, that as long as
+the size of the specula and the length of the tubes could be increased,
+the powers and advantages of the instrument would increase; but
+experience has since taught us, that the smallness of the field, the
+deficiency of light, and the circumstance of the atmosphere being
+magnified, prevent the beneficial results that were to be expected from
+telescopes of extraordinary size and power. In many parts of knowledge,
+man has been almost constantly making some progress; in other parts,
+his efforts have been invariably baffled. The savage would not probably
+be able to guess at the causes of this mighty difference. Our further
+experience has given us some little insight into these causes, and has
+therefore enabled us better to judge, if not of what we are to expect
+in future, at least of what we are not to expect, which, though
+negative, is a very useful piece of information.
+
+As the necessity of sleep seems rather to depend upon the body than the
+mind, it does not appear how the improvement of the mind can tend very
+greatly to supersede this 'conspicuous infirmity'. A man who by great
+excitements on his mind is able to pass two or three nights without
+sleep, proportionably exhausts the vigour of his body, and this
+diminution of health and strength will soon disturb the operations of
+his understanding, so that by these great efforts he appears to have
+made no real progress whatever in superseding the necessity of this
+species of rest.
+
+There is certainly a sufficiently marked difference in the various
+characters of which we have some knowledge, relative to the energies of
+their minds, their benevolent pursuits, etc., to enable us to judge
+whether the operations of intellect have any decided effect in
+prolonging the duration of human life. It is certain that no decided
+effect of this kind has yet been observed. Though no attention of any
+kind has ever produced such an effect as could be construed into the
+smallest semblance of an approach towards immortality, yet of the two,
+a certain attention to the body seems to have more effect in this
+respect than an attention to the mind. The man who takes his temperate
+meals and his bodily exercise, with scrupulous regularity, will
+generally be found more healthy than the man who, very deeply engaged
+in intellectual pursuits, often forgets for a time these bodily
+cravings. The citizen who has retired, and whose ideas, perhaps,
+scarcely soar above or extend beyond his little garden, puddling all
+the morning about his borders of box, will, perhaps, live as long as
+the philosopher whose range of intellect is the most extensive, and
+whose views are the clearest of any of his contemporaries. It has been
+positively observed by those who have attended to the bills of
+mortality that women live longer upon an average than men, and, though
+I would not by any means say that their intellectual faculties are
+inferior, yet, I think, it must be allowed that, from their different
+education, there are not so many women as men, who are excited to
+vigorous mental exertion.
+
+As in these and similar instances, or to take a larger range, as in the
+great diversity of characters that have existed during some thousand
+years, no decided difference has been observed in the duration of human
+life from the operation of intellect, the mortality of man on earth
+seems to be as completely established, and exactly upon the same
+grounds, as any one, the most constant, of the laws of nature. An
+immediate act of power in the Creator of the Universe might, indeed,
+change one or all of these laws, either suddenly or gradually, but
+without some indications of such a change, and such indications do not
+exist, it. Is just as unphilosophical to suppose that the life of man
+may be prolonged beyond any assignable limits, as to suppose that the
+attraction of the earth will gradually be changed into repulsion and
+that stones will ultimately rise instead of fall or that the earth will
+fly off at a certain period to some more genial and warmer sun.
+
+The conclusion of this chapter presents us, undoubtedly, with a very
+beautiful and desirable picture, but like some of the landscapes drawn
+from fancy and not imagined with truth, it fails of that interest in
+the heart which nature and probability can alone give.
+
+I cannot quit this subject without taking notice of these conjectures
+of Mr Godwin and Mr Condorcet concerning the indefinite prolongation of
+human life, as a very curious instance of the longing of the soul after
+immortality. Both these gentlemen have rejected the light of revelation
+which absolutely promises eternal life in another state. They have also
+rejected the light of natural religion, which to the ablest intellects
+in all ages has indicated the future existence of the soul. Yet so
+congenial is the idea of immortality to the mind of man that they
+cannot consent entirely to throw it out of their systems. After all
+their fastidious scepticisms concerning the only probable mode of
+immortality, they introduce a species of immortality of their own, not
+only completely contradictory to every law of philosophical
+probability, but in itself in the highest degree narrow, partial, and
+unjust. They suppose that all the great, virtuous, and exalted minds
+that have ever existed or that may exist for some thousands, perhaps
+millions of years, will be sunk in annihilation, and that only a few
+beings, not greater in number than can exist at once upon the earth,
+will be ultimately crowned with immortality. Had such a tenet been
+advanced as a tenet of revelation I am very sure that all the enemies
+of religion, and probably Mr Godwin and Mr Condorcet among the rest,
+would have exhausted the whole force of their ridicule upon it, as the
+most puerile, the most absurd, the poorest, the most pitiful, the most
+iniquitously unjust, and, consequently, the most unworthy of the Deity
+that the superstitious folly of man could invent.
+
+What a strange and curious proof do these conjectures exhibit of the
+inconsistency of scepticism! For it should be observed, that there is a
+very striking and essential difference between believing an assertion
+which absolutely contradicts the most uniform experience, and an
+assertion which contradicts nothing, but is merely beyond the power of
+our present observation and knowledge. So diversified are the natural
+objects around us, so many instances of mighty power daily offer
+themselves to our view, that we may fairly presume, that there are many
+forms and operations of nature which we have not yet observed, or
+which, perhaps, we are not capable of observing with our present
+confined inlets of knowledge. The resurrection of a spiritual body from
+a natural body does not appear in itself a more wonderful instance of
+power than the germination of a blade of wheat from the grain, or of an
+oak from an acorn. Could we conceive an intelligent being, so placed as
+to be conversant only with inanimate or full grown objects, and never
+to have witnessed the process of vegetation and growth; and were
+another being to shew him two little pieces of matter, a grain of
+wheat, and an acorn, to desire him to examine them, to analyse them if
+he pleased, and endeavour to find out their properties and essences;
+and then to tell him, that however trifling these little bits of matter
+might appear to him, that they possessed such curious powers of
+selection, combination, arrangement, and almost of creation, that upon
+being put into the ground, they would choose, amongst all the dirt and
+moisture that surrounded them, those parts which best suited their
+purpose, that they would collect and arrange these parts with wonderful
+taste, judgement, and execution, and would rise up into beautiful
+forms, scarcely in any respect analogous to the little bits of matter
+which were first placed in the earth. I feel very little doubt that the
+imaginary being which I have supposed would hesitate more, would
+require better authority, and stronger proofs, before he believed these
+strange assertions, than if he had been told, that a being of mighty
+power, who had been the cause of all that he saw around him, and of
+that existence of which he himself was conscious, would, by a great act
+of power upon the death and corruption of human creatures, raise up the
+essence of thought in an incorporeal, or at least invisible form, to
+give it a happier existence in another state.
+
+The only difference, with regard to our own apprehensions, that is not
+in favour of the latter assertion is that the first miracle we have
+repeatedly seen, and the last miracle we have not seen. I admit the
+full weight of this prodigious difference, but surely no man can
+hesitate a moment in saying that, putting Revelation out of the
+question, the resurrection of a spiritual body from a natural body,
+which may be merely one among the many operations of nature which we
+cannot see, is an event indefinitely more probable than the immortality
+of man on earth, which is not only an event of which no symptoms or
+indications have yet appeared, but is a positive contradiction to one
+of the most constant of the laws of nature that has ever come within
+the observation of man.
+
+When we extend our view beyond this life, it is evident that we can
+have no other guides than authority, or conjecture, and perhaps,
+indeed, an obscure and undefined feeling. What I say here, therefore,
+does not appear to me in any respect to contradict what I said before,
+when I observed that it was unphilosophical to expect any specifick
+event that was not indicated by some kind of analogy in the past. In
+ranging beyond the bourne from which no traveller returns, we must
+necessarily quit this rule; but with regard to events that may be
+expected to happen on earth, we can seldom quit it consistently with
+true philosophy. Analogy has, however, as I conceive, great latitude.
+For instance, man has discovered many of the laws of nature: analogy
+seems to indicate that he will discover many more; but no analogy seems
+to indicate that he will discover a sixth sense, or a new species of
+power in the human mind, entirely beyond the train of our present
+observations.
+
+The powers of selection, combination, and transmutation, which every
+seed shews, are truly miraculous. Who can imagine that these wonderful
+faculties are contained in these little bits of matter? To me it
+appears much more philosophical to suppose that the mighty God of
+nature is present in full energy in all these operations. To this all
+powerful Being, it would be equally easy to raise an oak without an
+acorn as with one. The preparatory process of putting seeds into the
+ground is merely ordained for the use of man, as one among the various
+other excitements necessary to awaken matter into mind. It is an idea
+that will be found consistent, equally with the natural phenomena
+around us, with the various events of human life, and with the
+successive revelations of God to man, to suppose that the world is a
+mighty process for the creation and formation of mind. Many vessels
+will necessarily come out of this great furnace in wrong shapes. These
+will be broken and thrown aside as useless; while those vessels whose
+forms are full of truth, grace, and loveliness, will be wafted into
+happier situations, nearer the presence of the mighty maker.
+
+I ought perhaps again to make an apology to my readers for dwelling so
+long upon a conjecture which many, I know, will think too absurd and
+improbable to require the least discussion. But if it be as improbable
+and as contrary to the genuine spirit of philosophy as I own I think it
+is, why should it not be shewn to be so in a candid examination? A
+conjecture, however improbable on the first view of it, advanced by
+able and ingenious men, seems at least to deserve investigation. For my
+own part I feel no disinclination whatever to give that degree of
+credit to the opinion of the probable immortality of man on earth,
+which the appearances that can be brought in support of it deserve.
+Before we decide upon the utter improbability of such an event, it is
+but fair impartially to examine these appearances; and from such an
+examination I think we may conclude, that we have rather less reason
+for supposing that the life of man may be indefinitely prolonged, than
+that trees may be made to grow indefinitely high, or potatoes
+indefinitely large. Though Mr Godwin advances the idea of the
+indefinite prolongation of human life merely as a conjecture, yet as he
+has produced some appearances, which in his conception favour the
+supposition, he must certainly intend that these appearances should be
+examined and this is all that I have meant to do.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13
+
+Error of Mr Godwin is considering man too much in the light of a being
+merely rational--In the compound being, man, the passions will always
+act as disturbing forces in the decisions of the
+understanding--Reasonings of Mr Godwin on the subject of coercion--Some
+truths of a nature not to be communicated from one man to another.
+
+
+In the chapter which I have been examining, Mr Godwin professes to
+consider the objection to his system of equality from the principle of
+population. It has appeared, I think clearly, that he is greatly
+erroneous in his statement of the distance of this difficulty, and that
+instead of myriads of centuries, it is really not thirty years, or even
+thirty days, distant from us. The supposition of the approach of man to
+immortality on earth is certainly not of a kind to soften the
+difficulty. The only argument, therefore, in the chapter which has any
+tendency to remove the objection is the conjecture concerning the
+extinction of the passion between the sexes, but as this is a mere
+conjecture, unsupported by the smallest shadow of proof, the force of
+the objection may be fairly said to remain unimpaired, and it is
+undoubtedly of sufficient weight of itself completely to overturn Mr
+Godwin's whole system of equality. I will, however, make one or two
+observations on a few of the prominent parts of Mr Godwin's reasonings
+which will contribute to place in a still clearer point of view the
+little hope that we can reasonably entertain of those vast improvements
+in the nature of man and of society which he holds up to our admiring
+gaze in his Political Justice.
+
+Mr Godwin considers man too much in the light of a being merely
+intellectual. This error, at least such I conceive it to be, pervades
+his whole work and mixes itself with all his reasonings. The voluntary
+actions of men may originate in their opinions, but these opinions will
+be very differently modified in creatures compounded of a rational
+faculty and corporal propensities from what they would be in beings
+wholly intellectual. Mr Godwin, in proving that sound reasoning and
+truth are capable of being adequately communicated, examines the
+proposition first practically, and then adds, 'Such is the appearance
+which this proposition assumes, when examined in a loose and practical
+view. In strict consideration it will not admit of debate. Man is a
+rational being, etc.' (Bk. I, ch. 5; in the third edition Vol. I, p.
+88). So far from calling this a strict consideration of the subject, I
+own I should call it the loosest, and most erroneous, way possible, of
+considering it. It is the calculating the velocity of a falling body in
+vacuo, and persisting in it, that it would be the same through whatever
+resisting mediums it might fall. This was not Newton's mode of
+philosophizing. Very few general propositions are just in application
+to a particular subject. The moon is not kept in her orbit round the
+earth, nor the earth in her orbit round the sun, by a force that varies
+merely in the inverse ratio of the squares of the distances. To make
+the general theory just in application to the revolutions of these
+bodies, it was necessary to calculate accurately the disturbing force
+of the sun upon the moon, and of the moon upon the earth; and till
+these disturbing forces were properly estimated, actual observations on
+the motions of these bodies would have proved that the theory was not
+accurately true.
+
+I am willing to allow that every voluntary act is preceded by a
+decision of the mind, but it is strangely opposite to what I should
+conceive to be the just theory upon the subject, and a palpable
+contradiction to all experience, to say that the corporal propensities
+of man do not act very powerfully, as disturbing forces, in these
+decisions. The question, therefore, does not merely depend upon whether
+a man may be made to understand a distinct proposition or be convinced
+by an unanswerable argument. A truth may be brought home to his
+conviction as a rational being, though he may determine to act contrary
+to it, as a compound being. The cravings of hunger, the love of liquor,
+the desire of possessing a beautiful woman, will urge men to actions,
+of the fatal consequences of which, to the general interests of
+society, they are perfectly well convinced, even at the very time they
+commit them. Remove their bodily cravings, and they would not hesitate
+a moment in determining against such actions. Ask them their opinion of
+the same conduct in another person, and they would immediately
+reprobate it. But in their own case, and under all the circumstances of
+their situation with these bodily cravings, the decision of the
+compound being is different from the conviction of the rational being.
+
+If this be the just view of the subject, and both theory and experience
+unite to prove that it is, almost all Mr Godwin's reasonings on the
+subject of coercion in his seventh chapter, will appear to be founded
+on error. He spends some time in placing in a ridiculous point of view
+the attempt to convince a man's understanding and to clear up a
+doubtful proposition in his mind, by blows. Undoubtedly it is both
+ridiculous and barbarous, and so is cock-fighting, but one has little
+more to do with the real object of human punishments than the other.
+One frequent (indeed much too frequent) mode of punishment is death. Mr
+Godwin will hardly think this intended for conviction, at least it does
+not appear how the individual or the society could reap much future
+benefit from an understanding enlightened in this manner.
+
+The principal objects which human punishments have in view are
+undoubtedly restraint and example; restraint, or removal, of an
+individual member whose vicious habits are likely to be prejudicial to
+the society'; and example, which by expressing the sense of the
+community with regard to a particular crime, and by associating more
+nearly and visibly crime and punishment, holds out a moral motive to
+dissuade others from the commission of it.
+
+Restraint, Mr Godwin thinks, may be permitted as a temporary expedient,
+though he reprobates solitary imprisonment, which has certainly been
+the most successful, and, indeed, almost the only attempt towards the
+moral amelioration of offenders. He talks of the selfish passions that
+are fostered by solitude and of the virtues generated in society. But
+surely these virtues are not generated in the society of a prison. Were
+the offender confined to the society of able and virtuous men he would
+probably be more improved than in solitude. But is this practicable? Mr
+Godwin's ingenuity is more frequently employed in finding out evils
+than in suggesting practical remedies.
+
+Punishment, for example, is totally reprobated. By endeavouring to make
+examples too impressive and terrible, nations have, indeed, been led
+into the most barbarous cruelties, but the abuse of any practice is not
+a good argument against its use. The indefatigable pains taken in this
+country to find out a murder, and the certainty of its punishment, has
+powerfully contributed to generate that sentiment which is frequent in
+the mouths of the common people, that a murder will sooner or later
+come to light; and the habitual horror in which murder is in
+consequence held will make a man, in the agony of passion, throw down
+his knife for fear he should be tempted to use it in the gratification
+of his revenge. In Italy, where murderers, by flying to a sanctuary,
+are allowed more frequently to escape, the crime has never been held in
+the same detestation and has consequently been more frequent. No man,
+who is at all aware of the operation of moral motives, can doubt for a
+moment, that if every murder in Italy had been invariably punished, the
+use of the stiletto in transports of passion would have been
+comparatively but little known.
+
+That human laws either do, or can, proportion the punishment accurately
+to the offence, no person will have the folly to assert. From the
+inscrutability of motives the thing is absolutely impossible, but this
+imperfection, though it may be called a species of injustice, is no
+valid argument against human laws. It is the lot of man, that he will
+frequently have to choose between two evils; and it is a sufficient
+reason for the adoption of any institution, that it is the best mode
+that suggests itself of preventing greater evils. A continual endeavour
+should undoubtedly prevail to make these institutions as perfect as the
+nature of them will admit. But nothing is so easy as to find fault with
+human institutions; nothing so difficult as to suggest adequate
+practical improvements. It is to be lamented, that more men of talents
+employ their time in the former occupation than in the latter.
+
+The frequency of crime among men, who, as the common saying is, know
+better, sufficiently proves, that some truths may be brought home to
+the conviction of the mind without always producing the proper effect
+upon the conduct. There are other truths of a nature that perhaps never
+can be adequately communicated from one man to another. The superiority
+of the pleasures of intellect to those of sense, Mr Godwin considers as
+a fundamental truth. Taking all circumstances into consideration, I
+should be disposed to agree with him; but how am I to communicate this
+truth to a person who has scarcely ever felt intellectual pleasure? I
+may as well attempt to explain the nature and beauty of colours to a
+blind man. If I am ever so laborious, patient, and clear, and have the
+most repeated opportunities of expostulation, any real progress toward
+the accomplishment of my purpose seems absolutely hopeless. There is no
+common measure between us. I cannot proceed step by step.. It is a
+truth of a nature absolutely incapable of demonstration. All that I can
+say is, that the wisest and best men in all ages had agreed in giving
+the preference, very greatly, to the pleasures of intellect; and that
+my own experience completely confirmed the truth of their decisions;
+that I had found sensual pleasures vain, transient, and continually
+attended with tedium and disgust; but that intellectual pleasures
+appeared to me ever fresh and young, filled up all my hours
+satisfactorily, gave a new zest to life, and diffused a lasting
+serenity over my mind. If he believe me, it can only be from respect
+and veneration for my authority. It is credulity, and not conviction. I
+have not said any thing, nor can any thing be said, of a nature to
+produce real conviction. The affair is not an affair of reasoning, but
+of experience. He would probably observe in reply, what you say may be
+very true with regard to yourself and many other good men, but for my
+own part I feel very differently upon the subject. I have very
+frequently taken up a book and almost as frequently gone to sleep over
+it; but when I pass an evening with a gay party, or a pretty woman, I
+feel alive, and in spirits, and truly enjoy my existence.
+
+Under such circumstances, reasoning and arguments are not instruments
+from which success can be expected. At some future time perhaps, real
+satiety of sensual pleasures, or some accidental impressions that
+awakened the energies of his mind, might effect that, in a month, which
+the most patient and able expostulations might be incapable of
+effecting in forty years.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14
+
+Mr Godwin's five propositions respecting political truth, on which his
+whole work hinges, not established--Reasons we have for supposing, from
+the distress occasioned by the principle of population, that the vices
+and moral weakness of man can never be wholly
+eradicated--Perfectibility, in the sense in which Mr Godwin uses the
+term, not applicable to man--Nature of the real perfectibility of man
+illustrated.
+
+
+If the reasonings of the preceding chapter are just, the corollaries
+respecting political truth, which Mr Godwin draws from the proposition,
+that the voluntary actions of men originate in their opinions, will not
+appear to be clearly established. These corollaries are, "Sound
+reasoning and truth, when adequately communicated, must always be
+victorious over error: Sound reasoning and truth are capable of being
+so communicated: Truth is omnipotent: The vices and moral weakness of
+man are not invincible: Man is perfectible, or in other words,
+susceptible of perpetual improvement."
+
+The first three propositions may be considered a complete syllogism. If
+by adequately communicated, be meant such a conviction as to produce an
+adequate effect upon the conduct, the major may be allowed and the
+minor denied. The consequent, or the omnipotence of truth, of course
+falls to the ground. If by 'adequately communicated' be meant merely
+the conviction of the rational faculty, the major must be denied, the
+minor will be only true in cases capable of demonstration, and the
+consequent equally falls. The fourth proposition Mr Godwin calls the
+preceding proposition, with a slight variation in the statement. If so,
+it must accompany the preceding proposition in its fall. But it may be
+worth while to inquire, with reference to the principal argument of
+this essay, into the particular reasons which we have for supposing
+that the vices and moral weakness of man can never be wholly overcome
+in this world.
+
+Man, according to Mr Godwin, is a creature formed what he is by the
+successive impressions which he has received, from the first moment
+that the germ from which he sprung was animated. Could he be placed in
+a situation, where he was subject to no evil impressions whatever,
+though it might be doubted whether in such a situation virtue could
+exist, vice would certainly be banished. The great bent of Mr Godwin's
+work on Political Justice, if I understand it rightly, is to shew that
+the greater part of the vices and weaknesses of men proceed from the
+injustice of their political and social institutions, and that if these
+were removed and the understandings of men more enlightened, there
+would be little or no temptation in the world to evil. As it has been
+clearly proved, however, (at least as I think) that this is entirely a
+false conception, and that, independent of any political or social
+institutions whatever, the greater part of mankind, from the fixed and
+unalterable laws of nature, must ever be subject to the evil
+temptations arising from want, besides other passions, it follows from
+Mr Godwin's definition of man that such impressions, and combinations
+of impressions, cannot be afloat in the world without generating a
+variety of bad men. According to Mr Godwin's own conception of the
+formation of character, it is surely as improbable that under such
+circumstances all men will be virtuous as that sixes will come up a
+hundred times following upon the dice. The great variety of
+combinations upon the dice in a repeated succession of throws appears
+to me not inaptly to represent the great variety of character that must
+necessarily exist in the world, supposing every individual to be formed
+what he is by that combination of impressions which he has received
+since his first existence. And this comparison will, in some measure,
+shew the absurdity of supposing, that exceptions will ever become
+general rules; that extraordinary and unusual combinations will be
+frequent; or that the individual instances of great virtue which had
+appeared in all ages of the world will ever prevail universally.
+
+I am aware that Mr Godwin might say that the comparison is in one
+respect inaccurate, that in the case of the dice, the preceding causes,
+or rather the chances respecting the preceding causes, were always the
+same, and that, therefore, I could have no good reason for supposing
+that a greater number of sixes would come up in the next hundred times
+of throwing than in the preceding same number of throws. But, that man
+had in some sort a power of influencing those causes that formed
+character, and that every good and virtuous man that was produced, by
+the influence which he must necessarily have, rather increased the
+probability that another such virtuous character would be generated,
+whereas the coming up of sixes upon the dice once, would certainly not
+increase the probability of their coming up a second time. I admit this
+objection to the accuracy of the comparison, but it is only partially
+valid. Repeated experience has assured us, that the influence of the
+most virtuous character will rarely prevail against very strong
+temptations to evil. It will undoubtedly affect some, but it will fail
+with a much greater number. Had Mr Godwin succeeded in his attempt to
+prove that these temptations to evil could by the exertions of man be
+removed, I would give up the comparison; or at least allow, that a man
+might be so far enlightened with regard to the mode of shaking his
+elbow, that he would be able to throw sixes every time. But as long as
+a great number of those impressions which form character, like the nice
+motions of the arm, remain absolutely independent of the will of man,
+though it would be the height of folly and presumption to attempt to
+calculate the relative proportions of virtue and vice at the future
+periods of the world, it may be safely asserted that the vices and
+moral weakness of mankind, taken in the mass, are invincible.
+
+The fifth proposition is the general deduction from the four former and
+will consequently fall, as the foundations which support it have given
+way. In the sense in which Mr Godwin understands the term
+'perfectible', the perfectibility of man cannot be asserted, unless the
+preceding propositions could have been clearly established. There is,
+however, one sense, which the term will bear, in which it is, perhaps,
+just. It may be said with truth that man is always susceptible of
+improvement, or that there never has been, or will be, a period of his
+history, in which he can be said to have reached his possible acme of
+perfection. Yet it does not by any means follow from this, that our
+efforts to improve man will always succeed, or even that he will ever
+make, in the greatest number of ages, any extraordinary strides towards
+perfection. The only inference that can be drawn is that the precise
+limit of his improvement cannot possibly be known. And I cannot help
+again reminding the reader of a distinction which, it appears to me,
+ought particularly to be attended to in the present question: I mean,
+the essential difference there is between an unlimited improvement and
+an improvement the limit of which cannot be ascertained. The former is
+an improvement not applicable to man under the present laws of his
+nature. The latter, undoubtedly, is applicable.
+
+The real perfectibility of man may be illustrated, as I have mentioned
+before, by the perfectibility of a plant. The object of the
+enterprising florist is, as I conceive, to unite size, symmetry, and
+beauty of colour. It would surely be presumptuous in the most
+successful improver to affirm, that he possessed a carnation in which
+these qualities existed in the greatest possible state of perfection.
+However beautiful his flower may be, other care, other soil, or other
+suns, might produce one still more beautiful.
+
+Yet, although he may be aware of the absurdity of supposing that he has
+reached perfection, and though he may know by what means he attained
+that degree of beauty in the flower which he at present possesses, yet
+he cannot be sure that by pursuing similar means, rather increased in
+strength, he will obtain a more beautiful blossom. By endeavouring to
+improve one quality, he may impair the beauty of another. The richer
+mould which he would employ to increase the size of his plant would
+probably burst the calyx, and destroy at once its symmetry. In a
+similar manner, the forcing manure used to bring about the French
+Revolution, and to give a greater freedom and energy to the human mind,
+has burst the calyx of humanity, the restraining bond of all society;
+and, however large the separate petals have grown, however strongly, or
+even beautifully, a few of them have been marked, the whole is at
+present a loose, deformed, disjointed mass, without union, symmetry, or
+harmony of colouring.
+
+Were it of consequence to improve pinks and carnations, though we could
+have no hope of raising them as large as cabbages, we might undoubtedly
+expect, by successive efforts, to obtain more beautiful specimens than
+we at present possess. No person can deny the importance of improving
+the happiness of the human species. Every the least advance in this
+respect is highly valuable. But an experiment with the human race is
+not like an experiment upon inanimate objects. The bursting of a flower
+may be a trifle. Another will soon succeed it. But the bursting of the
+bonds of society is such a separation of parts as cannot take place
+without giving the most acute pain to thousands: and a long time may
+elapse, and much misery may be endured, before the wound grows up again.
+
+As the five propositions which I have been examining may be considered
+as the corner stones of Mr Godwin's fanciful structure, and, indeed, as
+expressing the aim and bent of his whole work, however excellent much
+of his detached reasoning may be, he must be considered as having
+failed in the great object of his undertaking. Besides the difficulties
+arising from the compound nature of man, which he has by no means
+sufficiently smoothed, the principal argument against the
+perfectibility of man and society remains whole and unimpaired from any
+thing that he has advanced. And as far as I can trust my own judgement,
+this argument appears to be conclusive, not only against the
+perfectibility of man, in the enlarged sense in which Mr Godwin
+understands the term, but against any very marked and striking change
+for the better, in the form and structure of general society; by which
+I mean any great and decided amelioration of the condition of the lower
+classes of mankind, the most numerous, and, consequently, in a general
+view of the subject, the most important part of the human race. Were I
+to live a thousand years, and the laws of nature to remain the same, I
+should little fear, or rather little hope, a contradiction from
+experience in asserting that no possible sacrifices or exertions of the
+rich, in a country which had been long inhabited, could for any time
+place the lower classes of the community in a situation equal, with
+regard to circumstances, to the situation of the common people about
+thirty years ago in the northern States of America.
+
+The lower classes of people in Europe may at some future period be much
+better instructed than they are at present; they may be taught to
+employ the little spare time they have in many better ways than at the
+ale-house; they may live under better and more equal laws than they
+have ever hitherto done, perhaps, in any country; and I even conceive
+it possible, though not probable that they may have more leisure; but
+it is not in the nature of things that they can be awarded such a
+quantity of money or subsistence as will allow them all to marry early,
+in the full confidence that they shall be able to provide with ease for
+a numerous family.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 15
+
+Models too perfect may sometimes rather impede than promote
+improvement--Mr Godwin's essay on 'Avarice and
+Profusion'--Impossibility of dividing the necessary labour of a society
+amicably among all--Invectives against labour may produce present evil,
+with little or no chance of producing future good--An accession to the
+mass of agricultural labour must always be an advantage to the labourer.
+
+
+Mr Godwin in the preface to his Enquirer, drops a few expressions which
+seem to hint at some change in his opinions since he wrote the
+Political Justice; and as this is a work now of some years standing, I
+should certainly think that I had been arguing against opinions which
+the author had himself seen reason to alter, but that in some of the
+essays of the Enquirer, Mr Godwin's peculiar mode of thinking appears
+in as striking a light as ever.
+
+It has been frequently observed that though we cannot hope to reach
+perfection in any thing, yet that it must always be advantageous to us
+to place before our eyes the most perfect models. This observation has
+a plausible appearance, but is very far from being generally true. I
+even doubt its truth in one of the most obvious exemplifications that
+would occur. I doubt whether a very young painter would receive so much
+benefit, from an attempt to copy a highly finished and perfect picture,
+as from copying one where the outlines were more strongly marked and
+the manner of laying on the colours was more easily discoverable. But
+in cases where the perfection of the model is a perfection of a
+different and superior nature from that towards which we should
+naturally advance, we shall not always fail in making any progress
+towards it, but we shall in all probability impede the progress which
+we might have expected to make had we not fixed our eyes upon so
+perfect a model. A highly intellectual being, exempt from the infirm
+calls of hunger or sleep, is undoubtedly a much more perfect existence
+than man, but were man to attempt to copy such a model, he would not
+only fail in making any advances towards it; but by unwisely straining
+to imitate what was inimitable, he would probably destroy the little
+intellect which he was endeavouring to improve.
+
+The form and structure of society which Mr Godwin describes is as
+essentially distinct from any forms of society which have hitherto
+prevailed in the world as a being that can live without food or sleep
+is from a man. By improving society in its present form, we are making
+no more advances towards such a state of things as he pictures than we
+should make approaches towards a line, with regard to which we were
+walking parallel. The question, therefore, is whether, by looking to
+such a form of society as our polar star, we are likely to advance or
+retard the improvement of the human species? Mr Godwin appears to me to
+have decided this question against himself in his essay on 'Avarice and
+Profusion' in the Enquirer.
+
+Dr Adam Smith has very justly observed that nations as well as
+individuals grow rich by parsimony and poor by profusion, and that,
+therefore, every frugal man was a friend and every spendthrift an enemy
+to his country. The reason he gives is that what is saved from revenue
+is always added to stock, and is therefore taken from the maintenance
+of labour that is generally unproductive and employed in the
+maintenance of labour that realizes itself in valuable commodities. No
+observation can be more evidently just. The subject of Mr Godwin's
+essay is a little similar in its first appearance, but in essence is as
+distinct as possible. He considers the mischief of profusion as an
+acknowledged truth, and therefore makes his comparison between the
+avaricious man, and the man who spends his income. But the avaricious
+man of Mr Godwin is totally a distinct character, at least with regard
+to his effect upon the prosperity of the state, from the frugal man of
+Dr Adam Smith. The frugal man in order to make more money saves from
+his income and adds to his capital, and this capital he either employs
+himself in the maintenance of productive labour, or he lends it to some
+other person who will probably employ it in this way. He benefits the
+state because he adds to its general capital, and because wealth
+employed as capital not only sets in motion more labour than when spent
+as income, but the labour is besides of a more valuable kind. But the
+avaricious man of Mr Godwin locks up his wealth in a chest and sets in
+motion no labour of any kind, either productive or unproductive. This
+is so essential a difference that Mr Godwin's decision in his essay
+appears at once as evidently false as Dr Adam Smith's position is
+evidently true. It could not, indeed, but occur to Mr Godwin that some
+present inconvenience might arise to the poor from thus locking up the
+funds destined for the maintenance of labour. The only way, therefore,
+he had of weakening this objection was to compare the two characters
+chiefly with regard to their tendency to accelerate the approach of
+that happy state of cultivated equality, on which he says we ought
+always to fix our eyes as our polar star.
+
+I think it has been proved in the former parts of this essay that such
+a state of society is absolutely impracticable. What consequences then
+are we to expect from looking to such a point as our guide and polar
+star in the great sea of political discovery? Reason would teach us to
+expect no other than winds perpetually adverse, constant but fruitless
+toil, frequent shipwreck, and certain misery. We shall not only fail in
+making the smallest real approach towards such a perfect form of
+society; but by wasting our strength of mind and body, in a direction
+in which it is impossible to proceed, and by the frequent distress
+which we must necessarily occasion by our repeated failures, we shall
+evidently impede that degree of improvement in society, which is really
+attainable.
+
+It has appeared that a society constituted according to Mr Godwin's
+system must, from the inevitable laws of our nature, degenerate into a
+class of proprietors and a class of labourers, and that the
+substitution of benevolence for self-love as the moving principle of
+society, instead of producing the happy effects that might be expected
+from so fair a name, would cause the same pressure of want to be felt
+by the whole of society, which is now felt only by a part. It is to the
+established administration of property and to the apparently narrow
+principle of self-love that we are indebted for all the noblest
+exertions of human genius, all the finer and more delicate emotions of
+the soul, for everything, indeed, that distinguishes the civilized from
+the savage state; and no sufficient change has as yet taken place in
+the nature of civilized man to enable us to say that he either is, or
+ever will be, in a state when he may safely throw down the ladder by
+which he has risen to this eminence.
+
+If in every society that has advanced beyond the savage state, a class
+of proprietors and a class of labourers must necessarily exist, it is
+evident that, as labour is the only property of the class of labourers,
+every thing that tends to diminish the value of this property must tend
+to diminish the possession of this part of society. The only way that a
+poor man has of supporting himself in independence is by the exertion
+of his bodily strength. This is the only commodity he has to give in
+exchange for the necessaries of life. It would hardly appear then that
+you benefit him by narrowing the market for this commodity, by
+decreasing the demand for labour, and lessening the value of the only
+property that he possesses.
+
+It should be observed that the principal argument of this Essay only
+goes to prove the necessity of a class of proprietors, and a class of
+labourers, but by no means infers that the present great inequality of
+property is either necessary or useful to society. On the contrary, it
+must certainly be considered as an evil, and every institution that
+promotes it is essentially bad and impolitic. But whether a government
+could with advantage to society actively interfere to repress
+inequality of fortunes may be a matter of doubt. Perhaps the generous
+system of perfect liberty adopted by Dr Adam Smith and the French
+economists would be ill exchanged for any system of restraint.
+
+Mr Godwin would perhaps say that the whole system of barter and
+exchange is a vile and iniquitous traffic. If you would essentially
+relieve the poor man, you should take a part of his labour upon
+yourself, or give him your money, without exacting so severe a return
+for it. In answer to the first method proposed, it may be observed,
+that even if the rich could be persuaded to assist the poor in this
+way, the value of the assistance would be comparatively trifling. The
+rich, though they think themselves of great importance, bear but a
+small proportion in point of numbers to the poor, and would, therefore,
+relieve them but of a small part of their burdens by taking a share.
+Were all those that are employed in the labours of luxuries added to
+the number of those employed in producing necessaries, and could these
+necessary labours be amicably divided among all, each man's share might
+indeed be comparatively light; but desirable as such an amicable
+division would undoubtedly be, I cannot conceive any practical
+principle according to which it could take place. It has been shewn,
+that the spirit of benevolence, guided by the strict impartial justice
+that Mr Godwin describes, would, if vigorously acted upon, depress in
+want and misery the whole human race. Let us examine what would be the
+consequence, if the proprietor were to retain a decent share for
+himself, but to give the rest away to the poor, without exacting a task
+from them in return. Not to mention the idleness and the vice that such
+a proceeding, if general, would probably create in the present state of
+society, and the great risk there would be, of diminishing the produce
+of land, as well as the labours of luxury, another objection yet
+remains.
+
+Mr Godwin seems to have but little respect for practical principles;
+but I own it appears to me, that he is a much greater benefactor to
+mankind, who points out how an inferior good may be attained, than he
+who merely expatiates on the deformity of the present state of society,
+and the beauty of a different state, without pointing out a practical
+method, that might be immediately applied, of accelerating our advances
+from the one, to the other.
+
+It has appeared that from the principle of population more will always
+be in want than can be adequately supplied. The surplus of the rich man
+might be sufficient for three, but four will be desirous to obtain it.
+He cannot make this selection of three out of the four without
+conferring a great favour on those that are the objects of his choice.
+These persons must consider themselves as under a great obligation to
+him and as dependent upon him for their support. The rich man would
+feel his power and the poor man his dependence, and the evil effects of
+these two impressions on the human heart are well known. Though I
+perfectly agree with Mr Godwin therefore in the evil of hard labour,
+yet I still think it a less evil, and less calculated to debase the
+human mind, than dependence, and every history of man that we have ever
+read places in a strong point of view the danger to which that mind is
+exposed which is entrusted with constant power.
+
+In the present state of things, and particularly when labour is in
+request, the man who does a day's work for me confers full as great an
+obligation upon me as I do upon him. I possess what he wants, he
+possesses what I want. We make an amicable exchange. The poor man walks
+erect in conscious independence; and the mind of his employer is not
+vitiated by a sense of power.
+
+Three or four hundred years ago there was undoubtedly much less labour
+in England, in proportion to the population, than at present, but there
+was much more dependence, and we probably should not now enjoy our
+present degree of civil liberty if the poor, by the introduction of
+manufactures, had not been enabled to give something in exchange for
+the provisions of the great Lords, instead of being dependent upon
+their bounty. Even the greatest enemies of trade and manufactures, and
+I do not reckon myself a very determined friend to them, must allow
+that when they were introduced into England, liberty came in their
+train.
+
+Nothing that has been said tends in the most remote degree to
+undervalue the principle of benevolence. It is one of the noblest and
+most godlike qualities of the human heart, generated, perhaps, slowly
+and gradually from self-love, and afterwards intended to act as a
+general law, whose kind office it should be, to soften the partial
+deformities, to correct the asperities, and to smooth the wrinkles of
+its parent: and this seems to be the analog of all nature. Perhaps
+there is no one general law of nature that will not appear, to us at
+least, to produce partial evil; and we frequently observe at the same
+time, some bountiful provision which, acting as another general law,
+corrects the inequalities of the first.
+
+The proper office of benevolence is to soften the partial evils arising
+from self-love, but it can never be substituted in its place. If no man
+were to allow himself to act till he had completely determined that the
+action he was about to perform was more conducive than any other to the
+general good, the most enlightened minds would hesitate in perplexity
+and amazement; and the unenlightened would be continually committing
+the grossest mistakes.
+
+As Mr Godwin, therefore, has not laid down any practical principle
+according to which the necessary labours of agriculture might be
+amicably shared among the whole class of labourers, by general
+invectives against employing the poor he appears to pursue an
+unattainable good through much present evil. For if every man who
+employs the poor ought to be considered as their enemy, and as adding
+to the weight of their oppressions, and if the miser is for this reason
+to be preferred to the man who spends his income, it follows that any
+number of men who now spend their incomes might, to the advantage of
+society, be converted into misers. Suppose then that a hundred thousand
+persons who now employ ten men each were to lock up their wealth from
+general use, it is evident, that a million of working men of different
+kinds would be completely thrown out of all employment. The extensive
+misery that such an event would produce in the present state of society
+Mr Godwin himself could hardly refuse to acknowledge, and I question
+whether he might not find some difficulty in proving that a conduct of
+this kind tended more than the conduct of those who spend their incomes
+to 'place human beings in the condition in which they ought to be
+placed.' But Mr Godwin says that the miser really locks up nothing,
+that the point has not been rightly understood, and that the true
+development and definition of the nature of wealth have not been
+applied to illustrate it. Having defined therefore wealth, very justly,
+to be the commodities raised and fostered by human labour, he observes
+that the miser locks up neither corn, nor oxen, nor clothes, nor
+houses. Undoubtedly he does not really lock up these articles, but he
+locks up the power of producing them, which is virtually the same.
+These things are certainly used and consumed by his contemporaries, as
+truly, and to as great an extent, as if he were a beggar; but not to as
+great an extent as if he had employed his wealth in turning up more
+land, in breeding more oxen, in employing more tailors, and in building
+more houses. But supposing, for a moment, that the conduct of the miser
+did not tend to check any really useful produce, how are all those who
+are thrown out of employment to obtain patents which they may shew in
+order to be awarded a proper share of the food and raiment produced by
+the society? This is the unconquerable difficulty.
+
+I am perfectly willing to concede to Mr Godwin that there is much more
+labour in the world than is really necessary, and that, if the lower
+classes of society could agree among themselves never to work more than
+six or seven hours in the day, the commodities essential to human
+happiness might still be produced in as great abundance as at present.
+But it is almost impossible to conceive that such an agreement could be
+adhered to. From the principle of population, some would necessarily be
+more in want than others. Those that had large families would naturally
+be desirous of exchanging two hours more of their labour for an ampler
+quantity of subsistence. How are they to be prevented from making this
+exchange? it would be a violation of the first and most sacred property
+that a man possesses to attempt, by positive institutions, to interfere
+with his command over his own labour.
+
+Till Mr Godwin, therefore, can point out some practical plan according
+to which the necessary labour in a society might be equitably divided,
+his invectives against labour, if they were attended to, would
+certainly produce much present evil without approximating us to that
+state of cultivated equality to which he looks forward as his polar
+star, and which, he seems to think, should at present be our guide in
+determining the nature and tendency of human actions. A mariner guided
+by such a polar star is in danger of shipwreck.
+
+Perhaps there is no possible way in which wealth could in general be
+employed so beneficially to a state, and particularly to the lower
+orders of it, as by improving and rendering productive that land which
+to a farmer would not answer the expense of cultivation. Had Mr Godwin
+exerted his energetic eloquence in painting the superior worth and
+usefulness of the character who employed the poor in this way, to him
+who employed them in narrow luxuries, every enlightened man must have
+applauded his efforts. The increasing demand for agricultural labour
+must always tend to better the condition of the poor; and if the
+accession of work be of this kind, so far is it from being true that
+the poor would be obliged to work ten hours for the same price that
+they before worked eight, that the very reverse would be the fact; and
+a labourer might then support his wife and family as well by the labour
+of six hours as he could before by the labour of eight.
+
+The labour created by luxuries, though useful in distributing the
+produce of the country, without vitiating the proprietor by power, or
+debasing the labourer by dependence, has not, indeed, the same
+beneficial effects on the state of the poor. A great accession of work
+from manufacturers, though it may raise the price of labour even more
+than an increasing demand for agricultural labour, yet, as in this case
+the quantity of food in the country may not be proportionably
+increasing, the advantage to the poor will be but temporary, as the
+price of provisions must necessarily rise in proportion to the price of
+labour. Relative to this subject, I cannot avoid venturing a few
+remarks on a part of Dr Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, speaking at the
+same time with that diffidence which I ought certainly to feel in
+differing from a person so justly celebrated in the political world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 16
+
+Probable error of Dr Adam Smith in representing every increase of the
+revenue or stock of a society as an increase in the funds for the
+maintenance of labour--Instances where an increase of wealth can have
+no tendency to better the condition of the labouring poor--England has
+increased in riches without a proportional increase in the funds for
+the maintenance of labour--The state of the poor in China would not be
+improved by an increase of wealth from manufactures.
+
+
+The professed object of Dr Adam Smith's inquiry is the nature and
+causes of the wealth of nations. There is another inquiry, however,
+perhaps still more interesting, which he occasionally mixes with it; I
+mean an inquiry into the causes which affect the happiness of nations
+or the happiness and comfort of the lower orders of society, which is
+the most numerous class in every nation. I am sufficiency aware of the
+near connection of these two subjects, and that the causes which tend
+to increase the wealth of a state tend also, generally speaking, to
+increase the happiness of the lower classes of the people. But perhaps
+Dr Adam Smith has considered these two inquiries as still more nearly
+connected than they really are; at least, he has not stopped to take
+notice of those instances where the wealth of a society may increase
+(according to his definition of 'wealth') without having any tendency
+to increase the comforts of the labouring part of it. I do not mean to
+enter into a philosophical discussion of what constitutes the proper
+happiness of man, but shall merely consider two universally
+acknowledged ingredients, health, and the command of the necessaries
+and conveniences of life.
+
+Little or no doubt can exist that the comforts of the labouring poor
+depend upon the increase of the funds destined for the maintenance of
+labour, and will be very exactly in proportion to the rapidity of this
+increase. The demand for labour which such increase would occasion, by
+creating a competition in the market, must necessarily raise the value
+of labour, and, till the additional number of hands required were
+reared, the increased funds would be distributed to the same number of
+persons as before the increase, and therefore every labourer would live
+comparatively at his ease. But perhaps Dr Adam Smith errs in
+representing every increase of the revenue or stock of a society as an
+increase of these funds. Such surplus stock or revenue will, indeed,
+always be considered by the individual possessing it as an additional
+fund from which he may maintain more labour: but it will not be a real
+and effectual fund for the maintenance of an additional number of
+labourers, unless the whole, or at least a great part of this increase
+of the stock or revenue of the society, be convertible into a
+proportional quantity of provisions; and it will not be so convertible
+where the increase has arisen merely from the produce of labour, and
+not from the produce of land. A distinction will in this case occur,
+between the number of hands which the stock of the society could
+employ, and the number which its territory can maintain.
+
+To explain myself by an instance. Dr Adam Smith defines the wealth of a
+nation to consist. In the annual produce of its land and labour. This
+definition evidently includes manufactured produce, as well as the
+produce of the land. Now supposing a nation for a course of years was
+to add what it saved from its yearly revenue to its manufacturing
+capital solely, and not to its capital employed upon land, it is
+evident that it might grow richer according to the above definition,
+without a power of supporting a greater number of labourers, and,
+therefore, without an increase in the real funds for the maintenance of
+labour. There would, notwithstanding, be a demand for labour from the
+power which each manufacturer would possess, or at least think he
+possessed, of extending his old stock in trade or of setting up fresh
+works. This demand would of course raise the price of labour, but if
+the yearly stock of provisions in the country was not increasing, this
+rise would soon turn out to be merely nominal, as the price of
+provisions must necessarily rise with it. The demand for manufacturing
+labourers might, indeed, entice many from agriculture and thus tend to
+diminish the annual produce of the land, but we will suppose any effect
+of this kind to be compensated by improvements in the instruments of
+agriculture, and the quantity of provisions therefore to remain the
+same. Improvements in manufacturing machinery would of course take
+place, and this circumstance, added to the greater number of hands
+employed in manufactures, would cause the annual produce of the labour
+of the country to be upon the whole greatly increased. The wealth
+therefore of the country would be increasing annually, according to the
+definition, and might not, perhaps, be increasing very slowly.
+
+The question is whether wealth, increasing in this way, has any
+tendency to better the condition of the labouring poor. It is a
+self-evident proposition that any general rise in the price of labour,
+the stock of provisions remaining the same, can only be a nominal rise,
+as it must very shortly be followed by a proportional rise in the price
+of provisions. The increase in the price of labour, therefore, which we
+have supposed, would have little or no effect in giving the labouring
+poor a greater command over the necessaries and conveniences of life.
+In this respect they would be nearly in the same state as before. In
+one other respect they would be in a worse state. A greater proportion
+of them would be employed in manufactures, and fewer, consequently, in
+agriculture. And this exchange of professions will be allowed, I think,
+by all, to be very unfavourable in respect of health, one essential
+ingredient of happiness, besides the greater uncertainty of
+manufacturing labour, arising from the capricious taste of man, the
+accidents of war, and other causes.
+
+It may be said, perhaps, that such an instance as I have supposed could
+not occur, because the rise in the price of provisions would
+immediately turn some additional capital into the channel of
+agriculture. But this is an event which may take place very slowly, as
+it should be remarked that a rise in the price of labour had preceded
+the rise of provisions, and would, therefore, impede the good effects
+upon agriculture, which the increased value of the produce of the land
+might otherwise have occasioned.
+
+It might also be said, that the additional capital of the nation would
+enable it to import provisions sufficient for the maintenance of those
+whom its stock could employ. A small country with a large navy, and
+great inland accommodations for carriage, such as Holland, may, indeed,
+import and distribute an effectual quantity of provisions; but the
+price of provisions must be very high to make such an importation and
+distribution answer in large countries less advantageously
+circumstanced in this respect.
+
+An instance, accurately such as I have supposed, may not, perhaps, ever
+have occurred, but I have little doubt that instances nearly
+approximating to it may be found without any very laborious search.
+Indeed I am strongly inclined to think that England herself, since the
+Revolution, affords a very striking elucidation of the argument in
+question.
+
+The commerce of this country, internal as well as external, has
+certainly been rapidly advancing during the last century. The
+exchangeable value in the market of Europe of the annual produce of its
+land and labour has, without doubt, increased very considerably. But,
+upon examination, it will be found that the increase has been chiefly
+in the produce of labour and not in the produce of land, and therefore,
+though the wealth of the nation has been advancing with a quick pace,
+the effectual funds for the maintenance of labour have been increasing
+very slowly, and the result is such as might be expected. The
+increasing wealth of the nation has had little or no tendency to better
+the condition of the labouring poor. They have not, I believe, a
+greater command of the necessaries and conveniences of life, and a much
+greater proportion of them than at the period of the Revolution is
+employed in manufactures and crowded together in close and unwholesome
+rooms.
+
+Could we believe the statement of Dr Price that the population of
+England has decreased since the Revolution, it would even appear that
+the effectual funds for the maintenance of labour had been declining
+during the progress of wealth in other respects. For I conceive that it
+may be laid down as a general rule that if the effectual funds for the
+maintenance of labour are increasing, that is, if the territory can
+maintain as well as the stock employ a greater number of labourers,
+this additional number will quickly spring up, even in spite of such
+wars as Dr Price enumerates. And, consequently, if the population of
+any country has been stationary, or declining, we may safely infer,
+that, however it may have advanced in manufacturing wealth, its
+effectual funds for the maintenance of labour cannot have increased.
+
+It is difficult, however, to conceive that the population of England
+has been declining since the Revolution, though every testimony concurs
+to prove that its increase, if it has increased, has been very slow. In
+the controversy which the question has occasioned, Dr Price undoubtedly
+appears to be much more completely master of his subject, and to
+possess more accurate information, than his opponents. Judging simply
+from this controversy, I think one should say that Dr Price's point is
+nearer being proved than Mr Howlett's. Truth, probably, lies between
+the two statements, but this supposition makes the increase of
+population since the Revolution to have been very slow in comparison
+with the increase of wealth.
+
+That the produce of the land has been decreasing, or even that it has
+been absolutely stationary during the last century, few will be
+disposed to believe. The enclosure of commons and waste lands certainly
+tends to increase the food of the country, but it has been asserted
+with confidence that the enclosure of common fields has frequently had
+a contrary effect, and that large tracts of land which formerly
+produced great quantities of corn, by being converted into pasture both
+employ fewer hands and feed fewer mouths than before their enclosure.
+It is, indeed, an acknowledged truth, that pasture land produces a
+smaller quantity of human subsistence than corn land of the same
+natural fertility, and could it be clearly ascertained that from the
+increased demand for butchers' meat of the best quality, and its
+increased price in consequence, a greater quantity of good land has
+annually been employed in grazing, the diminution of human subsistence,
+which this circumstance would occasion, might have counterbalanced the
+advantages derived from the enclosure of waste lands, and the general
+improvements in husbandry.
+
+It scarcely need be remarked that the high price of butchers' meat at
+present, and its low price formerly, were not caused by the scarcity in
+the one case or the plenty in the other, but by the different expense
+sustained at the different periods, in preparing cattle for the market.
+It is, however, possible, that there might have been more cattle a
+hundred years ago in the country than at present; but no doubt can be
+entertained, that there is much more meat of a superior quality brought
+to market at present than ever there was. When the price of butchers'
+meat was very low, cattle were reared chiefly upon waste lands; and
+except for some of the principal markets, were probably killed with but
+little other fatting. The veal that is sold so cheap in some distant
+counties at present bears little other resemblance than the name, to
+that which is bought in London. Formerly, the price of butchers, meat
+would not pay for rearing, and scarcely for feeding, cattle on land
+that would answer in tillage; but the present price will not only pay
+for fatting cattle on the very best land, but will even allow of the
+rearing many, on land that would bear good crops of corn. The same
+number of cattle, or even the same weight of cattle at the different
+periods when killed, will have consumed (if I may be allowed the
+expression) very different quantities of human substance. A fatted
+beast may in some respects be considered, in the language of the French
+economists, as an unproductive labourer: he has added nothing to the
+value of the raw produce that he has consumed. The present system of
+grating, undoubtedly tends more than the former system to diminish the
+quantity of human subsistence in the country, in proportion to the
+general fertility of the land.
+
+I would not by any means be understood to say that the former system
+either could or ought to have continued. The increasing price of
+butchers' meat is a natural and inevitable consequence of the general
+progress of cultivation; but I cannot help thinking, that the present
+great demand for butchers' meat of the best quality, and the quantity
+of good land that is in consequence annually employed to produce it,
+together with the great number of horses at present kept for pleasure,
+are the chief causes that have prevented the quantity of human food in
+the country from keeping pace with the generally increased fertility of
+the soil; and a change of custom in these respects would, I have little
+doubt, have a very sensible effect on the quantity of subsistence in
+the country, and consequently on its population.
+
+The employment of much of the most fertile land in grating, the
+improvements in agricultural instruments, the increase of large farms,
+and particularly the diminution of the number of cottages throughout
+the kingdom, all concur to prove, that there are not probably so many
+persons employed in agricultural labour now as at the period of the
+Revolution. Whatever increase of population, therefore, has taken
+place, must be employed almost wholly in manufactures, and it is well
+known that the failure of some of these manufactures, merely from the
+caprice of fashion, such as the adoption of muslins instead of silks,
+or of shoe-strings and covered buttons, instead of buckles and metal
+buttons, combined with the restraints in the market of labour arising
+from corporation and parish laws, have frequently driven thousands on
+charity for support. The great increase of the poor rates is, indeed,
+of itself a strong evidence that the poor have not a greater command of
+the necessaries and conveniences of life, and if to the consideration,
+that their condition in this respect is rather worse than better, be
+added the circumstance, that a much greater proportion of them is
+employed in large manufactories, unfavourable both to health and
+virtue, it must be acknowledged, that the increase of wealth of late
+years has had no tendency to increase the happiness of the labouring
+poor.
+
+That every increase of the stock or revenue of a nation cannot be
+considered as an increase of the real funds for the maintenance of
+labour and, therefore, cannot have the same good effect upon the
+condition of the poor, will appear in a strong light if the argument be
+applied to China.
+
+Dr Adam Smith observes that China has probably long been as rich as the
+nature of her laws and institutions will admit, but that with other
+laws and institutions, and if foreign commerce were had in honour, she
+might still be much richer. The question is, would such an increase of
+wealth be an increase of the real funds for the maintenance of labour,
+and consequently tend to place the lower classes of people in China in
+a state of greater plenty?
+
+It is evident, that if trade and foreign commerce were held in great
+honour in China, from the plenty of labourers, and the cheapness of
+labour, she might work up manufactures for foreign sale to an immense
+amount. It is equally evident that from the great bulk of provisions
+and the amazing extent of her inland territory she could not in return
+import such a quantity as would be any sensible addition to the annual
+stock of subsistence in the country. Her immense amount of
+manufactures, therefore, she would exchange, chiefly, for luxuries
+collected from all parts of the world. At present, it appears, that no
+labour whatever is spared in the production of food. The country is
+rather over-people in proportion to what its stock can employ, and
+labour is, therefore, so abundant, that no pains are taken to abridge
+it. The consequence of this is, probably, the greatest production of
+food that the soil can possibly afford, for it will be generally
+observed, that processes for abridging labour, though they may enable a
+farmer to bring a certain quantity of grain cheaper to market, tend
+rather to diminish than increase the whole produce; and in agriculture,
+therefore, may, in some respects, be considered rather as private than
+public advantages.
+
+An immense capital could not be employed in China in preparing
+manufactures for foreign trade without taking off so many labourers
+from agriculture as to alter this state of things, and in some degree
+to diminish the produce of the country. The demand for manufacturing
+labourers would naturally raise the price of labour, but as the
+quantity of subsistence would not be increased, the price of provisions
+would keep pace with it, or even more than keep pace with it if the
+quantity of provisions were really decreasing. The country would be
+evidently advancing in wealth, the exchangeable value of the annual
+produce of its land and labour would be annually augmented, yet the
+real funds for the maintenance of labour would be stationary, or even
+declining, and, consequently, the increasing wealth of the nation would
+rather tend to depress than to raise the condition of the poor. With
+regard to the command over the necessaries and comforts of life, they
+would be in the same or rather worse state than before; and a great
+part of them would have exchanged the healthy labours of agriculture
+for the unhealthy occupations of manufacturing industry.
+
+The argument, perhaps, appears clearer when applied to China, because
+it is generally allowed that the wealth of China has been long
+stationary. With regard to any other country it might be always a
+matter of dispute at which of the two periods, compared, wealth was
+increasing the fastest, as it is upon the rapidity of the increase of
+wealth at any particular period that Dr Adam Smith says the condition
+of the poor depends. It is evident, however, that two nations might
+increase exactly with the same rapidity in the exchangeable value of
+the annual produce of their land and labour, yet if one had applied
+itself chiefly to agriculture, and the other chiefly to commerce, the
+funds for the maintenance of labour, and consequently the effect of the
+increase of wealth in each nation, would be extremely different. In
+that which had applied itself chiefly to agriculture, the poor would
+live in great plenty, and population would rapidly increase. In that
+which had applied itself chiefly to commerce, the poor would be
+comparatively but little benefited and consequently population would
+increase slowly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 17
+
+Question of the proper definition of the wealth of a state--Reason
+given by the French economists for considering all manufacturers as
+unproductive labourers, not the true reason--The labour of artificers
+and manufacturers sufficiently productive to individuals, though not to
+the state--A remarkable passage in Dr Price's two volumes of
+Observations--Error of Dr Price in attributing the happiness and rapid
+population of America, chiefly, to its peculiar state of
+civilization--No advantage can be expected from shutting our eyes to
+the difficulties in the way to the improvement of society.
+
+
+A question seems naturally to arise here whether the exchangeable value
+of the annual produce of the land and labour be the proper definition
+of the wealth of a country, or whether the gross produce of the land,
+according to the French economists, may not be a more accurate
+definition. Certain it is that every increase of wealth, according to
+the definition of the economists, will be an increase of the funds for
+the maintenance of labour, and consequently will always tend to
+ameliorate the condition of the labouring poor, though an increase of
+wealth, according to Dr Adam Smith's definition, will by no means
+invariably have the same tendency. And yet it may not follow from this
+consideration that Dr Adam Smith's definition is not just. It seems in
+many respects improper to exclude the clothing and lodging of a whole
+people from any part of their revenue. Much of it may, indeed, be of
+very trivial and unimportant value in comparison with the food of the
+country, yet still it may be fairly considered as a part of its
+revenue; and, therefore, the only point in which I should differ from
+Dr Adam Smith is where he seems to consider every increase of the
+revenue or stock of a society as an increase of the funds for the
+maintenance of labour, and consequently as tending always to ameliorate
+the condition of the poor.
+
+The fine silks and cottons, the laces, and other ornamental luxuries of
+a rich country, may contribute very considerably to augment the
+exchangeable value of its annual produce; yet they contribute but in a
+very small degree to augment the mass of happiness in the society, and
+it appears to me that it is with some view to the real utility of the
+produce that we ought to estimate the productiveness or
+unproductiveness of different sorts of labour. The French economists
+consider all labour employed in manufactures as unproductive. Comparing
+it with the labour employed upon land, I should be perfectly disposed
+to agree with them, but not exactly for the reasons which they give.
+They say that labour employed upon land is productive because the
+produce, over and above completely paying the labourer and the farmer,
+affords a clear rent to the landlord, and that the labour employed upon
+a piece of lace is unproductive because it merely replaces the
+provisions that the workman had consumed, and the stock of his
+employer, without affording any clear rent whatever. But supposing the
+value of the wrought lace to be such as that, besides paying in the
+most complete manner the workman and his employer, it could afford a
+clear rent to a third person, it appears to me that, in comparison with
+the labour employed upon land, it would be still as unproductive as
+ever. Though, according to the reasoning used by the French economists,
+the man employed in the manufacture of lace would, in this case, seem
+to be a productive labourer. Yet according to their definition of the
+wealth of a state, he ought not to be considered in that light. He will
+have added nothing to the gross produce of the land: he has consumed a
+portion of this gross produce, and has left a bit of lace in return;
+and though he may sell this bit of lace for three times the quantity of
+provisions that he consumed whilst he was making it, and thus be a very
+productive labourer with regard to himself, yet he cannot be considered
+as having added by his labour to any essential part of the riches of
+the state. The clear rent, therefore, that a certain produce can
+afford, after paying the expenses of procuring it, does not appear to
+be the sole criterion, by which to judge of the productiveness or
+unproductiveness to a state of any particular species of labour.
+
+Suppose that two hundred thousand men, who are now employed in
+producing manufactures that only tend to gratify the vanity of a few
+rich people, were to be employed upon some barren and uncultivated
+lands, and to produce only half the quantity of food that they
+themselves consumed; they would be still more productive labourers with
+regard to the state than they were before, though their labour, so far
+from affording a rent to a third person, would but half replace the
+provisions used in obtaining the produce. In their former employment
+they consumed a certain portion of the food of the country and left in
+return some silks and laces. In their latter employment they consumed
+the same quantity of food and left in return provision for a hundred
+thousand men. There can be little doubt which of the two legacies would
+be the most really beneficial to the country, and it will, I think, be
+allowed that the wealth which supported the two hundred thousand men
+while they were producing silks and laces would have been more usefully
+employed in supporting them while they were producing the additional
+quantity of food.
+
+A capital employed upon land may be unproductive to the individual that
+employs it and yet be highly productive to the society. A capital
+employed in trade, on the contrary, may be highly productive to the
+individual, and yet be almost totally unproductive to the society: and
+this is the reason why I should call manufacturing labour unproductive,
+in comparison of that which is employed in agriculture, and not for the
+reason given by the French economists. It is, indeed, almost impossible
+to see the great fortunes that are made in trade, and the liberality
+with which so many merchants live, and yet agree in the statement of
+the economists, that manufacturers can only grow rich by depriving
+themselves of the funds destined for their support. In many branches of
+trade the profits are so great as would allow of a clear rent to a
+third person; but as there is no third person in the case, and as all
+the profits centre in the master manufacturer, or merchant, he seems to
+have a fair chance of growing rich, without much privation; and we
+consequently see large fortunes acquired in trade by persons who have
+not been remarked for their parsimony.
+
+Daily experience proves that the labour employed in trade and
+manufactures is sufficiently productive to individuals, but it
+certainly is not productive in the same degree to the state. Every
+accession to the food of a country tends to the immediate benefit of
+the whole society; but the fortunes made in trade tend but in a remote
+and uncertain manner to the same end, and in some respects have even a
+contrary tendency. The home trade of consumption is by far the most
+important trade of every nation. China is the richest country in the
+world, without any other. Putting then, for a moment, foreign trade out
+of the question, the man who, by an ingenious manufacture, obtains a
+double portion out of the old stock of provisions, will certainly not
+to be so useful to the state as the man who, by his labour, adds a
+single share to the former stock. The consumable commodities of silks,
+laces, trinkets, and expensive furniture, are undoubtedly a part of the
+revenue of the society; but they are the revenue only of the rich, and
+not of the society in general. An increase in this part of the revenue
+of a state, cannot, therefore, be considered of the same importance as
+an increase of food, which forms the principal revenue of the great
+mass of the people.
+
+Foreign commerce adds to the wealth of a state, according to Dr Adam
+Smith's definition, though not according to the definition of the
+economists. Its principal use, and the reason, probably, that it has in
+general been held in such high estimation is that it adds greatly to
+the external power of a nation or to its power of commanding the labour
+of other countries; but it will be found, upon a near examination, to
+contribute but little to the increase of the internal funds for the
+maintenance of labour, and consequently but little to the happiness of
+the greatest part of society. In the natural progress of a state
+towards riches, manufactures, and foreign commerce would follow, in
+their order, the high cultivation of the soil. In Europe, this natural
+order of things has been inverted, and the soil has been cultivated
+from the redundancy of manufacturing capital, instead of manufactures
+rising from the redundancy of capital employed upon land. The superior
+encouragement that has been given to the industry of the towns, and the
+consequent higher price that is paid for the labour of artificers than
+for the labour of those employed in husbandry, are probably the reasons
+why so much soil in Europe remains uncultivated. Had a different policy
+been pursued throughout Europe, it might undoubtedly have been much
+more populous than at present, and yet not be more incumbered by its
+population.
+
+I cannot quit this curious subject of the difficulty arising from
+population, a subject that appears to me to deserve a minute
+investigation and able discussion much beyond my power to give it,
+without taking notice of an extraordinary passage in Dr Price's two
+volumes of Observations. Having given some tables on the probabilities
+of life, in towns and in the country, he says (Vol. II, p. 243):
+
+From this comparison, it appears with how much truth great cities have
+been called the graves of mankind. It must also convince all who
+consider it, that according to the observation, at the end of the
+fourth essay, in the former volume, it is by no means strictly proper
+to consider our diseases as the original intention of nature. They are,
+without doubt, in general our own creation. Were there a country where
+the inhabitants led lives entirely natural and virtuous, few of them
+would die without measuring out the whole period of present existence
+allotted to them; pain and distemper would be unknown among them, and
+death would come upon them like a sleep, in consequence of no other
+cause than gradual and unavoidable decay.
+
+I own that I felt myself obliged to draw a very opposite conclusion
+from the facts advanced in Dr Price's two volumes. I had for some time
+been aware that population and food increased in different ratios, and
+a vague opinion had been floating in my mind that they could only be
+kept equal by some species of misery or vice, but the perusal of Dr
+Price's two volumes of Observations, after that opinion had been
+conceived, raised it at once to conviction. With so many facts in his
+view to prove the extraordinary rapidity with which population
+increases when unchecked, and with such a body of evidence before him
+to elucidate even the manner by which the general laws of nature
+repress a redundant population, it is perfectly inconceivable to me how
+he could write the passage that I have quoted. He was a strenuous
+advocate for early marriages, as the best preservative against vicious
+manners. He had no fanciful conceptions about the extinction of the
+passion between the sexes, like Mr Godwin, nor did he ever think of
+eluding the difficulty in the ways hinted at by Mr Condorcet. He
+frequently talks of giving the prolifick powers of nature room to exert
+themselves. Yet with these ideas, that his understanding could escape
+from the obvious and necessary inference that an unchecked population
+would increase, beyond comparison, faster than the earth, by the best
+directed exertions of man, could produce food for its support, appears
+to me as astonishing as if he had resisted the conclusion of one of the
+plainest propositions of Euclid.
+
+Dr Price, speaking of the different stages of the civilized state,
+says, 'The first, or simple stages of civilization, are those which
+favour most the increase and the happiness of mankind.' He then
+instances the American colonies, as being at that time in the first and
+happiest of the states that he had described, and as affording a very
+striking proof of the effects of the different stages of civilization
+on population. But he does not seem to be aware that the happiness of
+the Americans depended much less upon their peculiar degree of
+civilization than upon the peculiarity of their situation, as new
+colonies, upon their having a great plenty of fertile uncultivated
+land. In parts of Norway, Denmark, or Sweden, or in this country, two
+or three hundred years ago, he might have found perhaps nearly the same
+degree of civilization, but by no means the same happiness or the same
+increase of population. He quotes himself a statute of Henry the
+Eighth, complaining of the decay of tillage, and the enhanced price of
+provisions, 'whereby a marvellous number of people were rendered
+incapable of maintaining themselves and families.' The superior degree
+of civil liberty which prevailed in America contributed, without doubt,
+its share to promote the industry, happiness, and population of these
+states, but even civil liberty, all powerful as it is, will not create
+fresh land. The Americans may be said, perhaps, to enjoy a greater
+degree of civil liberty, now they are an independent people, than while
+they were in subjection in England, but we may be perfectly sure that
+population will not long continue to increase with the same rapidity as
+it did then.
+
+A person who contemplated the happy state of the lower classes of
+people in America twenty years ago would naturally wish to retain them
+for ever in that state, and might think, perhaps, that by preventing
+the introduction of manufactures and luxury he might effect his
+purpose, but he might as reasonably expect to prevent a wife or
+mistress from growing old by never exposing her to the sun or air. The
+situation of new colonies, well governed, is a bloom of youth that no
+efforts can arrest. There are, indeed, many modes of treatment in the
+political, as well as animal, body, that contribute to accelerate or
+retard the approaches of age, but there can be no chance of success, in
+any mode that could be devised, for keeping either of them in perpetual
+youth. By encouraging the industry of the towns more than the industry
+of the country, Europe may be said, perhaps, to have brought on a
+premature old age. A different policy in this respect would infuse
+fresh life and vigour into every state. While from the law of
+primogeniture, and other European customs, land bears a monopoly price,
+a capital can never be employed in it with much advantage to the
+individual; and, therefore, it is not probable that the soil should be
+properly cultivated. And, though in every civilized state a class of
+proprietors and a class of labourers must exist, yet one permanent
+advantage would always result from a nearer equalization of property.
+The greater the number of proprietors, the smaller must be the number
+of labourers: a greater part of society would be in the happy state of
+possessing property: and a smaller part in the unhappy state of
+possessing no other property than their labour. But the best directed
+exertions, though they may alleviate, can never remove the pressure of
+want, and it will be difficult for any person who contemplates the
+genuine situation of man on earth, and the general laws of nature, to
+suppose it possible that any, the most enlightened, efforts could place
+mankind in a state where 'few would die without measuring out the whole
+period of present existence allotted to them; where pain and distemper
+would be unknown among them; and death would come upon them like a
+sleep, in consequence of no other cause than gradual and unavoidable
+decay.'
+
+It is, undoubtedly, a most disheartening reflection that the great
+obstacle in the way to any extraordinary improvement in society is of a
+nature that we can never hope to overcome. The perpetual tendency in
+the race of man to increase beyond the means of subsistence is one of
+the general laws of animated nature which we can have no reason to
+expect will change. Yet, discouraging as the contemplation of this
+difficulty must be to those whose exertions are laudably directed to
+the improvement of the human species, it is evident that no possible
+good can arise from any endeavours to slur it over or keep it in the
+background. On the contrary, the most baleful mischiefs may be expected
+from the unmanly conduct of not daring to face truth because it is
+unpleasing. Independently of what relates to this great obstacle,
+sufficient yet remains to be done for mankind to animate us to the most
+unremitted exertion. But if we proceed without a thorough knowledge and
+accurate comprehension of the nature, extent, and magnitude of the
+difficulties we have to encounter, or if we unwisely direct our efforts
+towards an object in which we cannot hope for success, we shall not
+only exhaust our strength in fruitless exertions and remain at as great
+a distance as ever from the summit of our wishes, but we shall be
+perpetually crushed by the recoil of this rock of Sisyphus.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 18
+
+The constant pressure of distress on man, from the principle of
+population, seems to direct our hopes to the future--State of trial
+inconsistent with our ideas of the foreknowledge of God--The world,
+probably, a mighty process for awakening matter into mind--Theory of
+the formation of mind--Excitements from the wants of the
+body--Excitements from the operation of general laws--Excitements from
+the difficulties of life arising from the principle of population.
+
+
+The view of human life which results from the contemplation of the
+constant pressure of distress on man from the difficulty of
+subsistence, by shewing the little expectation that he can reasonably
+entertain of perfectibility on earth, seems strongly to point his hopes
+to the future. And the temptations to which he must necessarily be
+exposed, from the operation of those laws of nature which we have been
+examining, would seem to represent the world in the light in which it
+has been frequently considered, as a state of trial and school of
+virtue preparatory to a superior state of happiness. But I hope I shall
+be pardoned if I attempt to give a view in some degree different of the
+situation of man on earth, which appears to me to be more consistent
+with the various phenomena of nature which we observe around us and
+more consonant to our ideas of the power, goodness, and foreknowledge
+of the Deity.
+
+It cannot be considered as an unimproving exercise of the human mind to
+endeavour to 'vindicate the ways of God to man' if we proceed with a
+proper distrust of our own understandings and a just sense of our
+insufficiency to comprehend the reason of all we see, if we hail every
+ray of light with gratitude, and, when no light appears, think that the
+darkness is from within and not from without, and bow with humble
+deference to the supreme wisdom of him whose 'thoughts are above our
+thoughts' 'as the heavens are high above the earth.'
+
+In all our feeble attempts, however, to 'find out the Almighty to
+perfection', it seems absolutely necessary that we should reason from
+nature up to nature's God and not presume to reason from God to nature.
+The moment we allow ourselves to ask why some things are not otherwise,
+instead of endeavouring to account for them as they are, we shall never
+know where to stop, we shall be led into the grossest and most childish
+absurdities, all progress in the knowledge of the ways of Providence
+must necessarily be at an end, and the study will even cease to be an
+improving exercise of the human mind. Infinite power is so vast and
+incomprehensible an idea that the mind of man must necessarily be
+bewildered in the contemplation of it. With the crude and puerile
+conceptions which we sometimes form of this attribute of the Deity, we
+might imagine that God could call into being myriads and myriads of
+existences, all free from pain and imperfection, all eminent in
+goodness and wisdom, all capable of the highest enjoyments, and
+unnumbered as the points throughout infinite space. But when from these
+vain and extravagant dreams of fancy, we turn our eyes to the book of
+nature, where alone we can read God as he is, we see a constant
+succession of sentient beings, rising apparently from so many specks of
+matter, going through a long and sometimes painful process in this
+world, but many of them attaining, ere the termination of it, such high
+qualities and powers as seem to indicate their fitness for some
+superior state. Ought we not then to correct our crude and puerile
+ideas of infinite Power from the contemplation of what we actually see
+existing? Can we judge of the Creator but from his creation? And,
+unless we wish to exalt the power of God at the expense of his
+goodness, ought we not to conclude that even to the great Creator,
+almighty as he is, a certain process may be necessary, a certain time
+(or at least what appears to us as time) may be requisite, in order to
+form beings with those exalted qualities of mind which will fit them
+for his high purposes?
+
+A state of trial seems to imply a previously formed existence that does
+not agree with the appearance of man in infancy and indicates something
+like suspicion and want of foreknowledge, inconsistent with those ideas
+which we wish to cherish of the Supreme Being. I should be inclined,
+therefore, as I have hinted before, to consider the world and this life
+as the mighty process of God, not for the trial, but for the creation
+and formation of mind, a process necessary to awaken inert, chaotic
+matter into spirit, to sublimate the dust of the earth into soul, to
+elicit an ethereal spark from the clod of clay. And in this view of the
+subject, the various impressions and excitements which man receives
+through life may be considered as the forming hand of his Creator,
+acting by general laws, and awakening his sluggish existence, by the
+animating touches of the Divinity, into a capacity of superior
+enjoyment. The original sin of man is the torpor and corruption of the
+chaotic matter in which he may be said to be born.
+
+It could answer no good purpose to enter into the question whether mind
+be a distinct substance from matter, or only a finer form of it. The
+question is, perhaps, after all, a question merely of words. Mind is as
+essentially mind, whether formed from matter or any other substance. We
+know from experience that soul and body are most intimately united, and
+every appearance seems to indicate that they grow from infancy
+together. It would be a supposition attended with very little
+probability to believe that a complete and full formed spirit existed
+in every infant, but that it was clogged and impeded in its operations
+during the first twenty years of life by the weakness, or hebetude, of
+the organs in which it was enclosed. As we shall all be disposed to
+agree that God is the creator of mind as well as of body, and as they
+both seem to be forming and unfolding themselves at the same time, it
+cannot appear inconsistent either with reason or revelation, if it
+appear to be consistent with phenomena of nature, to suppose that God
+is constantly occupied in forming mind out of matter and that the
+various impressions that man receives through life is the process for
+that purpose. The employment is surely worthy of the highest attributes
+of the Deity.
+
+This view of the state of man on earth will not seem to be unattended
+with probability, if, judging from the little experience we have of the
+nature of mind, it shall appear upon investigation that the phenomena
+around us, and the various events of human life, seem peculiarly
+calculated to promote this great end, and especially if, upon this
+supposition, we can account, even to our own narrow understandings, for
+many of those roughnesses and inequalities in life which querulous man
+too frequently makes the subject of his complaint against the God of
+nature.
+
+The first great awakeners of the mind seem to be the wants of the body.
+(It was my intention to have entered at some length into this subject
+as a kind of second part to the Essay. A long interruption, from
+particular business, has obliged me to lay aside this intention, at
+least for the present. I shall now, therefore, only give a sketch of a
+few of the leading circumstances that appear to me to favour the
+general supposition that I have advanced.) They are the first
+stimulants that rouse the brain of infant man into sentient activity,
+and such seems to be the sluggishness of original matter that unless by
+a peculiar course of excitements other wants, equally powerful, are
+generated, these stimulants seem, even afterwards, to be necessary to
+continue that activity which they first awakened. The savage would
+slumber for ever under his tree unless he were roused from his torpor
+by the cravings of hunger or the pinchings of cold, and the exertions
+that he makes to avoid these evils, by procuring food, and building
+himself a covering, are the exercises which form and keep in motion his
+faculties, which otherwise would sink into listless inactivity. From
+all that experience has taught us concerning the structure of the human
+mind, if those stimulants to exertion which arise from the wants of the
+body were removed from the mass of mankind, we have much more reason to
+think that they would be sunk to the level of brutes, from a deficiency
+of excitements, than that they would be raised to the rank of
+philosophers by the possession of leisure. In those countries where
+nature is the most redundant in spontaneous produce the inhabitants
+will not be found the most remarkable for acuteness of intellect.
+Necessity has been with great truth called the mother of invention.
+Some of the noblest exertions of the human mind have been set in motion
+by the necessity of satisfying the wants of the body. Want has not
+unfrequently given wings to the imagination of the poet, pointed the
+flowing periods of the historian, and added acuteness to the researches
+of the philosopher, and though there are undoubtedly many minds at
+present so far improved by the various excitements of knowledge, or of
+social sympathy, that they would not relapse into listlessness if their
+bodily stimulants were removed, yet it can scarcely be doubted that
+these stimulants could not be withdrawn from the mass of mankind
+without producing a general and fatal torpor, destructive of all the
+germs of future improvement.
+
+Locke, if I recollect, says that the endeavour to avoid pain rather
+than the pursuit of pleasure is the great stimulus to action in life:
+and that in looking to any particular pleasure, we shall not be roused
+into action in order to obtain it, till the contemplation of it has
+continued so long as to amount to a sensation of pain or uneasiness
+under the absence of it. To avoid evil and to pursue good seem to be
+the great duty and business of man, and this world appears to be
+peculiarly calculated to afford opportunity of the most unremitted
+exertion of this kind, and it is by this exertion, by these stimulants,
+that mind is formed. If Locke's idea be just, and there is great reason
+to think that it is, evil seems to be necessary to create exertion, and
+exertion seems evidently necessary to create mind.
+
+The necessity of food for the support of life gives rise, probably, to
+a greater quantity of exertion than any other want, bodily or mental.
+The Supreme Being has ordained that the earth shall not produce good in
+great quantities till much preparatory labour and ingenuity has been
+exercised upon its surface. There is no conceivable connection to our
+comprehensions, between the seed and the plant or tree that rises from
+it. The Supreme Creator might, undoubtedly, raise up plants of all
+kinds, for the use of his creatures, without the assistance of those
+little bits of matter, which we call seed, or even without the
+assisting labour and attention of man. The processes of ploughing and
+clearing the ground, of collecting and sowing seeds, are not surely for
+the assistance of God in his creation, but are made previously
+necessary to the enjoyment of the blessings of life, in order to rouse
+man into action, and form his mind to reason.
+
+To furnish the most unremitted excitements of this kind, and to urge
+man to further the gracious designs of Providence by the full
+cultivation of the earth, it has been ordained that population should
+increase much faster than food. This general law (as it has appeared in
+the former parts of this Essay) undoubtedly produces much partial evil,
+but a little reflection may, perhaps, satisfy us, that it produces a
+great overbalance of good. Strong excitements seem necessary to create
+exertion, and to direct this exertion, and form the reasoning faculty,
+it seems absolutely necessary, that the Supreme Being should act always
+according to general laws. The constancy of the laws of nature, or the
+certainty with which we may expect the same effects from the same
+causes, is the foundation of the faculty of reason. If in the ordinary
+course of things, the finger of God were frequently visible, or to
+speak more correctly, if God were frequently to change his purpose (for
+the finger of God is, indeed, visible in every blade of grass that we
+see), a general and fatal torpor of the human faculties would probably
+ensue; even the bodily wants of mankind would cease to stimulate them
+to exertion, could they not reasonably expect that if their efforts
+were well directed they would be crowned with success. The constancy of
+the laws of nature is the foundation of the industry and foresight of
+the husbandman, the indefatigable ingenuity of the artificer, the
+skilful researches of the physician and anatomist, and the watchful
+observation and patient investigation of the natural philosopher. To
+this constancy we owe all the greatest and noblest efforts of
+intellect. To this constancy we owe the immortal mind of a Newton.
+
+As the reasons, therefore, for the constancy of the laws of nature
+seem, even to our understandings, obvious and striking; if we return to
+the principle of population and consider man as he really is, inert,
+sluggish, and averse from labour, unless compelled by necessity (and it
+is surely the height of folly to talk of man, according to our crude
+fancies of what he might be), we may pronounce with certainty that the
+world would not have been peopled, but for the superiority of the power
+of population to the means of subsistence. Strong and constantly
+operative as this stimulus is on man to urge him to the cultivation of
+the earth, if we still see that cultivation proceeds very slowly, we
+may fairly conclude that a less stimulus would have been insufficient.
+Even under the operation of this constant excitement, savages will
+inhabit countries of the greatest natural fertility for a long period
+before they betake themselves to pasturage or agriculture. Had
+population and food increased in the same ratio, it is probable that
+man might never have emerged from the savage state. But supposing the
+earth once well peopled, an Alexander, a Julius Caesar, a Tamberlane,
+or a bloody revolution might irrecoverably thin the human race, and
+defeat the great designs of the Creator. The ravages of a contagious
+disorder would be felt for ages; and an earthquake might unpeople a
+region for ever. The principle, according to which population
+increases, prevents the vices of mankind, or the accidents of nature,
+the partial evils arising from general laws, from obstructing the high
+purpose of the creation. It keeps the inhabitants of the earth always
+fully up to the level of the means of subsistence; and is constantly
+acting upon man as a powerful stimulus, urging him to the further
+cultivation of the earth, and to enable it, consequently, to support a
+more extended population. But it is impossible that this law can
+operate, and produce the effects apparently intended by the Supreme
+Being, without occasioning partial evil. Unless the principle of
+population were to be altered according to the circumstances of each
+separate country (which would not only be contrary to our universal
+experience, with regard to the laws of nature, but would contradict
+even our own reason, which sees the absolute necessity of general laws
+for the formation of intellect), it is evident that the same principle
+which, seconded by industry, will people a fertile region in a few
+years must produce distress in countries that have been long inhabited.
+
+It seems, however, every way probable that even the acknowledged
+difficulties occasioned by the law of population tend rather to promote
+than impede the general purpose of Providence. They excite universal
+exertion and contribute to that infinite variety of situations, and
+consequently of impressions, which seems upon the whole favourable to
+the growth of mind. It is probable, that too great or too little
+excitement, extreme poverty, or too great riches may be alike
+unfavourable in this respect. The middle regions of society seem to be
+best suited to intellectual improvement, but it is contrary to the
+analogy of all nature to expect that the whole of society can be a
+middle region. The temperate zones of the earth seem to be the most
+favourable to the mental and corporal energies of man, but all cannot
+be temperate zones. A world, warmed and enlightened but by one sun,
+must from the laws of matter have some parts chilled by perpetual
+frosts and others scorched by perpetual heats. Every piece of matter
+lying on a surface must have an upper and an under side, all the
+particles cannot be in the middle. The most valuable parts of an oak,
+to a timber merchant, are not either the roots or the branches, but
+these are absolutely necessary to the existence of the middle part, or
+stem, which is the object in request. The timber merchant could not
+possibly expect to make an oak grow without roots or branches, but if
+he could find out a mode of cultivation which would cause more of the
+substance to go to stem, and less to root and branch, he would be right
+to exert himself in bringing such a system into general use.
+
+In the same manner, though we cannot possibly expect to exclude riches
+and poverty from society, yet if we could find out a mode of government
+by which the numbers in the extreme regions would be lessened and the
+numbers in the middle regions increased, it would be undoubtedly our
+duty to adopt it. It is not, however, improbable that as in the oak,
+the roots and branches could not be diminished very greatly without
+weakening the vigorous circulation of the sap in the stem, so in
+society the extreme parts could not be diminished beyond a certain
+degree without lessening that animated exertion throughout the middle
+parts, which is the very cause that they are the most favourable to the
+growth of intellect. If no man could hope to rise or fear to fall, in
+society, if industry did not bring with it its reward and idleness its
+punishment, the middle parts would not certainly be what they now are.
+In reasoning upon this subject, it is evident that we ought to consider
+chiefly the mass of mankind and not individual instances. There are
+undoubtedly many minds, and there ought to be many, according to the
+chances out of so great a mass, that, having been vivified early by a
+peculiar course of excitements, would not need the constant action of
+narrow motives to continue them in activity. But if we were to review
+the various useful discoveries, the valuable writings, and other
+laudable exertions of mankind, I believe we should find that more were
+to be attributed to the narrow motives that operate upon the many than
+to the apparently more enlarged motives that operate upon the few.
+
+Leisure is, without doubt, highly valuable to man, but taking man as he
+is, the probability seems to be that in the greater number of instances
+it will produce evil rather than good. It has been not infrequently
+remarked that talents are more common among younger brothers than among
+elder brothers, but it can scarcely be imagined that younger brothers
+are, upon an average, born with a greater original susceptibility of
+parts. The difference, if there really is any observable difference,
+can only arise from their different situations. Exertion and activity
+are in general absolutely necessary in one case and are only optional
+in the other.
+
+That the difficulties of life contribute to generate talents, every
+day's experience must convince us. The exertions that men find it
+necessary to make, in order to support themselves or families,
+frequently awaken faculties that might otherwise have lain for ever
+dormant, and it has been commonly remarked that new and extraordinary
+situations generally create minds adequate to grapple with the
+difficulties in which they are involved.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 19
+
+The sorrows of life necessary to soften and humanize the heart--The
+excitement of social sympathy often produce characters of a higher
+order than the mere possessors of talents--Moral evil probably
+necessary to the production of moral excellence--Excitements from
+intellectual wants continually kept up by the infinite variety of
+nature, and the obscurity that involves metaphysical subjects--The
+difficulties in revelation to be accounted for upon this principle--The
+degree of evidence which the scriptures contain, probably, best suited
+to the improvements of the human faculties, and the moral amelioration
+of mankind--The idea that mind is created by excitements seems to
+account for the existence of natural and moral evil.
+
+
+The sorrows and distresses of life form another class of excitements,
+which seem to be necessary, by a peculiar train of impressions, to
+soften and humanize the heart, to awaken social sympathy, to generate
+all the Christian virtues, and to afford scope for the ample exertion
+of benevolence. The general tendency of an uniform course of prosperity
+is rather to degrade than exalt the character. The heart that has never
+known sorrow itself will seldom be feelingly alive to the pains and
+pleasures, the wants and wishes, of its fellow beings. It will seldom
+be overflowing with that warmth of brotherly love, those kind and
+amiable affections, which dignify the human character even more than
+the possession of the highest talents. Talents, indeed, though
+undoubtedly a very prominent and fine feature of mind, can by no means
+be considered as constituting the whole of it. There are many minds
+which have not been exposed to those excitements that usually form
+talents, that have yet been vivified to a high degree by the
+excitements of social sympathy. In every rank of life, in the lowest as
+frequently as in the highest, characters are to be found overflowing
+with the milk of human kindness, breathing love towards God and man,
+and, though without those peculiar powers of mind called talents,
+evidently holding a higher rank in the scale of beings than many who
+possess them. Evangelical charity, meekness, piety, and all that class
+of virtues distinguished particularly by the name of Christian virtues
+do not seem necessarily to include abilities; yet a soul possessed of
+these amiable qualities, a soul awakened and vivified by these
+delightful sympathies, seems to hold a nearer commerce with the skies
+than mere acuteness of intellect.
+
+The greatest talents have been frequently misapplied and have produced
+evil proportionate to the extent of their powers. Both reason and
+revelation seem to assure us that such minds will be condemned to
+eternal death, but while on earth, these vicious instruments performed
+their part in the great mass of impressions, by the disgust and
+abhorrence which they excited. It seems highly probable that moral evil
+is absolutely necessary to the production of moral excellence. A being
+with only good placed in view may be justly said to be impelled by a
+blind necessity. The pursuit of good in this case can be no indication
+of virtuous propensities. It might be said, perhaps, that infinite
+Wisdom cannot want such an indication as outward action, but would
+foreknow with certainly whether the being would choose good or evil.
+This might be a plausible argument against a state of trial, but will
+not hold against the supposition that mind in this world is in a state
+of formation. Upon this idea, the being that has seen moral evil and
+has felt disapprobation and disgust at it is essentially different from
+the being that has seen only good. They are pieces of clay that have
+received distinct impressions: they must, therefore, necessarily be in
+different shapes; or, even if we allow them both to have the same
+lovely form of virtue, it must be acknowledged that one has undergone
+the further process, necessary to give firmness and durability to its
+substance, while the other is still exposed to injury, and liable to be
+broken by every accidental impulse. An ardent love and admiration of
+virtue seems to imply the existence of something opposite to it, and it
+seems highly probable that the same beauty of form and substance, the
+same perfection of character, could not be generated without the
+impressions of disapprobation which arise from the spectacle of moral
+evil.
+
+When the mind has been awakened into activity by the passions, and the
+wants of the body, intellectual wants arise; and the desire of
+knowledge, and the impatience under ignorance, form a new and important
+class of excitements. Every part of nature seems peculiarly calculated
+to furnish stimulants to mental exertion of this kind, and to offer
+inexhaustible food for the most unremitted inquiry. Our mortal Bard
+says of Cleopatra:
+
+  Custom cannot stale
+  Her infinite variety.
+
+The expression, when applied to any one object, may be considered as a
+poetical amplification, but it is accurately true when applied to
+nature. Infinite variety seems, indeed, eminently her characteristic
+feature. The shades that are here and there blended in the picture give
+spirit, life, and prominence to her exuberant beauties, and those
+roughnesses and inequalities, those inferior parts that support the
+superior, though they sometimes offend the fastidious microscopic eye
+of short-sighted man, contribute to the symmetry, grace, and fair
+proportion of the whole.
+
+The infinite variety of the forms and operations of nature, besides
+tending immediately to awaken and improve the mind by the variety of
+impressions that it creates, opens other fertile sources of improvement
+by offering so wide and extensive a field for investigation and
+research. Uniform, undiversified perfection could not possess the same
+awakening powers. When we endeavour then to contemplate the system of
+the universe, when we think of the stars as the suns of other systems
+scattered throughout infinite space, when we reflect that we do not
+probably see a millionth part of those bright orbs that are beaming
+light and life to unnumbered worlds, when our minds, unable to grasp
+the immeasurable conception, sink, lost and confounded, in admiration
+at the mighty incomprehensible power of the Creator, let us not
+querulously complain that all climates are not equally genial, that
+perpetual spring does not reign throughout the year, that God's
+creatures do not possess the same advantages, that clouds and tempests
+sometimes darken the natural world and vice and misery the moral world,
+and that all the works of the creation are not formed with equal
+perfection. Both reason and experience seem to indicate to us that the
+infinite variety of nature (and variety cannot exist without inferior
+parts, or apparent blemishes) is admirably adapted to further the high
+purpose of the creation and to produce the greatest possible quantity
+of good.
+
+The obscurity that involves all metaphysical subjects appears to me, in
+the same manner, peculiarly calculated to add to that class of
+excitements which arise from the thirst of knowledge. It is probable
+that man, while on earth, will never be able to attain complete
+satisfaction on these subjects; but this is by no means a reason that
+he should not engage in them. The darkness that surrounds these
+interesting topics of human curiosity may be intended to furnish
+endless motives to intellectual activity and exertion. The constant
+effort to dispel this darkness, even if it fail of success, invigorates
+and improves the thinking faculty. If the subjects of human inquiry
+were once exhausted, mind would probably stagnate; but the infinitely
+diversified forms and operations of nature, together with the endless
+food for speculation which metaphysical subjects offer, prevent the
+possibility that such a period should ever arrive.
+
+It is by no means one of the wisest sayings of Solomon that 'there is
+no new thing under the sun.' On the contrary, it is probable that were
+the present system to continue for millions of years, continual
+additions would be making to the mass of human knowledge, and yet,
+perhaps, it may be a matter of doubt whether what may be called the
+capacity of mind be in any marked and decided manner increasing. A
+Socrates, a Plato, or an Aristotle, however confessedly inferior in
+knowledge to the philosophers of the present day, do not appear to have
+been much below them in intellectual capacity. Intellect rises from a
+speck, continues in vigour only for a certain period, and will not
+perhaps admit while on earth of above a certain number of impressions.
+These impressions may, indeed, be infinitely modified, and from these
+various modifications, added probably to a difference in the
+susceptibility of the original germs, arise the endless diversity of
+character that we see in the world; but reason and experience seem both
+to assure us that the capacity of individual minds does not increase in
+proportion to the mass of existing knowledge. (It is probable that no
+two grains of wheat are exactly alike. Soil undoubtedly makes the
+principal difference in the blades that spring up, but probably not
+all. It seems natural to suppose some sort of difference in the
+original germs that are afterwards awakened into thought, and the
+extraordinary difference of susceptibility in very young children seems
+to confirm the supposition.)
+
+The finest minds seem to be formed rather by efforts at original
+thinking, by endeavours to form new combinations, and to discover new
+truths, than by passively receiving the impressions of other men's
+ideas. Could we suppose the period arrived, when there was not further
+hope of future discoveries, and the only employment of mind was to
+acquire pre-existing knowledge, without any efforts to form new and
+original combinations, though the mass of human knowledge were a
+thousand times greater than it is at present, yet it is evident that
+one of the noblest stimulants to mental exertion would have ceased; the
+finest feature of intellect would be lost; everything allied to genius
+would be at an end; and it appears to be impossible, that, under such
+circumstances, any individuals could possess the same intellectual
+energies as were possessed by a Locke, a Newton, or a Shakespeare, or
+even by a Socrates, a Plato, an Aristotle or a Homer.
+
+If a revelation from heaven of which no person could feel the smallest
+doubt were to dispel the mists that now hang over metaphysical
+subjects, were to explain the nature and structure of mind, the
+affections and essences of all substances, the mode in which the
+Supreme Being operates in the works of the creation, and the whole plan
+and scheme of the Universe, such an accession of knowledge so obtained,
+instead of giving additional vigour and activity to the human mind,
+would in all probability tend to repress future exertion and to damp
+the soaring wings of intellect.
+
+For this reason I have never considered the doubts and difficulties
+that involve some parts of the sacred writings as any ardent against
+their divine original. The Supreme Being might, undoubtedly, have
+accompanied his revelations to man by such a succession of miracles,
+and of such a nature, as would have produced universal overpowering
+conviction and have put an end at once to all hesitation and
+discussion. But weak as our reason is to comprehend the plans of the
+great Creator, it is yet sufficiently strong to see the most striking
+objections to such a revelation. From the little we know of the
+structure of the human understanding, we must be convinced that an
+overpowering conviction of this kind, instead of tending to the
+improvement and moral amelioration of man, would act like the touch of
+a torpedo on all intellectual exertion and would almost put an end to
+the existence of virtue. If the scriptural denunciations of eternal
+punishment were brought home with the same certainty to every man's
+mind as that the night will follow the day, this one vast and gloomy
+idea would take such full possession of the human faculties as to leave
+no room for any other conceptions, the external actions of men would be
+all nearly alike, virtuous conduct would be no indication of virtuous
+disposition, vice and virtue would be blended together in one common
+mass, and though the all-seeing eye of God might distinguish them they
+must necessarily make the same impressions on man, who can judge only
+from external appearances. Under such a dispensation, it is difficult
+to conceive how human beings could be formed to a detestation of moral
+evil, and a love and admiration of God, and of moral excellence.
+
+Our ideas of virtue and vice are not, perhaps, very accurate and
+well-defined; but few, I think, would call an action really virtuous
+which was performed simply and solely from the dread of a very great
+punishment or the expectation of a very great reward. The fear of the
+Lord is very justly said to be the beginning of wisdom, but the end of
+wisdom is the love of the Lord and the admiration of moral good. The
+denunciations of future punishment contained in the scriptures seem to
+be well calculated to arrest the progress of the vicious and awaken the
+attention of the careless, but we see from repeated experience that
+they are not accompanied with evidence of such a nature as to overpower
+the human will and to make men lead virtuous lives with vicious
+dispositions, merely from a dread of hereafter. A genuine faith, by
+which I mean a faith that shews itself in it the virtues of a truly
+Christian life, may generally be considered as an indication of an
+amiable and virtuous disposition, operated upon more by love than by
+pure unmixed fear.
+
+When we reflect on the temptations to which man must necessarily be
+exposed in this world, from the structure of his frame, and the
+operation of the laws of nature, and the consequent moral certainty
+that many vessels will come out of this mighty creative furnace in
+wrong shapes, it is perfectly impossible to conceive that any of these
+creatures of God's hand can be condemned to eternal suffering. Could we
+once admit such an idea, it our natural conceptions of goodness and
+justice would be completely overthrown, and we could no longer look up
+to God as a merciful and righteous Being. But the doctrine of life and
+Mortality which was brought to light by the gospel, the doctrine that
+the end of righteousness is everlasting life, but that the wages of sin
+are death, is in every respect just and merciful, and worthy of the
+great Creator. Nothing can appear more consonant to our reason than
+that those beings which come out of the creative process of the world
+in lovely and beautiful forms should be crowned with immortality, while
+those which come out misshapen, those whose minds are not suited to a
+purer and happier state of existence, should perish and be condemned to
+mix again with their original clay. Eternal condemnation of this kind
+may be considered as a species of eternal punishment, and it is not
+wonderful that it should be represented, sometimes, under images of
+suffering. But life and death, salvation and destruction, are more
+frequently opposed to each other in the New Testament than happiness
+and misery. The Supreme Being would appear to us in a very different
+view if we were to consider him as pursuing the creatures that had
+offended him with eternal hate and torture, instead of merely
+condemning to their original insensibility those beings that, by the
+operation of general laws, had not been formed with qualities suited to
+a purer state of happiness.
+
+Life is, generally speaking, a blessing independent of a future state.
+It is a gift which the vicious would not always be ready to throw away,
+even if they had no fear of death. The partial pain, therefore, that is
+inflicted by the supreme Creator, while he is forming numberless beings
+to a capacity of the highest enjoyments, is but as the dust of the
+balance in comparison of the happiness that is communicated, and we
+have every reason to think that there is no more evil in the world than
+what is absolutely necessary as one of the ingredients in the mighty
+process.
+
+The striking necessity of general laws for the formation of intellect
+will not in any respect be contradicted by one or two exceptions, and
+these evidently not intended for partial purposes, but calculated to
+operate upon a great part of mankind, and through many ages. Upon the
+idea that I have given of the formation of mind, the infringement of
+the general law of nature, by a divine revelation, will appear in the
+light of the immediate hand of God mixing new ingredients in the mighty
+mass, suited to the particular state of the process, and calculated to
+give rise to a new and powerful train of impressions, tending to
+purify, exalt, and improve the human mind. The miracles that
+accompanied these revelations when they had once excited the attention
+of mankind, and rendered it a matter of most interesting discussion,
+whether the doctrine was from God or man, had performed their part, had
+answered the purpose of the Creator, and these communications of the
+divine will were afterwards left to make their way by their own
+intrinsic excellence; and, by operating as moral motives, gradually to
+influence and improve, and not to overpower and stagnate the faculties
+of man.
+
+It would be, undoubtedly, presumptuous to say that the Supreme Being
+could not possibly have effected his purpose in any other way than that
+which he has chosen, but as the revelation of the divine will which we
+possess is attended with some doubts and difficulties, and as our
+reason points out to us the strongest objections to a revelation which
+would force immediate, implicit, universal belief, we have surely just
+cause to think that these doubts and difficulties are no argument
+against the divine origin of the scriptures, and that the species of
+evidence which they possess is best suited to the improvement of the
+human faculties and the moral amelioration of mankind.
+
+The idea that the impressions and excitements of this world are the
+instruments with which the Supreme Being forms matter into mind, and
+that the necessity of constant exertion to avoid evil and to pursue
+good is the principal spring of these impressions and excitements,
+seems to smooth many of the difficulties that occur in a contemplation
+of human life, and appears to me to give a satisfactory reason for the
+existence of natural and moral evil, and, consequently, for that part
+of both, and it certainly is not a very small part, which arises from
+the principle of population. But, though, upon this supposition, it
+seems highly improbable that evil should ever be removed from the
+world; yet it is evident that this impression would not answer the
+apparent purpose of the Creator; it would not act so powerfully as an
+excitement to exertion, if the quantity of it did not diminish or
+increase with the activity or the indolence of man. The continual
+variations in the weight and in the distribution of this pressure keep
+alive a constant expectation of throwing it off.
+
+  "Hope springs eternal in the Human breast,
+  Man never is, but always to be blest."
+
+Evil exists in the world not to create despair but activity. We are not
+patiently to submit to it, but to exert ourselves to avoid it. It is
+not only the interest but the duty of every individual to use his
+utmost efforts to remove evil from himself and from as large a circle
+as he can influence, and the more he exercises himself in this duty,
+the more wisely he directs his efforts, and the more successful these
+efforts are; the more he will probably improve and exalt his own mind,
+and the more completely does he appear to fulfil the will of his
+Creator.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Essay on the Principle of Population, by 
+Thomas Malthus
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAY--PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION ***
+
+***** This file should be named 4239.txt or 4239.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/3/4239/
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.