MR. MALTHUS.

MR. MALTHUS may be considered as one of those rare and fortunate writers who have attained a scientific reputation in questions of moral and political philosophy. His name undoubtedly stands very high in the present age, and will in all probability go down to posterity with more or less of renown or obloquy. It was said by a person well qualified to judge both from strength and candour of mind, that "it would take a thousand years at least to answer his work on Population." He has certainly thrown a new light on that question, and changed the aspect of political economy in a decided and material point of view-whether he has not also endeavored to spread a gloom over the hopes and more sanguine speculations of man, and to cast a slur upon the face of nature, is another question. There is this to be said for Mr. Malthus, that in speaking of him, one knows what one is talking about. He is something beyond a mere name-one has not to beat the bush about his talents, his attainments, his vast reputation, and leave off without knowing what it all amounts to-he is not one of those great men, who set themselves off and strut and fret an hour upon the stage, during a day-dream of popularity, with the ornaments and jewels borrowed from the common stock, to which nothing but their vanity and presumption gives them the least individual claim he has dug into the mine of truth, and brought up ore mixed with dross! In weighing his merits we come at once to the question of what he has done or failed to do. It is a specific claim that he sets up. When we speak of Mr. Malthus, we mean the Essay on Population; and when we mention the Essay on Popu lation, we mean a distinct leading proposition, that stands out intelligibly from all trashy pretence, and is a ground on which to

fix the levers that may move the world, backwards or forwant He has not left opinion where he found it; he has advanced given it a wrong bias, or thrown a stumbling block m In a word, his name is not stuck, like so many others, in the mament of reputation, nobody knows why, inscribed i letters, and with a transparency of TALENTS, GENTS, Leason blazing round it—it is tantamount to an idea, it is adeanded a principle, it means that the population can not go on pertan increasing without pressing on the limits of the means of inte and that a check of some kind or other must, sooner or later, in posed to it. This is the essence of the doctrine which Mr. Ma thus has been the first to bring into general notice, and think, to establish beyond the fear of contradiction. Adm then as we do the prominence and the value of his clasma to pub lic attention, it yet remains a question, how far those clame (as to the talent displayed in them) strictly original; how int to the logical accuracy with which he has treated the subject) he has introduced foreign and doubtful matter into it; and how far (as to the spirit in which he has conducted his inquiries, and ap plied a general principle to particular objects) he has only drawa fair and inevitable conclusions from it, or endeavoured to tamper with and wrest it to sinister and servile purposes. A writer who shrinks from following up a well-founded principle into its ento ward consequences from timidity or false delicacy, is not worthy of the name of a philosopher: a writer who assumes the garb of candour and an inflexible love of truth to garble and pervert crouch to power and pander to prejudice, deserves a worse title than that of a sophist!

Mr. Malthus's first octavo volume on this subject (pablished in the year 1798) was intended as an answer to Mr. Godwin's E quiry concerning Political Justice. It was well got up for the pur pose, and had an immediate effect. It was what in the language of the ring is called a facer. It made Mr Godwin and the other advocates of Modern Philosophy look about them It may be almost doubted whether Mr. Malthus was in the first instanAY serious in many things that he threw out, or whether he did t hazard the whole as an amusing and extreme paradox, which might puzzle the reader as it had done himself in an idle moment

but to which no practical consequence whatever could attach. This state of mind would probably continue till the irritation of enemies and the encouragement of friends convinced him that what he had at first exhibited as an idle fancy was in fact a very valuable discovery, or "like the toad ugly and venomous, had yet a precious jewel in its head." Such a supposition would at least account for some things in the original Essay, which scarcely any writer would venture upon, except as professed exercises of ingenuity, and which have been since in part retracted. But a wrong bias was thus given, and the author's theory was thus rendered warped, disjointed, and sophistical from the very outset.

Nothing could in fact be more illogical (not to say absurd) than the whole of Mr. Malthus's reasoning applied as an answer (par excellence) to Mr. Godwin's book, or to the theories of other Utopian philosophers. Mr. Godwin was not singular, but was kept in countenance by many authorities, both ancient and modern, in supposing a state of society possible in which the passions and wills of individuals would be conformed to the general good, in which the knowledge of the best means of promoting human welfare and the desire of contributing to it would banish vice and misery from the world, and in which, the stumbling-blocks of ignorance, of selfishness, and the indulgence of gross appetite being removed, all things would move on by the mere impulse of wisdom and virtue, to still higher and higher degrees of perfection and happiness. Compared with the lamentable and gross deficiencies of existing institutions, such a view of futurity as barely possible could not fail to allure the gaze and tempt the aspiring thoughts of the philanthropist and the philosopher: the hopes and the imaginations of speculative men could not but rush forward into this ideal world as into a vacuum of good; and from "the mighty stream of tendency" (as Mr. Wordsworth in the cant of the day calls it,) there was danger that the proud monuments of time-hallowed institutions, that the strong-holds of power and corruption, that "the Corinthian capitals of polished society," with the base and pediments, might be overthrown and swept away as by a hurricane. There were not wanting persons whose ignorance, whose fears, whose pride, or whose prejudices contemplated such an alternative with horror; and who would naturally feel no small

abugation to the man who shoul Flove their

the stunning mar of us mighty change at any aun 12 at a distance, and should be anie. Jy some ogni sorai expected tarn at the argument, to prevent the restri from seing nurried forward with the proges i mprovem dashed in pieces down the tremendous precipica fectiouty. Then comes Mr. Maitaus krward with i and arithmetical ratios in his hands, and boudis affrighted contemporaries as the only means of sum (so argued the author of the Essay) *et the princques Godwin's Enquiry and of other similar wirks de cartind and completely into effect; let every corruption and power be entirely got ni of, et virtue, knowled,~,and ar be advanced to the greatest height mat these vial.BAIT would suppose, let the passions and appetites de su jecte atmost control of reason and influence of prout eținLA them, in a word, all that they ask, and the more com.§.-sz views are realized, the sooner wil they be overtarowa agaa the more inevitable and fatal will be the catastrpre principle of population was sta preval, and fr 20 Den case, and plenty that will abound, will receive an ind and impetus; the number of mouths to be led wind hav but the lood that is to supply them cannot keep pace w. mand for it, we must come to a stup sumes here, even each square yard, by extreme unprovements in cu.". maintain its man, in this state of things there was the wholesome checks of vice and misery (who kopt this principle within bounds) wal have been some a voice of reason will be unheard, the juskas only famine, distress, havoc, and dismay will spread armi, bered vidence, war, and blood-shed will be the intube arm, and from the pinnacle of happiness, peace, reLucment, and alvintage, we shall be hurie i once u are intɔ a prum vimet of tuis 1), wati, aŭd barbarası than ever, by Last Bank va

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ment of the Esay Cith diy luma be was consuNTE, Complete faniacy and jetúw pingu? Mr Mania czar imes a state of perfectibusty, such as his opponents thinkų

in which the general good is to obtain the entire mastery of indi-vidual interests, and reason of gross appetites and passions: and then he argues that such a perfect structure of society will fall by its own weight, or rather be undermined by the principle of popu lation, because in the highest possible state of the subjugation of the passions to reason, they will be absolutely lawless and unchecked, and because as men become enlightened, quick sighted and publicspirited, they will show themselves utterly blind to the consequences of their actions, utterly indifferent to their own well-being and that of all succeeding generations, whose fate is placed in their hands. This we conceive to be the boldest paralogism that ever was offered to the world, or palmed upon willing eredulity. Against whatever other scheme of reform this objection might be valid, the one it was brought expressly to overturn was impregnable against it, invulnerable to its slightest graze. Say that the Utopian reasoners are visionaries, unfounded; that the state of virtue and knowledge they suppose, in which reason shall have become allin-all, can never take place, that it is inconsistent with the nature of man and with all experience, well and good-but to say that society will have attained this high and "palmy state," that reason will have become the master-key to all our motives, and that when arrived at its greatest power it will cease to act at all, but will fall down dead, inert, and senseless before the principle of population, is an opinion which one would think few people would choose to advance or assent to, without strong inducements for maintaining or believing it.

The fact, however, is, that Mr. Malthus found this argument entire (the principle and the application of it) in an obscure and almost forgotten work published about the middle of the last century, entitled Various Prospects of Mankind, Nature, and Providence, by a Scotch gentleman of the name of Wallace. The chapter in this work on the Principle of Population, considered as a bar to all ultimate views of human improvement, was probably written to amuse an idle hour, or read as a paper to exercise the wits of some literary society in the Northern capital, and no farther responsibility or importance annexed to it. Mr. Malthus, by adopting and setting his name to it, has given it sufficient currency and effect. It sometimes happens that one writer is the first to dis