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Untitled Article
Now , if these propositions are true , it is ' passing strange" they should so long have remained a secret . Men are usually rather prompt in discovering the immediate causes of their sorrows .
And yet the exuberance of population was never , until the present age , found to be the master-spying of human woes . On the contrary , in ancient times the main strength of a nation
was supposed to consist in the number of its citizens . * And it is impossible for the most perverted ingenuity to trace any large portion of the ills of life to an excessive population as its source . Even in the severest times
the death of a human being by famine , or even by disease arising from want , is a comparatively rare occurrence . The for greater part of the miseries of life have their origin in the artificial
desires , the inconsistent hopes , and the guilty passions of man . For the most part , they are altogether independent of the scantiness of the articles absolutely necessary to subsistence . Even the calamities of want
which actually arise , may be traced to much more obvious causes than a disproportion between the people to be fed and the means of feeding them , except in years when the usual produce fails . Instances of national
distress are occasioned by the stagnation of trade , the pressure of taxation , the fluctuations of credit , or more frequently by the employment of large numbers of active men in foreign wars , who are to be supported from the produce of lands which they do not assist to cultivate . In all the annals
of carnage , Mr . Malthus cannot produce an instance in which a king has made war in order to dispose of his superfluous subjects . The evils of bloodshed arise from the ambition of man , not from the deficiency of com : and they would rage with equal fury though food were ten times as plentiful .
* The sentiment expressed by the Chorus in CEdipus Tyrannus is in unison with all the ideas of aucient statesmen : ' £ 1 $ , einfEg OLgesi ' g irjSs yr } $ , uocTteq Kgoc-Suv ocvSodcriv kcxWiov rj Kevrj $ xoot-I SI V ' \ Q- £ &&kv is ~ iv els ituqybs *) ate \> aZg ^ E ~ . gr , ( A , o $ ccyS gouv ^ r \ svvqik&tujv ' s < rcvm Soph . ( Edip . TV . 54 .
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The diseases produced by luxury are far more numerous than those which arise from want . And yet , in defiance of these facts , we are called on to * give
our assent to a system which ascribes the . miseries of the world to the perpetual tendency of the species to increase beyond the means which Providence has ordained for its support .
This mode of establishing theories in defiance of experience is strikingly exemplified in the conclusions which your Correspondent Homo has drawn from the system of Malthus . -f- He states
his principles , and then draws as" a practical inference from them , that life is for ^ the most part a scene of wretchedness , and that existence is a curse . Now it is almost too evident to be
mentioned , that the question of the happiness or the misery of the species is one to be determined by the examination of facts , and not by the discussion of theories . If , on the whole , it should appear that good is more prevalent than evil , that human beings
in general feel existence to be a blessing and cling to it with fondness to the last , no reasoning , however apparently conclusive , can alter a conviction founded on such a basis . And if , on the other hand , an impartial survey of this earthly scene should lead us to the dreary belief that sorrow is
more abundant than joy , no developement of the causes of misery could deepen the gloom , it is , indeed , the tendency of the scheme of Malthus . to chill all our hopes for the future improvement of man , by representing
the springs of his distresses as necessarily coeval with his nature 3 but it cannot aggravate the actual evils of our condition . If the hope , the love and the joy which surround us are inconsistent with the
consequences which follow from that system , the error must be in the reasonings which lead to an impossible conclusion . The most ingenious argument could not persuade us that the sun does not enlighten the world ,
f See Mdn . Repos . p . 151 . This writer is certainly eloquent in describing" the dark side of human affairs . His views of society are extensive ; but he seems to have caught them through a gloomy medium . They are ' * sicklied o er with the pale cast of thought /'
Untitled Article
472 On the System of Malthus .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1817, page 472, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2467/page/24/
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