Chapter VIII: Letter V (2)

Mr. Malthus charges it as a great error on Mr. Godwin’s system that ‘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.’ Be it so, that this is an error. The next question is, as Mr. Malthus does not deny that these institutions are the immediate causes of many of the evils that exist, to what principle they really owe their rise. Mr. Malthus says, they are the necessary results of laws inherent in our nature, and that though all the other passions and vices of men could be got rid of altogether, the principle of population alone would still render those institutions with all the abuses belonging to them as necessary as ever. This I take upon me to dispute. Will he say, that (leaving the principle of population entirely out of the question) pride, avarice, and indolence have had no share in the establishment, or continuance of the inequality of property, in goading men on to the accumulation of immense riches by oppression, extortion, fraud, perjury, and every species of villainy, or in making them undergo every kind of distress, sooner than apply themselves to some regular and useful occupation. If I were inclined to maintain a paradox on the subject, I might take up Hume’s assertion, ‘that indolence is the source of all mischief in the world.’ For if men had not been averse to labour, if there had been no idlers to take advantage of, to offer temptation to, and enlist upon any terms in any lawless enterprize, that promised an easy booty, the tyrant would have been without his slaves, the robber without his gang, and the rich man without his dependents. But these smart points and pithy sayings are soon found to be fallacious, if we attend a little closely to the subject. For instance, it may be true that if there had been no idle people, there would have been no one to take advantage of, but if there had been no pride, rapacity, or selfishness, there would have been no one to take an undue advantage of them, or foment the mischief. The fellows that generally compose a gang of robbers only wish to gain a cheap livelihood by acts of violence; the captain of the gang is also actuated by vanity, revenge, the spirit of adventure, and the desire to keep the country for twenty or thirty miles round in awe of him. The common soldier is glad of sixpence a-day to be shot at every now and then, and do nothing the rest of his time: the general is not easy, unless he can lay waste provinces, overrun kingdoms, and make the world ring with the terror of his name. The lazy and unthinking would not do half the mischief, of which they are capable, without the active, the enterprizing and turbulent: fools and knaves are as necessary to the body politic, as the head and limbs are to the human body. The Romans might have staid quietly within their own walls, but for the plotting heads at home that sent them out to victory; and his thirty thousand followers would no more have thought of setting out to India of their own accord, than Alexander would have thought of marching there by himself.

It is to me pretty clear that as long as there are such passions as sloth and rapacity, these will be sufficient to account for the unequal division of property, and will render the laws relating to it necessary: and it is equally clear to my mind that if these passions could be completely subdued, so that no one would refuse his share in the common labour, or endeavour to take an unfair advantage of others either by force or fraud, that the established administration of property would be no longer necessary.[13] If, as Mr. Malthus supposes, ‘Benevolence had so far established her reign in all hearts,’ that every one was ready to give up the enjoyments of ease and luxury as far as related to himself, I do not think that in such a state of unparalleled disinterestedness and heroic virtue, any madman would be found to violate the public happiness, and begin the work of contention anew, for the sake of transmitting a contingent inheritance of vice and misery _to his heirs_! If reason and virtue are at present no match for the principle of population, neither are they a match for the principle of selfishness, or for any of our other passions. But truly, if benevolence had once established her reign in all hearts, we should see wonders, she would perform the part of vice and misery to a miracle.—It is evident then that the seeds of inequality, of vice and misery are not sown entirely in the principle of population; that the same untoward passions which first rendered civil establishments necessary, have continued to operate ever since, that they have produced most of the disorders in the world, and are still in as much force as ever; that they very well deserve a chapter by themselves in the history of human nature, and ought not to come in as a note or parenthesis to Mr. Malthus’s great work.

But whatever account we may chuse to give of the origin of the establishment of property or government in general, this has nothing to do with the real question, unless it could be shewn that the same form of government, the same inequality of conditions, and the same degree of vice and misery are to be found alike in every country. Mr. Malthus’s system goes to the support of all political regulations and existing evils, or it goes to the support of none. Let us cast our eyes over the map of Europe, and ask whether all that variety of governments and manners by which it is distinguished took their rise solely from the principle of population. A principle common to human nature, a law inherent in the physical constitution of man, may in its progress be necessarily attended with a certain degree of vice and misery; but it cannot be productive of different degrees of vice and misery in different countries; as the stern law of necessity, it must operate every where alike. If it does not do so, this of itself shews that it is not the sole moving spring in all human institutions, that it is not beyond the reach of all regulation and control, and that there are other circumstances, accidents, and principles on which the happiness of nations depends. Whatever difference there is, then, between one government and another, whether that government is despotic, or mixed, or free; whatever difference there is in the administration of that government, whether it is cruel, oppressive, and arbitrary in the extreme, or mild, just, and merciful; whatever difference there is between the manners of one nation and those of another, whether the most licentious that can be, or strict and exemplary; whatever difference there is in the arts and conveniences of life, in the improvements of trade and agriculture in various countries, whatever differences are produced by religion, by contrarieties of opinion, by the state of knowledge, by useful or mischievous regulations of all kinds, all these cannot be owing to one and the same cause.

Will Mr. Malthus say that all these differences are as nothing, that they are not worth insisting on, or contending about, that they are nominal, rather than real, or at any rate that what is gained in one way is lost in another, for that the principle of population still requires the same vent, and produces first or last the same quantity of vice and misery of one sort or other in every country? He must assert on the one hand that all other causes put together do not materially affect the happiness of a people, or on the other hand that the state of all those other causes depends on, and arises out of the state of population, though they do not in the least influence the principle of population itself. These absurdities, than which it would be difficult to advance greater, are however necessary to bear out the author’s conclusion, that arts, knowledge, liberty and virtue, and the best institutions can do little for the happiness of mankind. For instance, if it is true that religion or opinion of any kind exerts a direct influence over morals, then it is not true that morals depend entirely on the state of population. Or if it is true, that the invention of a useful art, which is accident, or the public encouragement of it, which is design, may contribute to the support of a larger population without multiplying its inconveniences, then it is not true that all human happiness or misery can be calculated according to a mechanical ratio. But these matters are, I confess, set in the clearest light by a reference to facts, and I can quote no better authority than Mr. Malthus himself.

He says, ‘It will not be difficult, from the accounts of travellers, to trace the checks to population, and the causes of its present decay [in Turkey]; and as there is little difference in the _manners_ of the Turks, whether they inhabit Europe or Asia, it will not be worth while to make them the subject of distinct consideration.’ [I shall presume that I have so far reconciled the reader’s mind to the bugbear, population, that he will not regard _depopulation_ as one of the most beautiful features in the economy of a state.]

Our author then proceeds, ‘The fundamental cause of the low state of population in Turkey, compared with its extent of territory, is undoubtedly the nature of its government. Its tyranny, its feebleness, its bad laws and worse administration of them, with the consequent insecurity of property, throw such obstacles in the way of agriculture, that the means of subsistence are necessarily decreasing yearly, and with them, of course, the number of people. The _miri_ or general land-tax, paid to the sultan, is in itself moderate; but by abuses inherent in the Turkish government, the pachas, and their agents have found out the means of rendering it ruinous. Though they cannot absolutely alter the impost which has been established by the sultan, they have introduced a number of changes, which, without the name, produce all the effect of an augmentation. In Syria, according to Volney, having the greatest part of the land at their disposal, they clog their concessions with burthensome conditions, and exact the half, and sometimes even two-thirds of the crop. When the harvest is over, they cavil about losses, and, as they have the power in their hands, they carry off what they think proper.’ [What they leave behind them, is what Mr. Malthus when he gets into his abstractions calls ‘_the fund appropriated to the maintenance of labour_,’ or, ‘_the aggregate quantity of food possessed by the owners of land beyond their own consumption_.’] ‘If the season fail, they still exact the same sum, and expose every thing that the poor peasant possesses to sale. To these constant oppressions are added a thousand accidental extortions. Sometimes a whole village is laid under contribution for some real or imaginary offence. Arbitrary presents are exacted on the accession of each governor; grass, barley, and straw are demanded for his horses’; [Mr. Malthus thinks, farther on in his book, that ‘the waste of the rich, and the horses kept for pleasure’ in this country are no detriment to the poor _here_, but rather a benefit, page 478.] ‘and commissions are multiplied, that the soldiers who carry the orders may live upon the starving peasants, whom they treat with the most brutal insolence and injustice. The consequence of these depredations is, that the poorer class of inhabitants, ruined, and unable any longer to pay the _miri_, become a burden to the village,’ [something I suppose in the same way that the poor among us become a burden to the parish] ‘or fly into the cities; but the _miri_ is unalterable, and the sum to be levied must be found somewhere. The portion of those who are thus driven from their homes falls on the remaining inhabitants, whose burden, though at first light, now becomes insupportable. If they should be visited by two years of drought and famine, the whole village is ruined and abandoned; and the tax, which it should have paid, is levied on the neighbouring lands. The same mode of proceeding takes place with regard to the tax on Christians, which has been raised by these means,’ [by what means, by the principle of population?] ‘from three, five, and eleven piastres, at which it was first fixed, to thirty-five and forty, which absolutely impoverishes those on whom it is levied, and obliges them to leave the country. It has been remarked that these exactions have made a rapid progress during the last forty years, from which time are dated the decline of agriculture, the depopulation of the country, and the diminution in the quantity of the specie carried to Constantinople. The peasants are every where reduced to a little flat cake of barley, or _doura_, onions, lentils, and water. Not to lose any part of their corn they leave in it all sorts of wild grain, which often produces bad consequences. In the mountains of Lebanon and Nablous, in time of dearth, they gather the acorns from the oak which they eat after boiling or roasting them on the ashes. By a natural consequence of this misery, the art of cultivation is in the most deplorable state. The husbandman is almost without instruments, and those he has are very bad. His plough is frequently no more than the branch of a tree cut below a fork and used without wheels. The ground is tilled by asses and cows, rarely by oxen, which would bespeak too much riches. In the districts exposed to the Arabs, as in Palestine, the countryman must sow with his musket in his hand, and scarcely does the corn turn yellow before it is reaped and concealed in subterraneous caverns. As little as possible is employed for seed corn, because the peasants sow no more than is barely necessary for their subsistence. Their whole industry is limited to the supply of their immediate wants, and to procure a little bread, a few onions, a blue shirt, and a bit of woollen, much labour is not necessary. The peasant lives therefore in distress, but at least he does not enrich his tyrants, and the avarice of despotism is its own punishment.’ [_Note._—These are the unhappy persons, as our author expresses it in a passage, which may hereafter be quoted at length, ‘who in the great lottery of life have drawn a blank; and with whose exorbitant and unreasonable demands the owners of the aforesaid surplus produce neither think it just nor natural to comply.’ I confess, I cannot account for all the contention and distress which is here implied, for the conflict between famine and riches, when I seriously consider with Mr. Malthus, ‘that the quantity of food, which one man can consume, is necessarily limited by the narrow capacity of the human stomach; that it is not certainly probable that he should throw away the rest; or if he exchanged his surplus produce for the labour of others, that this would be better than that these others should absolutely _starve_.’ But human life, as well as our reasonings about it, is a mystery, a dream.] ‘This picture which is drawn by Volney, in describing the state of the peasants in Syria, seems to be confirmed by all the other travellers in these countries, and according to Eton, it represents very nearly the condition of the peasants in the greater part of the Turkish dominions. Universally the offices of every denomination are set up to public sale, and in the intrigues of the seraglio, by which the disposal of all places is regulated, every thing is done by means of bribes. The pachas in consequence, who are sent into the provinces, exert to the utmost their power of extortion, but are always outdone by the officers immediately below them, who, in their turn, leave room for their subordinate agents. The pacha must raise money to pay the tribute, and also to indemnify himself for the purchase of his office; support his dignity, and make a provision in case of accidents; and as all power, both civil and military, centers in his person, from his representing the sultan, the means are at his discretion, and the quickest are invariably considered as the best. Uncertain of to-morrow, he treats his province as a mere transient possession, and endeavours to reap, if possible, in one day, the fruit of many years, without the smallest regard to his successor, or the injury that he may do to the permanent revenue. The cultivator is necessarily more exposed to these extortions than the inhabitants of the towns. From the nature of his employment, he is fixed to one spot, and the productions of agriculture do not admit of being easily concealed. _The tenure of the land and the right of succession are besides uncertain._ When a father dies, the inheritance reverts to the sultan, and the children can only redeem the succession by a considerable sum of money. These considerations naturally occasion an indifference to landed estates. The country is deserted, and each person is desirous of flying to the towns, where he will not only in general meet with better treatment, but may hope to acquire a species of wealth, which he can more easily conceal from the eyes of his rapacious masters. To complete the ruin of agriculture, a maximum is in many cases established, and the peasants are obliged to furnish the towns with corn at a fixed price. It is a maxim of Turkish policy, originating in the feebleness of the government, and the fear of popular tumults, to keep the price of corn low in all the considerable towns. In the case of a failure in the harvest, every person who possesses any corn is obliged to sell it at the price fixed, under pain of death: and if there be none in the neighbourhood, other districts are ransacked for it. When Constantinople is in want of provisions, ten provinces are perhaps famished for a supply. At Damascus, during a scarcity in 1784, the people paid only one penny farthing a pound for their bread, while the peasants in the villages were absolutely dying with hunger. _The effect of such a system of government_ on agriculture, need not be insisted on. The causes of the decreasing means of subsistence are but too obvious; and the checks which keep the population down to the level of these decreasing resources, may be traced with nearly equal certainty, and will appear to include almost every species of vice and misery.’ Happy country, secured by the very nature of its government from the terrors of increasing population, and where every species of vice and misery, wisely anticipated, on the principle that the imagination of a thing is worse than the reality, takes away all fear of any greater evils than those they already endure!

In the same chapter, he says, that in Persia ‘the lower classes of people are obliged to defer marriage till late; and that it is only among the rich that this union takes place early. The dreadful convulsions to which this country has been subject for many hundred years, must have been fatal to her agriculture. The periods of repose from external wars, and internal commotions have been short and few, and even during the times of profound peace, the frontier provinces have been constantly subject to the ravages of the Tartars.—The effect of this state of things is such as might be expected. The proportion of uncultivated to cultivated land, Sir John Chardin states to be, ten to one; and the mode in which the officers of the state and private owners let out their lands to husbandmen, is not that _which is best calculated to reanimate industry_. The other checks to population in Persia are nearly the same as those in Turkey. _The superior destruction of the plague in Turkey is perhaps nearly balanced by the greater frequency of internal commotions in Persia._’

These extracts furnish, I think, a tolerably clear idea of the manner in which it is possible for human institutions to aggravate instead of mitigating the _necessary_ evils of population. We have a sufficient specimen of the effects of bad government, of bad laws, of the worse execution of them, of feeble and selfish policy, of wars and commotions, or of diseases probably occasioned for the most part by the numbers of people who are huddled together in dirt and poverty in the great towns in the manner we have seen—in altering the natural proportion between the produce of the soil, and the maintenance of the inhabitants; in wantonly diminishing the means of subsistence by a most unjust and unequal distribution of them; in diverting the produce of industry from its proper channels, in drying up its sources, in causing a stagnation of all the motives and principles which animate human life, in destroying all confidence, independence, hope, cheerfulness, and manly exertion, in thwarting the bounties of nature by waste, rapacity, extortion and violence, and spreading want, misery, and desolation in their stead. How admirably does Mr. Malthus balance his checks! What the plague does in Turkey, is in Persia happily effected by means of civil commotions. Population is thus kept down to the level of the means of subsistence. But it seems, that wars, and intestine commotions, those blind drudges of Providence in clearing away the filth, rubbish, and other evils of a too crowded population, sometimes go beyond their errand, or do their work the wrong way, by striking at the root of population instead of lopping off its superfluous branches. According to our author’s general system, the killing ten, or twenty, or a hundred thousand men is an evil of a very trifling magnitude, if it is to be looked upon as an evil at all. Population will only go on with the greater alacrity, marriage will be rendered more practicable, and the deficiency will soon be supplied from the sprightly and ever-teeming source of nature. The dreadful convulsions, however, to which Persia has been subject for so many hundred years have not been merely vents to carry off the excess of population beyond the means of subsistence, but they have further been fatal to agriculture itself, or to those very means of subsistence. The proportion of _uncultivated_, to _cultivated_ land, we find, is ten to one; so that the population is not only reduced to a level with the means of subsistence, but reduced ten times lower than it need be.[14]

I beg leave to accompany this description of the effects of political regulations and the established administration of property in Turkey, with the following critical commentary, taken from another part of the same work, which will throw considerable light on the _necessity_ of those institutions to prevent the evils of population. Mr. Malthus’s usual plea for ‘vice and misery,’ is that nothing else can put a stop to the excesses of population; which _they_ do in the most effectual and eligible manner. But he has here deserted his idols.

‘It has appeared, I think, clearly, in the review of different societies given in the former part of this work, that those countries, the inhabitants of which were sunk in the most barbarous ignorance, or oppressed by the most cruel tyranny, however low they might be in actual population, were very populous in proportion to their means of subsistence; and upon the slightest failure of the seasons, generally suffered the severities of want.’ [Yet it was the sole object of Mr. Malthus’s discovery to prove the converse proposition, that the highest degree of knowledge, and a perfect exemption from every species of tyranny would only lead to the lowest state of human wretchedness.]—‘Ignorance and despotism seem to have no tendency to destroy the passion which prompts to increase; _but they effectually destroy the checks to it from reason and foresight_. The improvident barbarian who thinks only of his present wants, or the miserable peasant, who from his political situation feels little security of reaping what he has sown, will seldom be deterred from gratifying his passions by the prospect of inconveniences which cannot be expected to press on him under three or four years. But though this want of foresight, which is fostered by ignorance and despotism, tend thus rather to encourage the procreation of children, it is absolutely fatal to the industry which is to support them. Industry cannot exist without foresight and security. The indolence of the savage is well known; and the poor Egyptian or Abyssinian farmer, without capital, who rents land, which is let out yearly to the highest bidder and who is constantly subject to the demands of his tyrannical masters, to the casual plunder of an enemy, and not unfrequently to the violation of his miserable contract, can have no heart to be industrious, and if he had, could not exercise that industry with success. Even poverty itself, which appears to be the great spur to industry, when it has once passed certain limits, almost ceases to operate. The indigence which is hopeless, destroys all vigorous exertion, and confines the efforts to what is sufficient for bare existence. _It is the hope of bettering our condition and the fear of want, rather than want itself, that is the best stimulus to industry, and its most constant and best directed efforts will almost invariably be found among a class of people above the class of the wretchedly poor._’

What a pity that a man, who writes so well at times, should, for the sake of an hypothesis, involve ‘himself in absurdities and contradictions that would disgrace the lips of an ideot.’ Mr. Malthus will excuse me, if I make use of some of the hints contained in this excellent passage, for the benefit of our English poor, who I think should not have harder measure dealt them than others, and try to soften some of the harshest constructions of the grinding law of necessity in their favour. I do not see why they alone are to be the martyrs of an abstraction. But Mr. Malthus reserves the application of his theory _in its purity_ for his own countrymen. He has some natural feelings, and a certain degree of tender weakness for the distresses of other countries, but he will not suffer his feelings for a moment to get the better of his reason, with regard to those to whom he is bound by stronger ties, and over whose interests he watches with a paternal anxiety. He will hear of no palliations, no excuses, no shuffling temporary expedients to put off the evil day, he insists upon their submitting to the full operation of the penalty incurred by the laws of God and of nature, nothing short of the utmost severity will satisfy him, (’tis death to spare) he will not bate them a jot of his argument, he makes them drain the unsavoury cup of misery to the very dregs.

In the same chapter, which is entitled ‘Of the principal sources of the prevailing errors on population,’ he says, ‘It has been observed that many countries at the period of their greatest populousness have lived in the greatest plenty, and have been able to export corn; but at other periods, when their population was very low, have lived in continual poverty and want, and have been obliged to import corn. Egypt, Palestine, Rome, Sicily, and Spain are cited as particular exemplifications of this fact; and it has been inferred, that an increase of population in any state, not cultivated to the utmost, will tend rather to augment than diminish the relative plenty of the whole society,’ &c. After contradicting this inference without giving any reasons against it, he goes on, ‘Scarcity and extreme poverty, therefore, may or may not accompany an increasing population, according to circumstances. But they must always accompany a permanently declining population; because there has never been, nor probably ever will be, any other cause than want of food, which makes the population of a country permanently decline. In the numerous instances of depopulation which occur in history, the causes of it may always be traced to the want of industry, or the ill-direction of that industry, arising from violence, bad government, ignorance, &c. which first occasions a want of food, and of course depopulation follows. When Rome adopted the custom of importing all her corn, and laying all Italy into pasture, she soon declined in population. The causes of the depopulation of Egypt and Turkey have already been alluded to; and in the case of Spain, it was certainly not the numerical loss of people, occasioned by the expulsion of the Moors; but the industry and capital thus expelled, which permanently injured her population.’ [I do not myself see, how the expulsion of capital could permanently injure the population.] ‘When a country has been depopulated by violent causes, if a bad government, with its usual concomitant, insecurity of property, ensue, which has generally been the case in all those countries which are now less peopled than formerly; neither the food nor the population, will recover themselves, and the inhabitants will probably live in severe want,’ &c. Yet Mr. Malthus elsewhere affects to consider all human institutions and contrivances as perfectly indifferent to the question. We have here, however, a truer account of the matter. The state of population is evidently no proof of what it might be: to judge whether it is more or less than it might or ought to be, we must take into consideration good and bad government, the progress of civilization, &c. It is a thing _de facto_, not _de jure_. It is not that rock, against which whosoever sets himself shall be dashed to pieces, but the clay moulded by the potter into vessels of honour or dishonour. With respect to Spain, it is allowed that her population is deficient, or short of what it might be. The problem of political economy I take to be, how far this is the case with respect to all other countries, and how to remedy the defect; or how to support the greatest number of people in the greatest degree of comfort. But I have said this more than once before.

To the same purpose I might quote Algernon Sydney, who in his Discourses on government gives the following account of the decline and weakness of many of the modern states from the loss of liberty.[15]

‘I take Greece to have been happy and glorious, when it was full of populous cities, flourishing in all the arts that deserve praise among men; when they were courted and feared by the greatest kings, and never assaulted by any but to his own loss and confusion; when Babylon and Susa trembled at the motion of their arms: and their valour, exercised in those wars and tumults, which our author [Filmer] looks upon as the greatest evils, was raised to such a power, that nothing upon earth was found able to resist them. And I think it now miserable, when peace reigns within their empty walls, and the poor remains of those exhausted nations, sheltering themselves under the ruins of the desolated cities, have neither any thing that deserves to be disputed among them, nor spirit or force to repel the injuries they daily suffer from a proud and insupportable master.’

‘The like may be said of Italy. Whilst it was inhabited by nations governing themselves by their own will, they fell sometimes into domestic seditions, and had frequent wars with their neighbours. When they were free, they loved their country and were always ready to fight in its defence. Such as succeeded well, increased in vigour and power; and even those which were the most unfortunate in one age, found means to repair their losses, if their government continued. While they had a property in their goods, they would not suffer the country to be invaded, since they knew they could have none, if it were lost. This gave occasion to wars and tumults; it sharpened their courage, kept up a good discipline, and the nations that were most exercised by them, always increased in power and number: so that no country seems ever to have been of greater strength than Italy was when Hannibal invaded it, and after his defeat the rest of the world was not able to resist their valour and power. They sometimes killed one another; but their enemies never got any thing but burying-places within their territories. All things are now brought into a very different method by the blessed governments they are under. The fatherly care of the king of Spain, the pope, and other princes has established peace among them. We have not in many ages heard of any sedition among the Latins, Sabines, Volsci, Equi, Samnites, and others. The thin, half-starved inhabitants of walls supported by ivy fear neither popular tumults, nor foreign alarms; and their sleep is only interrupted by hunger, the cries of their children, or the howling of wolves. Instead of many turbulent, contentious cities, they have a few scattered, silent cottages; and the fierceness of those nations is so tempered, that every rascally collector of taxes extorts, without fear, from every man, that which should be the nourishment of his family. And if any of those countries are free from these pernicious vermin, it is through the extremity of their poverty.’

[How differently do people see things! According to Mr. Malthus, this rascally tax-gatherer, this vile nuisance, is a very sacred sort of character, a privileged person, one of the most indispensable and active instruments in the procession of vice and misery, those harbingers of human happiness; and all our reproaches and indignation should fall on the poor peasant, for bringing beings into the world whom he could not maintain, in ‘the face of the clearest warning, and in defiance of the express command of God,’ as proved by the tax-book. Our superficial politician was not aware (Mr. Malthus tells us that first appearances are very deceitful) that the produce of the husbandman’s labour was much better employed in supporting the waste and extravagance of the rich, than in affording nourishment to his family, as this would only enable him to _rear_ his family, which must operate as an encouragement to marriage, and this again would produce other marriages, and so on _ad infinitum_, to which unrestricted increase of population it is necessary to put a timely stop.]

‘Even in Rome a man may be circumvented by the fraud of a priest, or poisoned by one, who would have his estate, wife, whore, or child; but nothing is done that looks like violence or tumult. The governors do as little fear Gracchus as Hannibal; and instead of wearying their subjects in wars,’ [We have not yet reached this pitch of perfection] ‘they only seek by perverted laws, corrupt judges, false witnesses, and vexatious suits, to cheat them of their money and inheritance. This is the best part of their condition. Where these arts are used, there are men, and they have something to lose; but for the most part, the lands lie waste; and they who were formerly troubled with the disorders incident to populous cities, now enjoy the quiet and peaceable estate of a wilderness.—Again, there is a way of killing worse than that of the sword; for as Tertullian says upon a different occasion, _vetare nasci est interficere_; those governments are in the highest degree guilty of blood, which by taking from men the means of living, bring some to perish through want, drive others out of the country, and generally dissuade men from marriage, _by taking from them all ways of supporting their families_.’ [Our author, we see, has not here put the cart before the horse. He seems to have understood the necessity of food to population, though Mr. Malthus’s essay had not then been heard of.] ‘Notwithstanding all the seditions of Florence, and other cities of Tuscany, the horrid factions of Guelphs and Gibelines,[16] Neri and Bianchi, nobles and commons, they continued populous, strong, and exceeding rich; but in the space of less than a hundred and fifty years, the peaceable reign of the Medici is thought to have destroyed nine parts in ten of the people of that province. Among other things it is remarkable, that when Philip the second of Spain gave Sienna to the Duke of Florence, his embassador then at Rome sent him word, that he had given away more than six hundred and fifty thousand subjects; and it is not believed there are now twenty thousand souls inhabiting that city and territory. Pisa, Pistoia, Arezzo, Cortona, and other towns, that were then good and populous, are in the like proportion diminished, and Florence more than any. When that city had been long troubled with seditions, tumults, and wars, for the most part unprosperous, it still retained such strength, that when Charles the eighth of France, being admitted as a friend with his whole army, which soon after conquered the kingdom of Naples, thought to master them, the people, taking up arms, struck such a terror into him, that he was glad to depart upon such conditions as they thought fit to impose. Machiavel reports, that in the year 1298 Florence alone, with the Val d’Arno, a small territory belonging to that city, could, in a few hours, by the sound of a bell, bring together a hundred thousand well-armed men. Whereas now that city, with all the others in that province, are brought to such despicable weakness, emptiness, poverty, and baseness, that they can neither resist the oppressions of their own prince, nor defend him or themselves, if they were assaulted by a foreign enemy. The people are dispersed or destroyed, and the best families sent to seek habitations in Venice, Genoa, Rome, and Lucca. This is not the effect of war or pestilence: they enjoy a perfect peace, and suffer no other plague than the government they are under. But he who has thus cured them of disorders and tumults does in my opinion deserve no greater praise than a physician, who should boast there was not a sick person in a house committed to his care, when he had poisoned all that were in it. The Spaniards have established the like peace in the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, the West Indies, and other places. The Turks by the same means prevent tumults in their dominions. And they are of such efficacy in all places, that Mario Chigi, brother to pope Alexander the seventh, by one sordid cheat upon the sale of corn, is said within eight years to have destroyed above a third part of the people in the ecclesiastical state. And that country, which was the strength of the Romans in the time of the Carthaginian wars, suffered more by the covetousness and fraud of that villain, than by all the defeats received from Hannibal, &c. Chap. ii. p. 223.

It will be worth the reader’s while to turn to Lord Kaims’s account of the kingdom of Siam, which, though one of the most fertile countries in the world, is reduced to the lowest state of poverty and wretchedness by the absurd and tyrannical policy of its government. Some of the finest districts that were formerly cultivated, are now inhabited only by wild beasts. One of the arts by which they preserve the balance of population in that country is, that the keeper of the king’s menagerie is authorized to let loose the elephants into the gardens of all those within a given distance of the capital, who do not pay him a large fine yearly to be excused from this intrusion. Yet according to our Essayist, human institutions have a very slight influence on the happiness of a people, because they cannot alter the necessary ratios of the increase of food and population. It is probable, however, that some of the cases here cited, which seem to bear rather hard on Mr. Malthus’s rule, might have led those hasty writers, whom he censures for their want of a due insight into the subject, to conceive an unjust prejudice against human institutions; and perhaps some of my readers may also be led to suspect, from not comprehending fully the scope and connection of his arguments, that bad governments are not quite such innocent things, as Mr. Malthus would sometimes represent them. Is it necessary to press this subject any farther? I do not pretend to be very deep-read in history, in the constitution of states, the principles of legislation, the progress of manners, or the immediate causes of the revolutions that have taken place in different countries. All that I can presume to bring to this question is a little stubborn common sense, an earnestness of feeling, and a certain familiarity with abstruse subjects, that is not willingly or easily made the dupe of flimsy distinctions. But without much learning in one’s self, it is easy to take advantage of the learning of others. By the help of a common-place book, which is all that is wanted in these cases (and I am fortunate enough to have such a one by me in the collections of ‘that honest chronicler,’ James Burgh) I might soon swell the size of these letters to a bulk, which the bookseller would not like, by a number of striking illustrations from the most celebrated authors. I might make myself a splendid livery of the wisdom of others. But I have no taste for this pompous drudgery. However, to satisfy those readers who are unable to discern the truth without the spectacles of facts, it will not be amiss to refer to the opinions of a few of the writers, who seem with sufficient clearness to have traced the causes of the rise and fall of particular states to principles quite independent of, which were neither first set in motion nor afterwards regulated by the principle of population, and the effects of which were utterly disproportionate to the actual operation of that principle. After all, it is impossible to answer a paradox satisfactorily. The real answer consists of the feelings and observations of our whole lives; and of course, it must be impossible to embody these in any single statement. All that can be done in these cases is to set the imagination once more in its old track.

‘Hear,’ says my authority, ‘the excellent Montague on the prevalence of luxury among the Romans.’

‘If we connect the various strokes interspersed through what we have remaining of the writings of Sallust, which were levelled at the vices of his countrymen, we shall be able to form a just idea of the manners of the Romans in his time. From this picture, we must be convinced, that not only those shocking calamities, which the republic suffered during the contest between Marius and Sylla, but those subsequent and more fatal evils, which brought on the utter extinction of the Roman liberty and constitution, were the natural effects of that foreign luxury, which first introduced venality and corruption.’ [Now by _luxury_ we may understand a very great superabundance of the good things of this life, either in the community at large or in certain classes of it, but it cannot by any construction be made to signify the general and absolute want of them. Luxury in some classes may produce want in others, but poverty is in this case the effect of the unequal distribution of the produce of the earth, not of its real deficiency. Or if by luxury we understand only certain exterior decorations or artificial indulgences, which have nothing to do with the real support of life, such as dress, furniture, buildings, pictures, gold and silver, rarities, delicacies of all kinds, every thing connected with shew and expence (though all these things among the Romans being the effects not merely of leisure or of supernumerary hands, but of _power_, and foreign dominion, must imply a command over the more substantial necessaries of life) yet even in this sense the passion for luxury or for those indulgences (which is here said to have been one great instrument in the overthrow of the state) is certainly a very different thing from the passion of hunger, or want of food, Mr. Malthus’s key to the solution of all problems of a political nature.] ‘Though the introduction of luxury from Asia preceded the ruin of Carthage in point of time, yet as Sallust informs us, the dread of that dangerous rival restrained the Romans within the bounds of decency and order. But as soon as ever _that obstacle was removed_, they gave a full scope to their ungoverned passions. The change in their manners was not gradual, and by little and little as before, but rapid and instantaneous. Religion, justice, modesty, decency, all regard for divine or human laws, were swept away at once by the irresistible torrent of corruption. The nobility strained their privileges, and the people their liberty, alike into the most unbounded licentiousness. Every one made the dictate of his own will, his only rule of action. Public virtue, and the love of their country, which had raised the Romans to the empire of the universe, were extinct. Money, which alone could enable them to gratify their darling luxury, was substituted in its place. Power, dominion, honours, and universal respect were annexed to the possession of money. Contempt, and whatever was the most reproachful was the bitter portion of poverty; and to be poor, grew to be the greatest of all crimes, in the estimation of the Romans. Thus wealth and poverty contributed alike to the ruin of the republic. The rich employed their wealth in the acquisition of power, and their power in every kind of oppression and rapine for the acquisition of more wealth. The poor, now dissolute and desperate, were ready to engage in every seditious insurrection, which promised them the plunder of the rich, and set up both their liberty and country to sale, to the best bidder. The republic, which was the common prey to both, was thus rent to pieces between the contending factions.—A state so circumstanced must always furnish an ample supply of proper instruments for faction. For as luxury consists in an inordinate gratification of the sensual passions, and as the more they are indulged, the more importunate they grow, the greatest fortune must at last sink under their insatiable demands. Thus luxury necessarily produces corruption. As wealth is necessary to the support of luxury, all those who have dissipated their private fortunes in the purchase of pleasure, will be ever ready to enlist in the cause of faction for the wages of corruption. And when once the idea of respect and homage is annexed to the possession of wealth alone, honour, probity, every virtue and every amiable quality will be held cheap in comparison and looked upon as awkward, and quite unfashionable. But as the spirit of liberty will yet exist in some degree, in a state which retains the name of freedom, even though the manners of that state should be generally depraved, an opposition will arise from those virtuous citizens, who know the value of their birth-right, liberty, and who will not submit tamely to the chains of faction. Force will then be called in to the aid of corruption, a military government will be established on the ruins of the civil, and all commands and employments will be at the disposal of arbitrary, lawless power. The people will be fleeced to pay for their own fetters, and doomed, like the cattle, to unremitting toil and drudgery, for the support of their tyrannical masters.’ [All this is evidently erroneous, when we apply to it the touch-stone of the theory of population. The people are not fleeced and worked in this manner for the benefit of those who fleece and work them, to gratify any appetites or passions of theirs, it is out of pure good-will to the poor wretches themselves, that they may live more at their ease, and in a greater degree of affluence than they would without this timely warning of the evils of poverty.] ‘Or if the outward form of civil government should be permitted to remain, the people will be compelled to give a sanction to tyranny by their own suffrages, and to elect oppressors instead of protectors.—From this genuine portrait of the Roman state it is evident that the fatal catastrophe of that republic, of which Sallust himself was an eye-witness, was the natural effect of the corruption of their manners; and again, that this corruption was the effect of the introduction of foreign wealth and luxury. This fatal tendency was too obvious to escape the notice of those who had any regard for liberty and their ancient constitution. Many sumptuary laws were made to restrain the excesses of luxury; but these efforts were too feeble to check the over-bearing violence of the torrent. Cato proposed a severe law, enforced by the sanction of an oath, against bribery and corruption at elections; where the scandalous traffic of votes was established by custom, as at a public market. But he only incurred the resentment of both parties by that salutary measure. The rich, who had no other merit to plead but what arose from their superior wealth, thus found themselves precluded from all pretensions to the highest dignities. The electors abused, cursed and even pelted him as the author of a law which reduced them to the necessity of subsisting by labour. Corruption was arrived at its height, and those excesses which were formerly esteemed the _vices_ of the people were now, by the force of custom, become the _manners_ of the people. To pilfer the public money and to plunder the provinces by violence, though state crimes of the most heinous nature, were grown so familiar, that they were looked upon as no more than mere office perquisites.’ Really I am afraid that the reader will suspect me of falsifying the historical record to write a satire against our own times. Some of these remarks are I confess _home_ truths. To a person who has not that mysterious kind of penetration which the author of the Essay possesses, they carry more weight, and give a clearer insight into the principles that operate in the decomposition of states, than all Mr. Malthus’s indiscriminate and shadowy reasonings on the evils of population, which can no more prove anything decisively on the subject, than we can account for the inequalities in the surface of the earth from its being round.