Chapter V: Preface: V (4)

Where, then, is it, in what act or function of the mind, that Kant finds the matrix of these transcendent ideas? Simply in the logical forms of the understanding. Every power exerts its agency under some _laws_--that is, in the language of Kant, by certain _forms_. We leap by certain laws--viz. of equilibrium, of muscular motion, of gravitation. We dance by certain laws. So also we reason by certain laws. These laws, or _formal_ principles, under a particular condition, become the categories.

Here, then, is a short derivation, in a very few words, of those ideas transcending sense, which all philosophy, the earliest, has been unable to dispense with, and yet none could account for. Thus, for example, every act of reasoning must, in the first place, express itself in distinct propositions; that is, in such as contain a subject (or that concerning which you affirm or deny something), a predicate (that which you affirm or deny), and a copula, which connects them. These propositions must have what is technically called, in logic, a certain _quantity_, or compass (viz. must be universal, particular, or singular); and again they must have what is called _quality_ (that is, must be affirmative, or negative, or infinite): and thus arises a ground for certain corresponding ideas, which are Kant's categories of quantity and quality.

But, to take an illustration more appropriately from the very idea which first aroused Kant to the sense of a vast hiatus in the received philosophies--the idea of _cause_, which had been thrown as an apple of discord amongst the schools, by Hume. How did Kant deduce this? Simply thus: it is a doctrine of universal logic, that there are three varieties of syllogism--viz. 1st, Categoric, or directly declarative [_A is B_]; 2nd, Hypothetic, or conditionally declarative [_If C is D, then A is B_]; 3rd, Disjunctive, or declarative, by means of a choice which exhausts the possible cases [_A is either B, or C, or D; but not C or D; ergo B_]. Now, the idea of _causation_, or, in Kant's language, the category of Cause and Effect, is deduced immediately, and most naturally, as the reader will acknowledge on examination, from the 2nd or hypothetic form of syllogism, when the relation of dependency is the same as in the idea of causation, and the _necessary_ connection a direct type of that which takes place between a cause and its effect.

Thus, then, without going one step further, the reader will find grounds enough for reflection and for reverence towards Kant in these two great results: 1st, That an order of ideas has been established, which all deep philosophy has demanded, even when it could not make good its claim. This postulate is fulfilled. 2ndly, The postulate is fulfilled without mysticism or Platonic reveries. Ideas, however indispensable to human needs, and even to the connection of our thoughts, which came to us from nobody knew whence, must for ever have been suspicious; and, as in the memorable instance cited from Hume, must have been liable for ever to a question of validity. But, deduced as they now are from a matrix within our own minds, they cannot reasonably fear any assaults of scepticism.

Here I shall stop. A reader new to these inquiries may think all this a trifle. But he who reflects a little, will see that, even thus far, and going no step beyond this point, the Kantian doctrine of the Categories answers a standing question hanging aloof as a challenge to human philosophy, fills up a _lacuna_ pointed out from the era of Plato. It solves a problem which has startled and perplexed every age: viz. this--that man is in possession, nay, in the hourly exercise, of ideas larger than he can show any title to. And in another way, the reader may measure the extent of this doctrine, by reflecting that, even so far as now stated, it is precisely coextensive with the famous scheme of Locke. For what is the capital thesis of that scheme? Simply this--that all necessity for supposing immediate impressions made upon our understandings by God, or other supernatural, or antenatal, or connatal, agencies, is idle and romantic; for that, upon examining the furniture of our minds, nothing will be found there which cannot adequately be explained out of our daily experience; and, until we find something that cannot be solved by this explanation, it is childish to go in quest of higher causes. Thus says Locke: and his whole work, upon its first plan, is no more than a continual pleading of this single thesis, pursuing it through all the plausible objections. Being, therefore, as large in its extent as Locke, the reader must not complain of the transcendental scheme as too narrow, even in that limited section of it here brought under his notice.

For the purpose of repelling it, he must do one of two things: either he must show that these categories or transcendent notions are not susceptible of the derivation and genesis here assigned to them--that is, from the forms of the _logos_ or formal understanding; or, if content to abide by that derivation, he must allege that there are other categories besides those enumerated, and unprovided with any similar parentage.

Thus much in reply to him who complains of the doctrine here stated; as, 1st, Too narrow; or, 2nd, As insufficiently established. But, 3rd, in reply to him who wishes to see it further pursued or applied, I say that the possible applications are perhaps infinite. With respect to those made by Kant himself, they are chiefly contained in his main and elementary work, the _Critik der reinen Vernunft_; and they are of a nature to make any man melancholy. Indeed, let a man consider merely this one notion of _causation_; let him reflect on its origin; let him remember that, agreeably to this origin, it follows that we have no right to view anything _in rerum naturâ_ as objectively, or in itself a cause; that when, upon the fullest philosophic proof, we call A the cause of B, we do in fact only subsume A under the notion of a cause; we invest it with that function under that relation, that the whole proceeding is merely with respect to a _human_ understanding, and by way of indispensable _nexus_ to the several parts of our experience; finally, that there is the greatest reason to doubt, whether the idea of _causation_ is at all applicable to any other world than this, or any other than a human experience. Let a man meditate but a little on this or other aspects of this transcendental philosophy, and he will find the steadfast earth itself rocking as it were beneath his feet; a world about him, which is in some sense a world of deception; and a world before him, which seems to promise a world of confusion, or '_a world not realised_.' All this he might deduce for himself without further aid from Kant. However, the particular purposes to which Kant applies his philosophy, from the difficulties which beset them, are unfitted for anything below a regular treatise. Suffice it to say here, that, difficult as these speculations are from one or two embarrassing doctrines on the Transcendental Consciousness, and depressing as they are from their general tendency, they are yet painfully irritating to the curiosity, and especially so from a sort of _experimentum crucis_, which they yield in the progress of their development on behalf of the entire doctrine of Kant--a test which, up to this hour, has offered defiance to any hostile hand. The test or defiance which I speak of, takes the shape of certain _antinomies_ (so they are termed), severe adamantine arguments, affirmative and negative, on two or three celebrated problems, with no appeal to any possible decision, but one, which involves the Kantian doctrines. A _quæstio vexata_ is proposed--for instance, the _infinite divisibility of matter_; each side of this question, _thesis_ and _antithesis_, is argued; the logic is irresistible, the links are perfect, and for each side alternately there is a verdict, thus terminating in the most triumphant _reductio ad absurdum_--viz. that A, at one and the same time and in the same sense, is and is not B, from which no escape is available, but through a Kantian solution. On any other philosophy, it is demonstrated that this opprobrium of the human understanding, this scandal of logic, cannot be removed. This celebrated chapter of _antinomies_ has been of great service to the mere polemics of the transcendental philosophy: it is a glove or gage of defiance, constantly lying on the ground, challenging the rights of victory and supremacy so long as it is _not_ taken up by any antagonist, and bringing matters to a short decision when it _is_.

One section, and that the introductory section, of the transcendental philosophy, I have purposely omitted, though in strictness not to be insulated or dislocated from the faithful exposition even of that which I have given. It is the doctrine of Space and Time. These profound themes, so confounding to the human understanding, are treated by Kant under two aspects--1st, as Anchauungen, or _Intuitions_ (so the German word is usually translated for want of a better); 2ndly, as forms, _à priori_, of all our other intuitions. Often have I laughed internally at the characteristic exposure of Kant's style of thinking--that he, a man of so much worldly sagacity, could think of offering, and of the German scholastic habits, that any modern nation could think of accepting such cabalistical phrases, such a true and very '_Ignotium per Ignotius_,' in part payment of an explanatory account of Time and Space. Kant repeats these words--as a charm before which all darkness flies; and he supposes continually the case of a man denying his explanations or demanding proofs of them, never once the sole imaginable case--viz. of all men demanding an explanation of these explanations. Deny them! Combat them! How should a man deny, why should he combat, what might, for anything to the contrary appearing, contain a promissory note at two months after date for 100 guineas? No; it will cost a little preliminary work before _such_ explanations will much avail any scheme of philosophy, either for the _pro_ or the _con_. And yet I do myself really profess to understand the dark words; and a great service it would be to sound philosophy amongst us, if this one word _anschauung_ were adequately unfolded and naturalised (as naturalised it might be) in the English philosophic dictionary, by some full Grecian equivalent. Strange that no man acquainted with German philosophy, should yet have been struck by the fact--or, being struck, should not have felt it important to call public attention to the fact of our inevitable feebleness in a branch of study for which as yet we want the indispensable words. Our feebleness is at once argued by this want, and partly caused. Meantime, as respects the Kantian way of viewing space, by much the most important innovation which it makes upon the old doctrines is--that it considers space as a _subjective_ not an _objective_ aliquid; that is, as having its whole available foundation lying ultimately in ourselves, not in any external or alien tenure. This one distinction, as applied to space, for ever secures (what nothing else _can_ secure or explain) the cogency of geometrical evidence. Whatever is true for any determinations of a space originally included in ourselves, must be true for such determinations for ever, since they cannot become objects of consciousness to us but in and by that very mode of conceiving space, that very form of schematism which originally presented us with these determinations of space, or any whatever. In the uniformity of our own space-conceiving faculty, we have a pledge of the absolute and _necessary_ uniformity (or internal agreement among themselves) of all future or possible determinations of space; because they could not otherwise become to us conceivable forms of space, than by adapting themselves to the known conditions of our conceiving faculty. Here we have the _necessity_ which is indispensable to all geometrical demonstration: it is a necessity founded in our human organ, which cannot admit or conceive a space, unless as preconforming to these original forms or schematisms. Whereas, on the contrary, if space were something _objective_, and consequently being a separate existence, independent of a human organ, then it is altogether impossible to find any intelligible source of _obligation_ or cogency in the evidence--such as is indispensable to the very nature of geometrical demonstration. Thus we will suppose that a regular demonstration has gradually, from step to step downwards, through a series of propositions--No. 8 resting upon 7, that upon 5, 5 upon 3--at length reduced you to the elementary axiom, that Two straight lines cannot enclose a space. Now, if space be _subjective_ originally--that is to say, founded (as respects us and our geometry) in ourselves--then it is impossible that two such lines can enclose a space, because the possibility of anything whatever relating to the determinations of space is exactly co-extensive with (and exactly expressed by) our power to conceive it. Being thus able to affirm its impossibility universally, we can build a demonstration upon it. But, on the other hypothesis, of space being _objective_, it is impossible to guess whence we are to draw our proof of the alleged inaptitude in two straight lines for enclosing a space. The most we could say is, that hitherto no instance has been found of an enclosed space circumscribed by two straight lines. It would not do to allege our human inability to conceive, or in imagination to draw, such a circumscription. For, besides that such a mode of argument is exactly the one supposed to have been rejected, it is liable to this unanswerable objection, so long as space is assumed to have an _objective_ existence, viz. that the human inability to conceive such a possibility, only argues (what in fact is often found in other cases) that the _objective_ existence of space--_i. e._ the existence of space in itself, and in its absolute nature--is far larger than its subjective existence--_i. e._ than its mode of existing _quoad_ some particular subject. A being more limited than man might be so framed as to be unable to conceive curve lines; but this subjective inaptitude for those determinations of space would not affect the objective reality of curves, or even their subjective reality for a higher intelligence. Thus, on the hypothesis of an objective existence for space, we should be thrown upon an ocean of possibilities, without a test for saying what was--what was not possible. But, on the other hypothesis, having always in the last resort what is _subjectively_ possible or impossible (_i. e._ what is conceivable or not by us, what can or cannot be drawn or circumscribed by a human imagination), we have the means of demonstration in our power, by having the ultimate appeals in our power to a known uniform test--viz. a known human faculty.

This is no trifling matter, and therefore no trifling advantage on the side of Kant and his philosophy, to all who are acquainted with the disagreeable controversies of late years among French geometricians of the first rank, and sometimes among British ones, on the question of mathematical evidence. Legendre and Professor Leslie took part in one such a dispute; and the temper in which it was managed was worthy of admiration, as contrasted with the angry controversies of elder days, if, indeed, it did not err in an opposite spirit, by too elaborate and too calculating a tone of reciprocal flattery. But think as we may of the discussion in this respect, most assuredly it was painful to witness so infirm a philosophy applied to an interest so mighty. The whole aerial superstructure--the heaven-aspiring pyramid of geometrical synthesis--all tottered under the palsying logic of evidence, to which these celebrated mathematicians appealed. And wherefore?--From the want of any philosophic account of space, to which they might have made a common appeal, and which might have so far discharged its debt to truth, as at least to reconcile its theory with the great outstanding phenomena in the most absolute of sciences. Geometry is the _science_ of space: therefore, in any _philosophy_ of space, geometry is entitled to be peculiarly considered, and used as a court of appeal. Geometry has these two further claims to distinction--that, 1st, It is the most perfect of the sciences, so far as it has gone; and, 2ndly, That it has gone the farthest. A philosophy of space, which does not consider and does not reconcile to its own doctrines the facts of geometry, which, in the two points of beauty and of vast extent, is more like a work of nature than of man, is, _primâ facie_, of no value. A philosophy of space _might_ be false, which should harmonise with the facts of geometry--it _must_ be false, if it contradict them. Of Kant's philosophy it is a capital praise, that its very opening section--that section which treats the question of space, not only quadrates with the facts of geometry, but also, by the _subjective_ character which it attributes to space, is the very first philosophic scheme which explains and accounts for the cogency of geometrical evidence.

These are the two primary merits of the transcendental theory--1st, Its harmony with mathematics, and the fact of having first, by its doctrine of space, applied philosophy to the nature of geometrical evidence; 2ndly, That it has filled up, by means of its doctrine of categories, the great _hiatus_ in all schemes of the human understanding from Plato downwards. All the rest, with a reserve as to the part which concerns the _practical_ reason (or will), is of more questionable value, and leads to manifold disputes. But I contend, that, had transcendentalism done no other service than that of laying a foundation, sought but not found for ages, to the human understanding--namely, by showing an intelligible genesis to certain large and indispensable ideas--it would have claimed the gratitude of all profound inquiries. To a reader still disposed to undervalue Kant's service in this respect, I put one parting question--Wherefore he values Locke? What has _he_ done, even if value is allowed in full to his pretensions? Has the reader asked himself _that_? He gave a _negative_ solution at the most. He told his reader that certain disputed ideas were _not_ deduced thus and thus. Kant, on the other hand, has given him at the least a _positive_ solution. He teaches him, in the profoundest revelation, by a discovery in the most absolute sense on record, and the most entirely a single act--without parts, or contributions, or stages, or preparations from other quarters--that these long disputed ideas could not be derived from the experience assigned by Locke, inasmuch as they are themselves _previous conditions under which any experience at all is possible_: he teaches him that these ideas are not mystically originated, but are, in fact, but another phasis of the functions, or, forms of his own understanding; and, finally, he gives consistency, validity, and a charter of authority, to certain modes of _nexus_, without which the sum total of human experience would be a rope of sand.

In terminating this slight account of the Kantian philosophy, I may mention that in or about the year 1818-19, Lord Grenville, when visiting the lakes of England, observed to Professor Wilson that, after five years' study of this philosophy, he had not gathered from it one clear idea. Wilberforce, about the same time, made the same confession to another friend of my own.

It is not usual for men to meet with their capital disappointments in early life, at least not in youth. For, as to disappointments in love, which are doubtless the most bitter and incapable of comfort, though otherwise likely to arise in youth, they are in this way made impossible at a very early age, that no man can be in love to the whole extent of his capacity, until he is in full possession of all his faculties, and with the sense of dignified maturity. A perfect love, such as is necessary to the anguish of a perfect disappointment, presumes also for its object not a mere girl, but woman, mature both in person and character, and womanly dignity. This sort of disappointment, in a degree which could carry its impression through life, I cannot therefore suppose occurring earlier than at twenty-five or twenty-seven. My disappointment--the profound shock with which I was repelled from German philosophy, and which thenceforwards tinged with cynical disgust towards man in certain aspects, a temper which, originally, I will presume to consider the most benign that can ever have been created--occurred when I was yet in my twentieth year. In a poem under the title of _Saul_, written many years ago by Mr. Sotheby, and perhaps now forgotten, having never been popular, there occurs a passage of some pathos, in which Saul is described as keeping amongst the splendid equipments of a royal wardrobe, that particular pastoral habit which he had worn in his days of earliest manhood, whilst yet humble and undistinguished by honour, but also yet innocent and happy. There, also, with the same care, he preserved his shepherd's crook, which, in hands of youthful vigour, had been connected with remembrances of heroic prowess. These memorials, in after times of trouble or perplexity, when the burthen of royalty, its cares, or its feverish temptations, pointed his thoughts backwards, for a moment's relief, to scenes of pastoral gaiety and peace, the heart-wearied prince would sometimes draw from their repository, and in solitude would apostrophise them separately, or commune with the bitter-sweet remembrances which they recalled. In something of the same spirit--but with a hatred to the German philosopher such as men are represented as feeling towards the gloomy enchanter, Zamiel or whomsoever, by whose hateful seductions they have been placed within a circle of malign influences--did I at times revert to Kant: though for me his power had been of the very opposite kind; not an enchanter's, but the power of a disenchanter--and a disenchanter the most profound. As often as I looked into his works, I exclaimed in my heart, with the widowed queen of Carthage, using her words in an altered application--

'Quæsivit lucem--_ingemuitque repertâ_.'

Had the transcendental philosophy corresponded to my expectations, and had it left important openings for further pursuit, my purpose then was, to have retired, after a few years spent in Oxford, to the woods of Lower Canada. I had even marked out the situation for a cottage and a considerable library, about seventeen miles from Quebec. I planned nothing so ambitious as a scheme of _Pantisocracy_. My object was simply profound solitude, such as cannot now be had in any part of Great Britain--with two accessary advantages, also peculiar to countries situated in the circumstances and under the climate of Canada: viz. the exalting presence in an under-consciousness of forests endless and silent, the everlasting sense of living amongst forms so ennobling and impressive, together with the pleasure attached to natural agencies, such as frost, more powerfully manifested than in English latitudes, and for a much longer period. I hope there is nothing fanciful in all this. It is certain that, in England, and in all moderate climates, we are too slightly reminded of nature or the focus of nature. Great heats, or great colds (and in Canada there are both), or great hurricanes, as in the West Indian latitudes, recall us continually to the sense of a powerful presence, investing our paths on every side; whereas, in England, it is possible to forget that we live amongst greater agencies than those of men and human institutions. Man, in fact, 'too much man,' as Timon complained most reasonably in Athens, was then, and is now, our greatest grievance in England. Man is a weed everywhere too rank. A strange place must that be with us, from which the sight of a hundred men is not before us, or the sound of a thousand about us.

Nevertheless, being in this hotbed of man inevitably for some years, no sooner had I dismissed my German philosophy than I relaxed a little that spirit of German abstraction which it had prompted; and, though never mixing freely with society, I began to look a little abroad. It may interest the reader, more than anything else which I can record of this period, to recall what I saw within the ten first years of the century, that was at all noticeable or worthy of remembrance amongst the literati, the philosophers, or the poets of the time. For, though I am not in my academic period from 1804 to 1808, my knowledge of literary men--or men distinguished in some way or other, either by their opinions, their accomplishments, or their position and the accidents of their lives--began from the first year of the century, or, more accurately, from the year 1800; which, with some difficulty and demurs, and with some arguments from the Laureate Pye, the world was at length persuaded to consider the last year of the eighteenth century.[23]

[Footnote 23: Those who look back to the newspapers of 1799 and 1800, will see that considerable discussion went on at that time upon the question, whether the year 1800 was entitled to open the 19th century, or to close the 18th. Mr. Laureate Pye wrote a poem, with a long and argumentative preface on the point.]

MORAL EFFECTS OF REVOLUTIONS.

(_May, 1822._)

In revolutionary times, as when a civil war prevails in a country, men are much worse, as moral beings, than in quiet and untroubled states of peace. So much is matter of history. The English, under Charles II., after twenty years' agitation and civil tumults; the Romans after Sylla and Marius, and the still more bloody proscriptions of the Triumvirates; the French, after the Wars of the League and the storms of the Revolution--were much changed for the worse, and exhibited strange relaxations of the moral principle. But why? What is the philosophy of the case? Some will think it sufficiently explained by the necessity of witnessing so much bloodshed--the hearths and the very graves of their fathers polluted by the slaughter of their countrymen--the _acharnement_ which characterises civil contests (as always the quarrels of friends are the fiercest)--and the license of wrong which is bred by war and the majesties of armies. Doubtless this is part of the explanation. But is this all? Mr. Coleridge has referred to this subject in _The friend_; but, to the best of my remembrance, only noticing it as a fact. Fichte, the celebrated German philosopher, has given us his view of it (_Idea of War_); and it is so ingenious, that it deserves mention. It is this--'Times of revolution force men's minds inwards: hence they are led amongst other things to meditate on morals with reference to their own conduct. But to subtilise too much upon this subject must always be ruinous to morality, with all understandings that are not very powerful, _i. e._ with the majority, because it terminates naturally in a body of maxims a specious and covert self-interest. Whereas, when men meditate less, they are apt to act more from natural feeling, in which the natural goodness of the heart often interferes to neutralise or even to overbalance its errors.'

PREFIGURATIONS OF REMOTE EVENTS.[24]

(_April, 1823._)

With a total disbelief in all the vulgar legends of supernatural agency, and _that_ upon firmer principles than I fear most people could assign for their incredulity, I must yet believe that the 'soul of the world' has in some instances sent forth mysterious types of the cardinal events, in the great historic drama of our planet. One has been noticed by a German author, and it is placed beyond the limits of any rational scepticism; I mean the coincidence between the augury derived from the flight of the twelve vultures as types of the duration of the Roman empire, _i. e._ Western Empire, for twelve centuries, and the actual event. This augury we know to have been recorded many centuries before its consummation; so that no juggling or collusion between the prophets and the witnesses to the final event can be suspected. Some others might be added. At present I shall notice a coincidence from our own history, which, though not so important as to come within the class of prefigurations I have been alluding to, is yet curious enough to deserve mention. The oak of Boscobel and its history are matter of household knowledge. It is not equally well known, that in a medal, struck to commemorate the installation (about 1636) of Charles II., then Prince of Wales, as a Knight of the Garter, amongst the decorations was introduced an oak-tree with the legend--'Seris factura nepotibus umbram.'

[Footnote 24: This is only signed Z in _The London Magazine_, but is clearly labelled 'DE QUINCEY' in ARCHDEACON HESSEY'S marked copy.--H.]

MEASURE OF VALUE.[25]

(_December, 1823._)

To the reader.--This article was written and printed before the author heard of the lamented death of Mr. Ricardo.

It is remarkable at first sight that Mr. Malthus, to whom Political Economy is so much indebted in one chapter (viz. the chapter of Population), should in every other chapter have stumbled at every step. On a nearer view, however, the wonder ceases. His failures and his errors have arisen in all cases from the illogical structure of his understanding; his success was in a path which required no logic. What is the brief abstract of his success? It is this: _he took an obvious and familiar truth, which until his time had been a barren truism, and showed that it teemed with consequences_. Out of this position--_That in the ground which limited human food lay the ground which limited human increase_--united with this other position--_That there is a perpetual nisus in the principle of population to pass that limit_, he unfolded a body of most important corollaries. I have remarked in another article on this subject--how entirely these corollaries had escaped all Mr. Malthus's[26] predecessors in the same track. Perhaps the most striking instance of this, which I could have alleged, is that of the celebrated French work--_L'Ami des Hommes, ou Traité de la Population_ (written about the middle of the last century), which sets out deliberately from this principle, expressed almost in the very words of Mr. Malthus,--'_Que la mésure de la Subsistance est celle de la Population_;'--beats the bushes in every direction about it; and yet (with the exception of one corollary on the supposed depopulating tendency of war and famine) deduces from it none but erroneous and Anti-Malthusian doctrines. That from a truth apparently so barren any corollaries were deducible--was reserved for Mr. Malthus to show. _As_ corollaries, it may be supposed that they imply a logical act of the understanding. In some small degree, no doubt; but no more than necessarily accompanies every exercise of reason. Though inferences, they are not remote inferences, but immediate and proximate; and not dependent upon each other, but collateral. Not logic but a judicious choice of his ground placed Mr. Malthus at once in a station from which he commanded the whole truth at a glance--with a lucky dispensation from all necessity of continuous logical processes. But such a dispensation is a privilege indulged to few other parts of Political Economy, and least of all to that which is the foundation of all Political Economy, viz. the doctrine of value. Having therefore repeatedly chosen to tamper with this difficult subject, Mr. Malthus has just made so many exposures of his intellectual infirmities--which, but for this volunteer display, we might never have known. Of all the men of talents, whose writings I have read up to this hour, Mr. Malthus has the most perplexed understanding. He is not only confused himself, but is the cause that confusion is in other men. Logical perplexity is shockingly contagious: and he, who takes Mr. Malthus for his guide through any tangled question, ought to be able to box the compass very well; or before he has read ten pages he will find himself (as the Westmorland guides express it) 'maffled,'--and disposed to sit down and fall a crying with his guide at the sad bewilderment into which they have both strayed. It tends much to heighten the sense of Mr. Malthus's helplessness in this particular point--that of late years he has given himself the air too much of teasing Mr. Ricardo, one of the 'ugliest customers' in point of logic that ever entered the ring. Mr. Ricardo is a most 'dangerous' man; and Mr. Malthus would do well not to meddle with so 'vicious' a subject, whose arm (like Neate's) gives a blow like the kick of a horse. He has hitherto contented himself very good-naturedly with gently laying Mr. Malthus on his back; but, if he should once turn round with a serious determination to 'take the conceit' out of him, Mr. Malthus would assuredly be 'put into chancery,' and suffer a 'punishment' that must distress his friends.--Amongst those whom Mr. Malthus has perplexed by his logic, I am not one: in matter of logic, I hold myself impeccable; and, to say nothing of my sober days, I defy the devil and all the powers of darkness to get any advantage over me, even on those days when I am drunk, in relation to 'Barbara, Celarent, Darii, or Ferio.'

[Footnote 25: MR. JOHN STUART MILL in his _Principles of Political Economy,_ Book III chaps, i. and ii., makes some interesting and appreciative remarks on De Quincey's settlement of 'the phraseology of value;' also, concerning his illustrations of 'demand and supply, in their relation to value.']

[Footnote 26: In a slight article on Mr. Malthus, lately published, I omitted to take any notice of the recent controversy between this gentleman--Mr. Godwin--and Mr. Booth; my reason for which was--that I have not yet found time to read it. But, if Mr. Lowe has rightly represented this principle of Mr. Booth's argument in his late work on the Statistics of England, it is a most erroneous one: for Mr. Booth is there described as alleging against Mr. Malthus that, in his view of the tendencies of the principle of population, he has relied too much on the case of the United States--which Mr. Booth will have to be an extreme case, and not according to the general rule. But of what consequence is this to Mr. Malthus? And how is he interested in relying on the case of America rather than that of the oldest European country? Because he assumes a perpetual nisus in the principle of human increase to pass a certain limit, he does not therefore hold that this limit ever _is_ passed either in the new countries or in old (or only for a moment, and inevitably to be thrown back within it). Let this limit be placed where it may, it can no more be passed in America than in Europe; and America is not at all more favourable to Mr. Malthus's theory than Europe. Births, it must be remembered, are more in excess in Europe than in America: though they do not make so much positive addition to the population.]

'Avoid, old Satanas!' I exclaim, if any man attempts to fling dust in my eyes by false syllogism, or any mode of dialectic sophism. And in relation to this particular subject of value, I flatter myself that in a paper expressly applied to the exposure of Mr. Malthus's blunders in his Political Economy, I have made it impossible for Mr. Malthus, even though he should take to his assistance seven worse logicians than himself, to put down my light with their darkness. Meantime, as a labour of shorter compass, I will call the reader's attention to the following blunder, in a later work of Mr. Malthus's--viz. a pamphlet of eighty pages, entitled, _The Measure of Value, stated and applied_ (published in the spring of the present year). The question proposed in this work is the same as that already discussed in his Political Economy--viz. What is the measure of value? But the answer to it is different: in the Political Economy, the measure of value was determined to be a mean between corn and labour; in this pamphlet, Mr. Malthus retracts that opinion, and (finally, let us hope) settles it to his own satisfaction that the true measure is labour; not the quantity of labour, observe, which will produce X, but the quantity which X will command. Upon these two answers, and the delusions which lie at their root, I shall here forbear to comment; because I am now chasing Mr. Malthus's _logical_ blunders; and these delusions are not so much logical as economic: what I now wish the reader to attend to--is the blunder involved in the question itself; because that blunder is not economic, but logical. The question is--what is the measure of value? I say then that the phrase--'measure of value' is an equivocal phrase; and, in Mr. Malthus's use of it, means indifferently that which determines value, in relation to the _principium essendi_, and that which determines value, in relation to the _principium cognoscendi_. Here, perhaps, the reader will exclaim--'Avoid, Satanas!' to me, falsely supposing that I have some design upon his eyes, and wish to blind them with learned dust. But, if he thinks _that_, he is in the wrong box: I must and will express scholastic phrases; but, having once done this, I am then ready to descend into the arena with no other weapons than plain English can furnish. Let us therefore translate '_measure of value_' into '_that which determines value_:' and, in this shape, we shall detect the ambiguity of which I complain. For I say, that the word _determines_ may be taken subjectively for what determines X in relation to our knowledge, or objectively for what determines X in relation to itself. Thus, if I were to ask--'What determined the length of the racecourse?' and the answer were--'The convenience of the spectators who could not have seen the horses at a greater distance,' or 'The choice of the subscribers,' then it is plain that by the word 'determined,' I was understood to mean 'determined objectively,' _i. e._ in relation to the existence of the object; in other words, what _caused_ the racecourse to be this length rather than another length: but, if the answer were--'An actual admeasurement,' it would then be plain that by the word 'determined,' I had been understood to mean 'determined subjectively,' _i. e._ in relation to our knowledge;--what ascertained it?--Now, in the objective sense of the phrase, 'determiner of value,' the measure of value will mean _the ground of value_: in the subjective sense, it will mean _the criterion of value_. Mr. Malthus will allege that he is at liberty to use it in which sense he pleases. Grant that he is, but not therefore in both. Has he then used it in both? He will, perhaps, deny that he has, and will contend that he has used it in the latter sense as equivalent to the _ascertainer_ or _criterion of value_. I answer--No: for, omitting a more particular examination of his use in this place, I say that his use of any word is peremptorily and in defiance of his private explanation to be extorted from the use of the corresponding term in him whom he is opposing. Now he is opposing Mr. Ricardo: his _labour which X commands_--is opposed to Mr. Ricardo's _quantity of labour which will produce X_. Call the first A, the last B. Now, in making B the determiner of value, Mr. Ricardo means that B is the ground of value: _i. e._ that B is the answer to the question--what makes this hat of more value than this pair of shoes? But, if Mr. Malthus means by A the same thing, when by his own confession he has used the term _measure of value_ in two senses: on the other hand, if he does not mean the same thing, but simply the _criterion_ of value, then he has not used the word in my sense which opposes him to Mr. Ricardo. And yet he advances the whole on that footing. On either ground, therefore, he is guilty of a logical error, which implies that, so far from answering his own question, he did not know what his own question was.

LETTER IN REPLY TO HAZLITT CONCERNING THE MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE OF POPULATION.

THE LION'S HEAD.[27]

_To the Editor of the London Magazine._

_Westmoreland, November 4, 1823_.

My dear Sir,--This morning I received your parcel, containing amongst other inclosures, the two last numbers of your journal. In the first of these is printed a little paper of mine on Mr. Malthus; and in the second I observe a letter from Mr. Hazlitt--alleging two passages from the 403rd and 421st pages of his _Political Essays_ as substantially anticipating all that I had said. I believe that he _has_ anticipated me: in the passage relating to the geometric and arithmetic ratios, it is clear that he has: in the other passage, which objects to Mr. Malthus's use of the term _perfection_, that he has represented it under contradictory predicates, it is not equally clear; for I do not find my own meaning so rigorously expressed as to exclude another[28] interpretation even now when I know what to look for; and, without knowing what to look for, I should certainly not have found it: on the whole, however, I am disposed to think that Mr. Hazlitt's meaning is the same as my own. So much for the _matter_ of Mr. Hazlitt's communication: as to the _manner_, I am sorry that it is liable to a construction which perhaps was not intended. Mr. Hazlitt says--'I do not wish to bring any charge of plagiarism in this case;' words which are better fitted to express his own forbearance, than to exonerate me from the dishonour of such an act. But I am unwilling to suppose that Mr. Hazlitt has designedly given this negative form to his words. He says also--'as I have been a good deal abused for my scepticism on that subject, I do not feel quite disposed that any one else should run away with the credit of it.' Here again I cannot allow myself to think that Mr. Hazlitt meant deliberately to bring me before the reader's mind under the odious image of a person who was 'running away' with the credit of another. As to 'credit,' Mr. Hazlitt must permit me to smile when I read that word used in that sense: I can assure him that not any abstract consideration of credit, but the abstract idea of a credi_tor_ (often putting on a concrete shape, and sometimes the odious concrete of a dun) has for some time past been the animating principle of my labours. Credit therefore, except in the sense of twelve months' credit where now alas! I have only six, is no object of my search: in fact I abhor it: for to be a 'noted' man is the next bad thing to being a 'protested' man. Seriously, however, I sent you this as the first of four notes which I had written on the logical blunders of Mr. Malthus (the other three being taken not from his Essay on Population, but from works more expressly within the field of Political Economy): not having met with it elsewhere, I supposed it my own and sent it to complete the series: but the very first sentence, which parodies the words of Chancellor Oxenstiern--('Go and see--how _little_ logic is required,' &c.), sufficiently shows that, so far from arrogating any great merit to myself for this discovery, I thought it next to miraculous that it should have escaped any previous reviewer of Mr. Malthus.--I must doubt, by the way, whether Mr. Hazlitt has been 'a good deal abused' for these specific arguments against Mr. Malthus; and my reason for doubting is this: about ten or twelve years ago, happening to be on a visit to Mr. Southey, I remember to have met with a work of Mr. Hazlitt's on this subject--_not_ that which he quotes, but another (_Reply to Malthus_) which he refers to as containing the same opinions (either _totidem verbis_, or in substance). In Mr. Southey's library, and in competition with Mr. Southey's conversation, a man may be pardoned for not studying any one book exclusively: consequently, though I read a good deal of Mr. Hazlitt's _Reply_, I read it cursorily: but, in all that I _did_ read, I remember that the arguments were very different from those which he now alleges; indeed it must be evident that the two logical objections in question are by no means fitted to fill an octavo volume. My inference therefore is--that any 'abuse,' which Mr. Hazlitt may have met with, must have been directed to something else in his _Reply_; and in fact it has happened to myself on several occasions to hear this book of Mr. Hazlitt's treated as unworthy of his talents; but never on account of the two arguments which he now claims. I would not be supposed, in saying this, to insinuate any doubt that these arguments are really to be found in the _Reply_; but simply to suggest that they do not come forward prominently or constitute the main argument of that book: and consequently, instead of being opposed, have been overlooked by those who have opposed him as much as they were by myself.

[Footnote 27: This was the heading under which correspondence appeared in _The London Magazine_ at that date.--H.]

[Footnote 28: What other interpretation? An interpretation which makes Mr. Hazlitt's argument coincide with one frequently urged against Mr. Malthus--viz. 'that in fact he himself relies practically upon _moral restraint_ as one great check to Population, though denying that any great revolution in the moral nature of man is practicable.' But so long as Mr. Malthus means, by a _great revolution_, a revolution in the sense which he imputes to Mr. Godwin--to Condorcet, &c. viz. a revolution amounting to absolute perfection, so long there is no logical error in all this: Mr. Malthus may consistently rely upon moral restraint for getting rid, suppose, of ninety cases out of every hundred which at present tend to produce an excessive population, and yet maintain that even this tenth of the former excess would be sufficient, at a certain stage of population, to reproduce famines, &c., _i. e._ to reproduce as much misery and vice as had been got rid of. Here there is an absolute increase of moral restraint, but still insufficient for the purpose of preventing misery, &c. For, as soon as the maximum of population is attained, even one single birth in excess (_i. e._ which does more than replace the existing numbers)--_à fortiori_, then, one-tenth of the present excess (though implying that the other nine-tenths had been got rid of by moral restraint) would yet be sufficient to prevent the attainment of a state of perfection. And, if Mr. Malthus had so shaped his argument, whether wrong or right--he would not have offended in point of _logic_: his logical error lies in supposing a state of perfection already existing and yet as brought to nothing by this excess of births: whereas it is clear that such an excess may operate to prevent, but cannot operate to destroy a state of perfection; because in such a state no excess could ever arise; for, though an excess may co-exist with a vast increase of moral restraint, it cannot co-exist with entire and perfect moral restraint; and nothing less than _that_ is involved in the term 'perfection.' A perfect state, which allows the possibility of the excess here spoken of, is already an imperfect state. Now, if Mr. Hazlitt says that this is exactly what he means, I answer that I believe it is; because I can in no other way explain his sixth sentence--from the words 'but it is shifting the question' to the end of that sentence. Yet again the seventh sentence (the last) is so expressed as to be unintelligible to me. And all that precedes the sixth sentence, though very intelligible, yet seems the precise objection which I have stated above, and which I think untenable. Nay, it is still less tenable in Mr. Hazlitt's way of putting it than as usually put: for to represent Mr. Malthus as saying that, 'if reason should ever get the mastery over all our actions, we shall then be governed _entirely_ by our physical appetites' (which are Mr. Hazlitt's words), would be objected to even by an opponent of Mr. Malthus: why '_entirely_?' why more than we are at present? The utmost amount of the objection is this:--That, relying so much upon moral restraint _practically_, Mr. Malthus was bound to have allowed it more weight _speculatively_, but it is unreasonable to say that in his ideal case of perfection Mr. Malthus has allowed no weight at all to moral restraint: even he, who supposes an increased force to be inconsistent with Mr. Malthus's theory, has no reason to insist upon his meaning a diminished force.]

Finally, Mr. Hazlitt calls the coincidence of my objections with his own 'striking:' and thus (though unintentionally, I dare say) throws the reader's attention upon it as a very surprising case. Now in this there is a misconception which, apart from any personal question between Mr. Hazlitt and myself, is worth a few words on its own account for the sake of placing it in a proper light. I affirm then that, considering its nature, the coincidence is _not_ a striking one, if by 'striking' be meant surprising: and I affirm also that it would not have been the more striking if, instead of two, it had extended to two hundred similar cases. Supposing that a thousand persons were required severally to propose a riddle, no conditions or limitations being expressed as to the terms of the riddle, it would be surprising if any two in the whole thousand should agree: suppose again that the same thousand persons were required to solve a riddle, it would now be surprising if any two in the whole thousand should differ. Why? Because, in the first case, the act of the mind is an act of synthesis; and there we may readily conceive a thousand different roads for any one mind; but, in the second case, it is an analytic act; and there we cannot conceive of more than one road for a thousand minds. In the case between Mr. Hazlitt and myself there was a double ground of coincidence for any possible number of writers: first the object was given; _i. e._ we were not left to an unlimited choice of the propositions we were to attack; but Mr. Malthus had himself, by insisting on two in particular (however erroneously) as the capital propositions of his system, determined our attention to these two as the assailable points: secondly, not only was the object given--_i. e._ not only was it predetermined for us where[29] the error must lie, if there were an error; but the nature of that error, which happened to be logical, predetermined for us the nature of the solution. Errors which are such _materialiter_, _i. e._ which offend against our _knowing_, may admit of many answers--involving more and less of truth. But errors, which are such logically, _i. e._ which offend against the form (or internal law) of our _thinking_, admit of only one answer. Except by failing of any answer at all, Mr. Hazlitt and I could not _but_ coincide: as long as we had the same propositions to examine (which were not of our own choice, but pointed out to us _ab extra_), and as long as we understood those propositions in the same sense, no variety was possible except in the expression and manner of our answers; and to that extent a variety exists. Any other must have arisen from our understanding that proposition in a different sense.

[Footnote 29: 'Where the error must lie'--_i. e._ to furnish a sufficient answer _ad hominem_: otherwise it will be seen that I do not regard either of the two propositions as essential to Mr. Malthus's theory: and therefore to overthrow those propositions is not to answer that theory. But still, if an author will insist on representing something as essential to his theory which is not so, and challenges opposition to it,--it is allowable to meet him on his own ground.]

My answer to Mr. Hazlitt therefore is--that in substance I think his claim valid; and though it is most true that I was not aware of any claim prior to my own, I now formally forego any claim on my own part to the credit of whatsoever kind which shall ever arise from the two objections to Mr. Malthus's logic in his _Essay on Population_. In saying this, however, and acknowledging therefore a coincidence with Mr. Hazlitt in those two arguments, I must be understood to mean a coincidence only in what really belongs to them; meantime Mr. Hazlitt has used two expressions in his letter to yourself which seem to connect with those propositions other opinions from which I dissent: that I may not therefore be supposed to extend my acquiescence in Mr. Hazlitt's views to these points, I add two short notes upon them: which however I have detached from this letter--as forming no proper part of its business.--Believe me, my dear Sir, your faithful humble servant. X.Y.Z.