NOTES
A REPLY TO THE ESSAY ON POPULATION
Thomas Robert Malthus’s (1766–1834)Essay on the Principle of Population as it affects the Future Improvement of Societywas published anonymously in 1798. The second edition ‘very much enlarged’ appeared with the author’s name in a large 4to volume in 1803. For a sketch of Malthus’s life and doctrine and of the Malthusian controversy, see Sir Leslie Stephen’sThe English Utilitarians, II. 137–185 and 238–259. The references in the following notes are to the second (1803) edition of the Essay. Cf. Hazlitt’s essay on Malthus inThe Spirit of the Age, ante, pp. 287–298, and the last five essays inPolitical Essays, vol. III. pp. 356–385. A paper by De Quincey, entitled ‘Malthus,’ in theLondon Magazinefor Oct. 1823, led to a brief controversy between De Quincey and Hazlitt, the particulars of which will be found in De Quincey’sWorks(ed. Masson), IX. pp. 3, 20–31. Hazlitt’sReply to Malthuswas reviewed in theEdinburgh Reviewfor August 1810 (vol. xvi. p. 464), or rather, as Hazlitt complains, the title of hisReplywas prefixed to an article in theEdinburgh‘as a pretence for making a formal eulogy’ on Malthus’s work. Hazlitt thereupon wrote the following letter to Cobbett’sPolitical Register(Nov. 24, 1810, vol. xviii. p. 1014) under the heading ‘Mr. Malthus and the Edinburgh Reviewers’:—
‘Sir,—The title-page of a pamphlet which I published some time ago, and part of which appeared in the Political Register in answer to the Essay on Population, having been lately prefixed to an article in the Edinburgh Review as a pretence for making a formal eulogy on that work, I take the liberty to request your insertion of a few queries, which may perhaps bring the dispute between Mr. Malthus’s admirers and his opponents, to some sort of issue. It will, however, first of all be proper to say something of the article in the Review. The writer of the article accuses the ‘anonymous’ writer of the reply to the Essay, of misrepresenting and misunderstanding his author, and undertakes to give a statement of the real principles of Mr. Malthus’s work. He at the same time informs us for whom this statement is intended, namely, for those who are not likely even to read the work itself, and who take their opinions on all subjects moral, political, and religious, from the periodical reports of the Edinburgh Review. For my own part, what I have to say will be addressed to those who have read Mr. Malthus’s work, and who may be disposed to form some opinion of their own on the subject.—The most remarkable circumstance in the Review is, that it is a complete confession of the force of the arguments which have been brought against the Essay. The defence here set up of it may indeed be regarded as the euthanasia of that performance. For in what does this defence consist but in an adoption, point by point, of the principal objections and limitation, which have been offered to Mr. Malthus’s system; and which being thus ingeniously applied to gloss its defects, the Reviewer charges those who had pointed them out with misrepresenting and vilifying the author? In fact, the advocates of this celebrated work do not at present defend its doctrines, but deny them. The only resource left them is that of screening itsfallacies from the notice of the public by raising a cry of misrepresentation against those who attempt to expose them, and by holding a mask of flimsy affectation over the real and distinguishing features of the work. Scarcely a glimpse remains of the striking peculiarities of Mr. Malthus’s reasoning, his bold paradoxes dwindle by refined gradations into mere harmless common-places, and what is still more extraordinary, an almost entire coincidence of sentiment is found to subsist between the author of the essay and his most zealous opponents, if the ignorance and prejudices of the latter would but allow them to see it. Indeed the Edinburgh Reviewer gives pretty broad hints that neither friends nor foes have ever understood much of the matter, and kindly presents his readers for the first time, with the true key to this much admired production. He accordingly proceeds with considerable self-complacency to translate the language of the essay into the dialect of the Scotch school of economy, to put quite on one side the author’s geometrical and arithmetical ratios, which had wrought such wonders, to state that Mr. Malthus never pretended to make any new discovery, and to quote a passage from Adam Smith, which suggested the plan of his work; to shew that this far-famed work which has been so idly magnified, and so unjustly decried as overturning all the commonly received axioms of political philosophy, proves absolutely nothing with respect to the prospects of mankind or the means of social improvement, that the sole hopes either of the present or of future generations do not centre (strange to tell!) in the continuance of vice and misery, but in the gradual removal of these, by diffusing rational views of things and motives of action, and particularly by ameliorating the condition, securing the independence, and raising the spirit, of the lower classes of society; and finally that both the extent of population, and the degree of happiness enjoyed by the people of any country depend very much upon, and, as far as there is any difference observable between one country or state of society and another, are wholly regulated by political institutions, a good or bad government, moral habits, the state of civilization, commerce, or agriculture, the improvements in art or science, and a variety of other causes quite distinct from the sole mechanical principle of population. And, this Sir, is what the Reviewer imposes on his unsuspecting readers as the sum and substance, the true scope and effect of Mr. Malthus’s reasoning. It is in truth an almost literal recapitulation of the chief topics insisted on in the Reply to the Essay, which the Reviewer seems silently to regard as a kind of necessary supplement to that work.—In this account it is evident, both that Mr. Malthus’s pretentions as an original discoverer are given up by the Reviewer, and that his obnoxious and extravagant conclusions are carefully suppressed. Now with regard to the general principle of the disproportion between the power of increase in population, and in the means of subsistence, and the necessity of providing some checks, moral or physical, to the former, in order to keep it on a level with the means of subsistence, I have never in any instance called in question either of “these important and radical facts,” which it is the business of Mr. M.’s work to illustrate. All that I undertook in the Reply to the Essay was to disprove Mr. Malthus’s claim to the discovery of these facts, and to shew that he had drawn some very false and sophistical conclusions from them, which do not appear in the article in the Review. As far therefore as relates to the Edinburgh Reviewers, and their readers, I might consider my aim as accomplished, and leave Mr. Malthus’s system and pretensions in the hands of these friendly critics, who will hardly set the seal of their authority—on either one or the other, till they have reduced both to something like their own ordinary standard. But against this I have several reasons. First, as I never looked upon Mr. Malthus as “a man of no mark or likelihood,”[74]I should be sorry to see him dandled into insignificance,and made a mere puppet in the hands of the Reviewers. Secondly, I in some measure owe it to myself to prove that the objections I have brought against his system are not the phantoms of my own imagination. Thirdly, Mr. Malthus’s work cannot be considered as entirely superseded by the account of it in the Review, as there are, no doubt, many persons who will still take their opinion of Mr. Malthus’s doctrines from his own writings, and abide by what they find in the text as good authority and sound argument, though not sanctioned in the Commentary.—I will therefore proceed to put the questions I at first proposed as the best means I can devise for determining, both what the contents of Mr. Malthus’s work really are, and to what degree of credit they are entitled, or how far they are true or false, original or borrowed.’
The queries which follow were with a few alterations republished by Hazlitt inThe Examiner(Oct. 29, 1815—TheRound Table, No. 23) and inPolitical Essays(vol.III.pp. 381–5). The alterations are almost entirely confined to the omission of all reference to theEdinburgh Review, for which Hazlitt himself had begun to write in 1814. The letter concludes as follows: ‘The drift of these questions, is, I believe, sufficiently obvious and direct; but if they should not be thought clear enough in themselves, I am ready to add a suitable commentary to them, by collating a convenient number of passages from the Essay, the Reply, and the Review.’
‘——Lib’ral of their aidTo clam’rous Importunity in rags.’Cowper,The Task,IV.413–4.
‘——Lib’ral of their aidTo clam’rous Importunity in rags.’Cowper,The Task,IV.413–4.
‘——Lib’ral of their aidTo clam’rous Importunity in rags.’Cowper,The Task,IV.413–4.
‘——Lib’ral of their aid
To clam’rous Importunity in rags.’
Cowper,The Task,IV.413–4.
‘Shoots far into the bosom of dim nightA glimmering dawn. Here Nature first beginsHer farthest verge, and Chaos to retire,’ etc.Paradise Lost,II.1036–8.
‘Shoots far into the bosom of dim nightA glimmering dawn. Here Nature first beginsHer farthest verge, and Chaos to retire,’ etc.Paradise Lost,II.1036–8.
‘Shoots far into the bosom of dim nightA glimmering dawn. Here Nature first beginsHer farthest verge, and Chaos to retire,’ etc.Paradise Lost,II.1036–8.
‘Shoots far into the bosom of dim night
A glimmering dawn. Here Nature first begins
Her farthest verge, and Chaos to retire,’ etc.
Paradise Lost,II.1036–8.
‘——I do know but oneThat unassailable holds on his rank,Unshaked of motion.’Julius Caesar, ActIII.Scene 1.
‘——I do know but oneThat unassailable holds on his rank,Unshaked of motion.’Julius Caesar, ActIII.Scene 1.
‘——I do know but oneThat unassailable holds on his rank,Unshaked of motion.’Julius Caesar, ActIII.Scene 1.
‘——I do know but one
That unassailable holds on his rank,
Unshaked of motion.’
Julius Caesar, ActIII.Scene 1.
‘Our palaces, our ladies, and our pomp of equipage.’Cowper,The Task,I.643–4.
‘Our palaces, our ladies, and our pomp of equipage.’Cowper,The Task,I.643–4.
‘Our palaces, our ladies, and our pomp of equipage.’Cowper,The Task,I.643–4.
‘Our palaces, our ladies, and our pomp of equipage.’
Cowper,The Task,I.643–4.
‘The grassy uplands’ gentle swellsEcho to the bleat of flocks.’Coleridge,Ode on the Departing Year, ll. 125–6.
‘The grassy uplands’ gentle swellsEcho to the bleat of flocks.’Coleridge,Ode on the Departing Year, ll. 125–6.
‘The grassy uplands’ gentle swellsEcho to the bleat of flocks.’Coleridge,Ode on the Departing Year, ll. 125–6.
‘The grassy uplands’ gentle swells
Echo to the bleat of flocks.’
Coleridge,Ode on the Departing Year, ll. 125–6.
‘Its former strength was but plethoric ill.’Goldsmith,The Traveller, 144.
‘Its former strength was but plethoric ill.’Goldsmith,The Traveller, 144.
‘Its former strength was but plethoric ill.’Goldsmith,The Traveller, 144.
‘Its former strength was but plethoric ill.’
Goldsmith,The Traveller, 144.
‘Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.’Paradise Lost,III.474–5.
‘Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.’Paradise Lost,III.474–5.
‘Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.’Paradise Lost,III.474–5.
‘Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,
White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.’
Paradise Lost,III.474–5.
‘Till prostitution elbow us asideIn all our crowded streets.’Cowper,The Task,III.60–1.
‘Till prostitution elbow us asideIn all our crowded streets.’Cowper,The Task,III.60–1.
‘Till prostitution elbow us asideIn all our crowded streets.’Cowper,The Task,III.60–1.
‘Till prostitution elbow us aside
In all our crowded streets.’
Cowper,The Task,III.60–1.
‘——into what pit thou seestFrom what highth fallen.’Paradise Lost,I.91–2.
‘——into what pit thou seestFrom what highth fallen.’Paradise Lost,I.91–2.
‘——into what pit thou seestFrom what highth fallen.’Paradise Lost,I.91–2.
‘——into what pit thou seest
From what highth fallen.’
Paradise Lost,I.91–2.
‘Alas, from what high hope to what relapseUnlooked for are we fallen!’Paradise Regained,II.30–1.
‘Alas, from what high hope to what relapseUnlooked for are we fallen!’Paradise Regained,II.30–1.
‘Alas, from what high hope to what relapseUnlooked for are we fallen!’Paradise Regained,II.30–1.
‘Alas, from what high hope to what relapse
Unlooked for are we fallen!’
Paradise Regained,II.30–1.