The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey Volume I Part 5

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 a.s.sign 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 Traite 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 mesure 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 compa.s.s 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. .h.i.therto 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 a.s.suredly 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 ill.u.s.trations 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. G.o.dwin--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 a.s.sumes a perpetual nisus in the principle of human increase to pa.s.s a certain limit, he does not therefore hold that this limit ever _is_ pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sistance seven worse logicians than himself, to put down my light with their darkness. Meantime, as a labour of shorter compa.s.s, 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, ent.i.tled, _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 quant.i.ty of labour, observe, which will produce X, but the quant.i.ty 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 _quant.i.ty 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 pa.s.sages from the 403rd and 421st pages of his _Political Essays_ as substantially antic.i.p.ating all that I had said. I believe that he _has_ antic.i.p.ated me: in the pa.s.sage relating to the geometric and arithmetic ratios, it is clear that he has: in the other pa.s.sage, 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 a.s.sure 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 compet.i.tion 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 const.i.tute 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. G.o.dwin--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)--_a 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 s.h.i.+fting 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 appet.i.tes' (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 a.n.a.lytic 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 a.s.sailable 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.

1. Mr. Hazlitt represents Mr. Malthus's error in regard to the different ratios of progression as a _mathematical_ error; but the other error he calls _logical_. This may seem to lead to nothing important: it is however not for any purpose of verbal cavil that I object to this distinction, and contend that both errors are logical.

For a little consideration will convince the reader that he, who thinks the first error mathematical, will inevitably miss the true point where the error of Mr. Malthus arises; and the consequence of that will be--that he will never understand the Malthusians, nor ever make himself understood by them. Mr. Hazlitt says, 'a bushel of wheat will sow a whole field: the produce of that will sow twenty fields.'

Yes: but this is not the point which Mr. Malthus denies: this he will willingly grant: neither will he deny that such a progression goes on by geometrical ratios. If he did, then it is true that his error would be a mathematical one. But all this he will concede. Where then lies his error? Simply in this--that he a.s.sumes (I do not mean in words, but it is manifestly latent in all that he says) that the wheat shall be continually resown on the same area of land: he will not allow of Mr. Hazlitt's 'twenty fields:' keep to your original field, he will say. In this lies his error: and the nature of that error is--that he insists upon shaping the case for the wheat in a way which makes it no fair a.n.a.logy to the case which he has shaped for man. That it is unfair is evident: for Mr. Malthus does not mean to contend that his men will go on by geometrical progression; or even by arithmetical, upon the _same_ quant.i.ty of food: no! he will himself say the positive principle of increase must concur with the same sort of increase in the external (negative) condition, which is food. Upon what sort of logic therefore does he demand that his wheat shall be thrown upon the naked power of its positive principle, _not_ concurring with the same sort of increase in the negative condition, which in this case is land? It is true that at length we shall come to the end of the land, because that is limited: but this has nothing to do with the race between man and his food, so long as the race is possible. The race is imagined for the sake of trying their several powers: and the terms of the match must be made equal. But there is no equality in the terms as they are supposed by Mr. Malthus. The amount therefore is--that the case which Mr. Malthus everywhere supposes and reasons upon, is a case of false a.n.a.logy: that is, it is a logical error. But, setting aside the unfairness of the case, Mr. Malthus is perfectly right in his mathematics. If it were fair to demand that the wheat should be constantly confined to the same s.p.a.ce of land, it is undeniable that it could never yield a produce advancing by a geometrical progression, but at the utmost by a very slow arithmetical progression.

Consequently, taking the case as Mr. Malthus puts it, he is right in calling it a case of arithmetical progression: and his error is in putting that case as a logical counterpart to his other case.

2. Mr. Hazlitt says--'This, Mr. Editor, is the writer whom "our full senate call all-in-all sufficient."'--And why not? I ask. Mr.

Hazlitt's inference is--that, because two propositions in Mr.

Malthus's Essay are overthrown, and because these two are propositions to which Mr. Malthus ascribes a false importance, in relation to his theory, therefore that theory is overthrown. But, if an architect, under some fancied weakness of a bridge which is really strong and self-supported, chooses to apply needless props, I shall not injure the bridge by showing these to be rotten props and knocking them away.

What is the real strength and the real use of Mr. Malthus's theory of population, cannot well be shown, except in treating of Political Economy. But as to the influence of his logical errors upon that theory, I contend that it is none at all. It is one error to affirm a different law of increase for man and for his food: it is a second error to affirm of a perfect state an attribute of imperfection: but in my judgment it is a third error, as great as either of the others, to suppose that these two errors can at all affect the Malthusian doctrine of Population. Let Mr. Malthus say what he will, the first of those errors is not the true foundation of that doctrine; the second of those errors does not contain its true application.

Two private communications on the paper which refuted Mr. Malthus, both expressed in terms of personal courtesy, for which I am bound to make my best acknowledgments, have reached me through the Editor of the _London Magazine_. One of them refers me 'to the number of the _New Monthly Magazine_ for March or April, 1821, for an article on Malthus, in which the view' taken by myself 'of his doctrine, as an answer to G.o.dwin, seems to have been antic.i.p.ated.' In reply to this I have only to express my regret that my present situation, which is at a great distance from any town, has not yet allowed me an opportunity for making the reference pointed out.--The other letter disputes the soundness of my arguments--not so much in themselves, as in their application to Mr. Malthus: 'I know not that I am authorised to speak of the author by name: his arguments I presume that I am at liberty to publish: they are as follows:--The first objection appears untenable for this reason: Mr. Malthus treats of the abstract tendency to increase in Man, and in the Food of Man, relatively. Whereas you do not discuss the abstract tendency to increase, but only the _measure_ of that increase, which is food. To the second objection I thus answer: Mr. G.o.dwin contends not (I presume) for abstract, essential perfection; but for perfection relating to, and commensurate with, the capabilities of an earthly nature and habitation. All this Mr. Malthus admits _argumenti gratia_: and at the same time a.s.serts that Mr.

G.o.dwin's estimate in his own terms is incompatible with our state. 8th October, 1823.'--To these answers my rejoinder is this:--The first argument I am not sure that I perfectly understand; and therefore I will not perplex myself or its author by discussing it. To the second argument I reply thus: I am aware that whatsoever Mr. Malthus admits from Mr. G.o.dwin, he admits only _argumenti gratia._ But for whatsoever purpose he admits it, he is bound to remember, that he _has_ admitted it. Now what is it that he has admitted? A state of perfection. This term, under any explanation of it, betrays him into the following dilemma: Either he means _absolute_ perfection, perfection which allows of no degrees; or he means (in the sense which my friendly antagonist has supposed) _relative_ perfection, _quoad_ our present state--_i. e._ a continual approximation to the ideal of absolute perfection, without ever reaching it. If he means the first, then he is exposed to the objection (which I have already insisted on sufficiently) of bringing the idea of perfection under an inconsistent and destructory predicate. If he means the second, then how has he overthrown the doctrine of human perfectibility as he professes to have done? At this moment, though the earth is far from exhausted (and still less its powers), many countries are, according to Mr. Malthus, suffering all the evils which they could suffer if population had reached its maximum: innumerable children are born which the poverty of their parents (no less fatal to them than the limitation of the earth) causes to be thrown back prematurely into the grave. Now this is the precise _kind_ of evil which Mr. Malthus antic.i.p.ates for the human species when it shall have reached its numerical maximum. But in _degree_ the evil may then be much less--even upon Mr. Malthus's own showing: for he does not fix any limit to the increase of moral restraint, but only denies that it will ever become absolute and universal. When the principle of population therefore has done its worst, we may be suffering the same kind of evil--but, in proportion to an indefinitely _in_creasing moral restraint, an indefinitely _de_creasing degree of that evil: _i. e._ we may continually approximate to the ideal of perfection: _i. e._ if the second sense of perfection be Mr. G.o.dwin's sense, then Mr. Malthus has not overthrown Mr. G.o.dwin.

X. Y. Z.

The following admirable letter[30] seems to refer to the observations on Kant, contained in the Opium Eater's Letters. Perhaps that acute logician may be able to discover its meaning: or if not, he may think it worth preserving as an ill.u.s.tration of Shakspeare's profound knowledge of character displayed in Ancient Pistol.

[Footnote 30: This is attached by the Editor of _The London Magazine_.--H.]

Can Neptune sleep?--Is Willich dead?--Him who wielded the trident of Albion! Is it thus you trample on the ashes of my friend? All the dreadful energies of thought--all the sophistry of fiction and the triumphs of the human intellect are waving o'er his peaceful grave.

'He understood not Kant.' Peace then to the harmless invincible. I have long been thinking of presenting the world with a Metaphysical Dictionary--of elucidating Locke's romance.--I await with impatience Kant in English. Give me that! Your letter has awakened me to a sense of your merits. Beware of squabbles; I know the literary infirmities of man. Scott rammed his nose against mortals--he grasped at death for fame to chaunt the victory.

THINE.

How is the Opium Eater?