last year did Major Torrens go down to the City Meeting with Mr. Malthus's arithmetical and geometrical ratios in his pocket, as a double and effectual bar to Mr. Owen's plan, or, indeed, if he is consistent, to any other plan of reform. He appeared to consider these ratios as decisive against any philosophical scheme of perfectibility, and as proportionably inimical to any subordinate approximation to any such ultimate visionary perfection. He argued that Mr. Owen's "projected villages," if realised in all their pauper splendour, and to the projector's heart's content, would, by providing for the support and increased comforts of an additional population, only (by that very means) give a double impetus to the mechanical operation of the ratios in question, and produce a double quantity of crime and misery, by making the principle of population press with extended force on the means of subsistence. This is what we can not comprehend. Suppose Mr. Owen's plan, or any other, would afford double employment, double comfort and subsistence to the poor throughout the country, where would be the harm of this, where the objection, near or remote, except on the false principles laid down or insinuated in Mr. Malthus's work? For instance, if another island such as England could by an enchanter be conjured up in the middle of the sea, with all the same means of subsistence, arts, trades, agriculture, manufactures, institutions, laws, &c. as this country, we ask whether this new country would not be a good in proportion to the number of beings maintained in such a state of comfort: or, if these gentlemen will have it so, in proportion to the increase of population pressing on the means of subsistence? We say it would be a good, just in the same sense and proportion that it would be an evil, if England as it is, with all its inhabitants, means of subsistence, arts, trades, manufactures, agriculture, institutions, laws, King, Lords and Commons, were sunk in the sea? Who would not weep for England so sunk,-who would not rejoice to see another England so rising up out of the same element? The good would be immense, and the evil

would be none: for it is evident, that though the population of both islands would be double that of either singly, it is the height of absurdity to suppose this would increase the tendency of the population to press more upon the means of subsistence, or to produce a greater quantity of vice and misery in either, than if the one or the other did not exist. But the case is precisely the same if we suppose England itself, our England, to be doubled in population and the means of subsistence:—if we suppose such an improvement in our arts, trade, manufactures, agriculture, institutions, laws, every thing, possible, as to maintain double the same number of Englishmen, in the same or in a greater degree of comfort and enjoyment, of liberty, virtue, knowledge, happiness, and independence. The population being doubled would not press more unequally on double the means of subsistence, than half that population would press on half those means of subsistence. If this increase would be an evil, the destroying half the present population, and half the present means of subsistence, the laying waste more lands, the destroying arts and the implements of husbandry, the re-barbarising and the re-enslaving the country, would be a good. The sinking the maritime counties with all their inhabitants in the Channel, instead of "redeeming tracts from the sea," would be a great good to the community and the State; the flooding the fen districts would do something, in like manner, to prevent the pressure of the principle of population on the level of the means of subsistence; and if thirty-nine out of forty of the counties could be struck off the list of shires, and the whole island reduced to a sand-bank, the King of England would reign, according to these speculatists, over forty or forty thousand times the quantity of liberty, happiness, wisdom, and virtue, that he now does, having no subjects, or only a select few, for the principle of population to commit its ravages upon, by overstepping the means of subsistence. The condition of New Zealand must approach nearer to the beau ideal of political philosophy contemplated by these persons, than the state of Great Britain in

the reign of George III. Such is the logical result of their mode of reasoning, though they do not push it to this length ;they only apply it to the defence of all existing abuses, and the prevention of all timely reform! Its advocates are contented to make use of it as a lucky diversion against all Utopian projects of perfectibility, and against every practical advance in human improvement. But they cannot consistently stop here, for it requires not only a shrinking back from every progressive refinement, but a perpetual deterioration and retrograde movement from the positive advances we have made in civilization, comfort, and population, to the lowest state of barbarism, ignorance, and depopulation-till we come back to the age of acorns and pignuts, and reduce this once flourishing, populous, free, industrious, independent, and contented people, to a horde of wandering savages, housing in thickets, and living on dewberries, shell-fish, and crab-apples. This will never do.

ON THE

ORIGINALITY OF MR. MALTHUS'S ESSAY.

WE asserted in a former article, upon what we thought sufficient and mature grounds, that the author of the "Essay on Population" had taken the leading principle of that essay, and the general inference built on it, from Wallace's work, entitled, "Various Prospects of Mankind, Nature and Providence." We here repeat that assertion; and to enable our readers to judge for themselves, shall give the passage in Wallace on which it is founded. It is as follows:

"But without entering further into these abstracted and uncertain speculations, it deserves our particular attention that as no Government which hath hitherto been established is free from all seeds of corruption, or can be expected to be eternal; so if we suppose a Government to be perfect in its original frame,

and to be administered in the most perfect manner, after whatever model we suppose it to have been framed, such a perfect form would be so far from lasting for ever, that it must come to an end so much the sooner on account of its perfection. For, though happily such Governments should be firmly establishedthough they should be found consistent with the reigning passions of human nature, though they should spread far and wide-nay, though they should prevail universally, they must at last involve mankind in the deepest perplexity, and in universal confusion. For how excellent soever they may be in their own nature, they are altogether inconsistent with the present frame of nature, and with a limited extent of earth.

"Under a perfect Government, the inconveniences of having a family would be so entirely removed, children would be so well taken care of, and every thing become so favourable to populousness, that though some sickly seasons or dreadful plagues in particular climates might cut off multitudes, yet in general, mankind would increase so prodigiously, that the earth would at last be overstocked, and become unable to support its numerous inhabitants.

"How long the earth, with the best culture of which it is capable from human genius and industry, might be able to nourish its perpetually increasing inhabitants, is as impossible as it is unnecessary to be determined. It is not probable that it could have supported them during so long a period as since the creation of Adam. But whatever may be supposed of the length of this period, of necessity it must be granted, that the earth could not nourish them for ever, unless either its fertility could be continually augmented, or by some secret in nature, like what certain enthusiasts have expected from the philosopher's stone, some wise adept in the occult sciences should invent a method of supporting mankind quite different from any thing known at present. Nay, though some extraordinary method of supporting them might possibly be found out, yet if there was no bound to the increase of mankind, which would be the case under a perfect

骨

Government, there would not even be sufficient room for containing their bodies upon the surface of the earth, or upon any limited surface whatsoever. It would be necessary, therefore, in order to find room for such multitudes of men, that the earth should be continually enlarging in bulk, as an animal or vegetable body.

"Now since philosophers may as soon attempt to make mankind immortal, as to support the animal frame without food, it is equally certain that limits are set to the fertility of the earth; and that its bulk, so far as is hitherto known, hath continuea always the same, and probably could not be much altered without making considerable changes in the solar system. It would be impossible, therefore, to support the great numbers of men who would be raised up under a perfect government; the earth would be overstocked at last, and the greatest admirers of such fanciful schemes must foresee the fatal period when they would come to an end, as they are altogether inconsistent with the limits of that earth in which they must exist.

"What a miserable catastrophe of the most generous of all human systems of Government! How dreadfully would the Magistrates of such commonwealths find themselves disconcerted at that fatal period, when there was no longer any room for new colonies, and when the earth could produce no farther supplies! During all the preceding ages, while there was room for increase, mankind must have been happy; the earth must have been a paradise in the literal sense, as the greatest part of it must have been turned into delightful and fruitful gardens. But when the dreadful time should at last come, when our globe, by the most diligent culture, could not produce what was sufficient to nourish its numerous inhabitants, what happy expedient could then be found out to remedy so great an evil?

“In such a cruel necessity, must there be a law to restrain marriage? Must multitudes of women be shut up in cloisters, like the ancient vestals or modern nuns? To keep a balance between the two sexes, must a proportionable number of men