later age in commentaries upon the Scriptures, has in these days taken the direction of metaphysical or statistic philosophy. Bear witness, Political Economy! Bear witness, Bullion and Corn Laws! Bear witness, the New Science of Population! and the whole host of productions to which these happy topics have given birth, from the humble magazine essay, up to the bold octavo, and more ambitious quarto. The type of the disease has varied at different times, but the disease remains the same..a colliquative diarrhoea of the intellect.. arising from its strong appetite and weak digestion. To legislate upon theories of population would be as absurd as if a physician upon some theory of pneumatics were to set respiration to music, and order all his patients to regulate their breathings by the time. You might as well attempt to regulate the seasons, or to legislate for hunger and thirst. A numerous population is, like the Amreeta cup of Kehama, the greatest of evils or the greatest of blessings, according to the government which wields it. A people properly instructed in their duty, and trained up in habits of industry and hope, which induce prudence, can never be too numerous while any portion of their own country remains uncultivated, or any part of the habitable earth uncolonized. To reason against the amelioration of society from such an apprehension is worse than folly. Under the most favourable circumstances which the most ardent enthusiast can contemplate, millenniums must pass away before the earth could be replenished;..till that time the first commandment which man received from his Creator stands unrepealed,..and if ever that time should come, the Creator may then be trusted: meantime it is the truest policy and the highest duty to improve the condition of the poor. The better the people are instructed, the happier and the better they will become; the happier they are, the more they will multiply; the more they multiply, the greater will be the wealth, and strength, and security of the state; and these maxims are as certain as the laws of nature and of God. |