 CHAPTER VIII. Mr. Wallace, error of supposing that the difficulty arising from population is at a great distance. Mr. Condorcet's sketch of the progress of the human mind, period when the oscillation mentioned by Mr. Condorcet ought to be applied to the human race. To a person who draws the preceding obvious inferences from a view of the past and present state of mankind, it cannot but be a matter of astonishment that all the writers of the perfect ability of man, and of society who have noticed the argument of an overcharged population, treat it always very slightly and invariably represent the difficulties arising from it as at a great and almost immeasurable distance. Even Mr. Wallace, who thought the argument itself of so much weight as to destroy his whole system of equality, did not seem to be aware that any difficulty would occur from this cause till the whole earth had been cultivated like a garden and was incapable of any further increase of produce. Were this really the case, and were a beautiful system of equality in other respects practicable, I cannot think that our ardure in the pursuit of such a scheme ought to be dammed by the contemplation of so remote a difficulty. An event at such a distance might fairly be left to providence, but the truth is that if the view of the argument given in this essay is just a difficulty, so far from being remote, would be imminent and immediate. At every period during the progress of cultivation, from the present moment to the time when the whole earth was become like a garden, the distress for the want of food would be constantly pressing on all mankind if they were equal, though the produce of the earth might be increasing every year, population would be increasing much faster, and the redundancy must necessarily be repressed by the periodical or constant action of misery or vice. Mr. Condorcet's Esquise d'un tableau historique des progresses de l'espire humain was written, it is said, under the pressure of that cruel prescription which terminated in his death. If he had no hopes of its being seen during his life and of its interesting France in his favor, it is a singular instance of the attachment of a man to principles, which every day's experience was so fatally for himself contradicting, to see the human mind in one of the most enlightened nations of the world. And after a lapse of some thousand years, debased by such a fermentation of disgusting passions, of fear, cruelty, malice, revenge, ambition, madness, and folly, as would have disgraced the most savage nation in the most barbarous age, must have been such a tremendous shock to his ideas of the necessary and inevitable progress of the human mind that nothing but the firmest conviction of the truth of his principles in spite of all appearances could have withstood. This posthumous publication is only a sketch of a much larger work, which he proposed should be executed. It necessarily, therefore, wants that detail and application which can alone prove the truth of any theory. A few observations will be sufficient to show how completely the theory is contradicted when it is applied to the real and not to an imaginary state of things. In the last division of the work, which treats of the future progress of man towards perfection, he says that comparing in the different civilized nations of Europe the actual population with the extent of territory and observing their cultivation, their industry, their division of labor, and their means of subsistence, we shall see that it would be impossible to preserve the same means of subsistence and, consequently, the same population without a number of individuals who have no other means of supplying their wants than their industry. Having allowed the necessity of such a class of men, and adverting afterwards to the precarious revenue of those families that would depend so entirely on the life and health of their chief, he says very justly, there exists then a necessary cause of inequality, of dependence, and even of misery, which menaces without ceasing the most numerous and active class of our societies. Bracket To save time and long quotations, I shall here give the substance of some of Mr. Condorcet's sentiments, and hope I shall not misrepresent them. But I refer the reader to the work itself, which will amuse, if it does not convince him. Close Bracket The difficulty is just and well stated, and I am afraid that the mode by which he proposes it should be removed will be found inefficacious. By the application of calculations to the probabilities of life and the interest of money, he proposes that a fund should be established which should assure to the old and assistants, produced in part by their own former savings, and in part by the savings of individuals who, in making the same sacrifice, die before they reap the benefit of it. The same, or a similar fund, should give assistance to women, and children who lose their husbands, or fathers, and afford a capital to those who were of an age to found a new family sufficient for the proper development of their industry. These establishments, he observes, might be made in the name and under the protection of the society. Going still further, he says that, by the just application of calculations, means might be found of more completely preserving a state of equality by preventing credit from being the exclusive privilege of great fortunes, and yet giving it a basis equally solid, and by rendering the progress of industry and the activity of commerce less dependent on great capitalists. Such establishments and calculations may appear very promising upon paper, but when applied to real life, they will be found to be absolutely negatory. Mr. Condorcet allows that a class of people which maintains itself entirely by industry is necessary to every state. Why does he allow this? No other reason can well be assigned than that he conceives that the labor necessary to procure subsistence for an extended population will not be performed without the goad of necessity. If by establishments of this kind of spur to industry be removed, if the idol and the negligent are placed upon the same footing with regard to their credit, and the future support of their wives and families, as the active and industrious, can we expect to see men exert that animated activity in bettering their condition which now forms the master spring of public prosperity? If an inquisition were to be established to examine the claims of each individual and to determine whether he had or had not exerted himself to the utmost and to grant or refuse assistance accordingly, this would be little else than a repetition upon a larger scale of the English poor laws and would be completely destructive to the true principles of liberty and equality. But independent of this great objection to these establishments and supposing for a moment that they would give no check to productive industry, by far the greatest difficulty remains yet behind. Were every man sure of a comfortable provision for his family, almost every man would have one. And were the rising generation free from the killing frost of misery, population must rapidly increase. Of this Mr. Condorce seems to be fully aware himself, and after having described further improvements, he says. But in this process of industry and happiness, each generation will be called to more extended enjoyments, and in consequence by the physical constitution of the human frame to an increase in the number of individuals. Must not there arrive a period then, when these laws, equally necessary, shall counteract each other? When the increase of the number of men surpassing their means of subsistence, the necessary result must be either a continual diminution of happiness and population, a movement truly retrograde, or at least a kind of oscillation between good and evil. In societies arrived at this term, will not this oscillation be a constantly subsisting cause of periodical misery? Will it not mark the limit, when all further amelioration will become impossible, and point out to that term, to the perfectability of the human race, which it may reach in the course of ages, but can never pass? He then adds. There is no person who does not see how very distant such a period is from us, but shall we ever arrive at it? It is equally impossible to pronounce for or against the future realization of an event which cannot take place but at an era when the human race will have attained improvements of which we can at present scarcely form a conception. Mr. Condor says picture of what may be expected to happen when the number of men shall surpass the means of their subsistence is justly drawn. The oscillations which he describes will certainly take place, and will without doubt be a constantly subsisting cause of periodical misery. The only point in which I differ from Mr. Condor say, with regard to this picture, is the period when it may be applied to the human race. Mr. Condor say thinks that it cannot possibly be applicable, but at an era extremely distant. If the proportion between the natural increase of population and food, which I have given, be in any degree near the truth, it will appear on the contrary that the period when the number of men surpass their means of subsistence has long since arrived, and that this necessary oscillation, this constantly subsisting cause of periodical misery, has existed ever since we have had any histories of mankind, does exist at present, and will forever continue to exist unless some decided change take place in the physical constitution of our nature. Mr. Condor say, however, goes on to say that should the period which he conceives to be so distant ever arrive, the human race, and the advocates for the perfectability of man, did not be alarmed at it. He then proceeds to remove the difficulty in a manner which I profess not to understand, having observed that the ridiculous prejudices of superstition would by that time have ceased to throw over morals a corrupt and degrading austerity. He alludes either to a promiscuous concubinage which would prevent breeding or to something else as a natural. To remove the difficulty in this way will, surely in the opinion of most men, be to destroy that virtue and purity of manners, which the advocates of equality and of the perfectability of man profess to be the end and object of their views. End of Chapter 8 Recording by Jeffrey Edwards Chapter 9 of an essay on the principle of population. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jeffrey Edwards. An essay on the principle of population by Thomas Malthus. Chapter 9 Mr. Condorcet's conjecture concerning the organic perfectability of man and the indefinite prolongation of human life, fallacy of the argument, which infers an unlimited progress from a partial improvement, the limit of which cannot be ascertained, illustrated in the breeding of animals and the cultivation of plants. The last question which Mr. Condorcet proposes for examination is the organic perfectability of man. He observes that if the proofs which have already been given and which in their development will receive greater force in the work itself, are sufficient to establish the indefinite perfectability of man upon the supposition of the same natural faculties and the same organization which he has at present. What will be the certainty? What the extent of our hope? If this organization, these natural faculties, themselves, are susceptible of amelioration, from the improvement of medicine, from the use of more wholesome food and habitations, from a manner of living which will improve the strength of the body by exercise without impairing it by excess, from the destruction of the two great causes of the degradation of man, misery and two great riches, from the gradual removal of transmissible and contagious disorders by the improvement of physical knowledge, rendered more efficacious by the progress of reason and of social order. He infers that though man will not absolutely become immortal, yet that the duration between his birth and natural death will increase without ceasing, will have no assignable term and may properly be expressed by the word indefinite. He then defines this word to mean either a constant approach to an unlimited extent without ever reaching it or an increase. In the immensity of ages to an extent greater than any assignable quantity. But surely the application of this term in either of these senses to the duration of human life is in the highest degree unphilosophical and totally unwarranted by any appearances in the laws of nature. Variations from different causes are essentially distinct from a regular and unretrograde increase. The average duration of human life will to a certain degree vary from healthy or unhealthy climates, from wholesome or unwholesome food, from virtuous or vicious manners and other causes. But it may be fairly doubted whether there is really the smallest perceptible advance in the natural duration of human life since first we have had any authentic history of man. The prejudices of all ages have indeed been directly contrary to this supposition. And though I would not lay much stress upon these prejudices, they will in some measure tend to prove that there has been no marked advance in an opposite direction. It may perhaps be said that the world is yet so young, so completely in its infancy, that it ought not to be expected that any difference should appear so soon. If this be the case, there is at once an end of all human science. The whole train of reasonings from effects to causes will be destroyed. We may shut our eyes to the book of nature as it will no longer be of any use to read it. The wildest and most improbable conjectures may be advanced with as much certainty as the most just and sublime theories founded on careful and reiterated experiments. We may return again to the old mode of philosophizing and make facts bend to systems instead of establishing systems upon facts. The grand and consistent theory of Newton will be placed upon the same footing as the wild and eccentric hypothesis of Descartes. In short, if the laws of nature are thus fickle and inconstant, if it can be affirmed and be believed that they will change, when for ages and ages they have appeared immutable, the human mind will no longer have any incitements to inquire, but must remain fixed in inactive torpor or amuse itself only in bewildering dreams and extravagant fancies. The constancy of the laws of nature and of effects and causes is the foundation of all human knowledge, though far be it for me to say that the same power which framed and executes the laws of nature may not change them all in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. Such a change may undoubtedly happen. All that I mean to say is that it is impossible to infer it from reasoning. If without any previous observable symptoms or indications of a change, we can infer that a change will take place, we may as well make any assertion whatever and think it as unreasonable to be contradicted in affirming that the moon will come in contact with the Earth tomorrow as in saying that the sun will rise at its usual time. With regard to the duration of human life, there does not appear to have existed from the earliest ages of the world to the present moment, the smallest permanent symptom or indication of increasing prolongation. The observable effects of climate, habit, diet and other causes on length of life have furnished the pretext for asserting its indefinite extension and the sandy foundation on which the argument rests is that because the limit of human life is undefined, because you cannot mark its precise term and say so far exactly shall it go and no further, that therefore its extent may increase forever and be properly termed indefinite or unlimited. But the fallacy and absurdity of this argument will sufficiently appear from a slight examination of what Mr. Condorcet calls the organic perfectability or degeneration of the race of plants and animals, which he says may be regarded as one of the general laws of nature. I am told that it is a maxim among the improvers of cattle that you may breed to any degree of nicety you please. And they found this maxim upon another, which is that some of the offspring will possess the desirable qualities of the parents in a greater degree. In the famous lightchester shire breed of sheep, the object is to procure them with small heads and small legs. Proceeding upon these breeding maxims, it is evident that we might go on till the heads and legs were evanescent quantities, but this is so palpable and absurdity that we may be quite sure that the premises are not just and that there really is a limit, though we cannot see it or say exactly where it is. In this case, the point of the greatest degree of improvement or the smallest size of the head and legs may be said to be undefined, but this is very different from unlimited or from indefinite, in Mr. Condorcet's acceptance of the term. Though I may not be able in the present instance to mark the limit at which further improvement will stop, I can very easily mention a point at which it will not arrive. I should not scruple to assert that were the breeding to continue forever, the head and legs of these sheep would never be so small as the head and legs of a rat. It cannot be true, therefore, that among animals some of the offspring will possess the desirable qualities of the parents in a greater degree or that animals are indefinitely perfectable. The progress of a wild plant to a beautiful garden flower is perhaps more marked and striking than anything that takes place among animals. Yet even here it would be the height of absurdity to assert that the progress was unlimited or indefinite. One of the most obvious features of the improvement is the increase of size. The flower has grown gradually larger by cultivation. If the progress were really unlimited, it might be increased at infinitum. But this is so gross and absurdity that we may be quite sure that among plants as well as among animals there is a limit to improvement, though we do not exactly know where it is. It is probable that the gardeners who contend for flower prizes have often applied stronger dressing without success. At the same time, it would be highly presumptuous in any man to say that he had seen the finest carnation or anemone that could ever be made to grow. He might, however, assert without the smallest chance of being contradicted by a future fact that no carnation or anemone could ever by cultivation be increased to the size of a large cabbage. And yet there are assignable quantities much greater than a cabbage. No man can say that he has seen the largest ear of wheat or the largest oak that could ever grow. But he might easily and with perfect certainty aim a point of magnitude at which they would not arrive. In all these cases, therefore, a careful distinction should be made between an unlimited progress and a progress where the limit is merely undefined. It will be said, perhaps, that the reason why plants and animals cannot increase indefinitely in size is that they would fall by their own weight. I answer, how do we know this? But from experience. From experience of the degree of strength with which these bodies are formed. I know that a carnation, long before it reached the size of a cabbage, would not be supported by its stock. But I only know this from experience of the weakness and want of tenacity in the materials of a carnation stock. There are many substances in nature of the same size that would support as large a head as a cabbage. The reasons of the mortality of plants are at present perfectly unknown to us. No man can say why such a plant is annual, another biannual, and another endures for ages. The whole affair in all these cases, in plants, animals, and in the human race is an affair of experience. And I only conclude that man is mortal because the invariable experience of all ages has proved the mortality of those materials of which his visible body is made. What can we reason, but from what we know? Sound philosophy will not authorize me to alter this opinion of the mortality of man on earth, till it can be clearly proved that the human race has made and is making a decided progress towards an illimitable extent of life. And the chief reason why I deduced the two particular instances from animals and plants was to expose and illustrate. If I could, the fallacy of that argument, which infers an unlimited progress merely because some partial improvement has taken place and that the limit of this improvement cannot be precisely ascertained. The capacity of improvement in plants and animals to a certain degree, no person can possibly doubt. A clear and decided progress has already been made and yet I think it appears that it would be highly absurd to say that this progress has no limits. In human life, though there are great variations from different causes, it may be doubted whether, since the world began, any organic improvement whatever in the human frame can be clearly ascertained. The foundations, therefore, on which the arguments for the organic perfectability of man rest are unusually weak and can only be considered as mere conjectures. It does not, however, by any means seem impossible that by an attention to breed, a certain degree of improvement, similar to that among animals, might take place among men. Whether intellect could be communicated may be a matter of doubt, but size, strength, beauty, complexion, and perhaps even longevity are in a degree transmissible. The error does not seem to lie in supposing a small degree of improvement possible, but in not discriminating between a small improvement, the limit of which is undefined and an improvement really unlimited. As the human race, however, could not be improved in this way without condemning all the bad specimens to celibacy, it is not probable that an attention to breed should ever become general. Indeed, I know of no well-directed attempts of this kind, except in the ancient family of the bicker staffs who are said to have been very successful in whitening the skins and increasing the heights of their race by prudent marriages, particularly by that very judicious cross with maud, the milkmaid, by which some capital defects in the constitutions of the family were corrected. It will not be necessary, I think, in order more completely to show the improbability of any approach in man towards immortality on earth, to urge the very great additional weight that an increase in the duration of life would give to the argument of population. Many, I doubt not, will think that the attempting gravely to controvert so absurd a paradox as the immortality of man on earth, or indeed, even the perfectability of man in society, is a waste of time and words, and that such unfounded conjectures are best answered by neglect. I profess, however, to be of a different opinion. When paradoxes of this kind are advanced by ingenious and ablemen, neglect has no tendency to convince them of their mistakes. Priding themselves on what they conceive to be a mark of the reach and size of their own understandings, of the extent and comprehensiveness of their views, they will look upon this neglect merely as an indication of poverty and narrowness in the mental exertions of their contemporaries, and only think that the world is not yet prepared to receive their sublime truths. On the contrary, a candid investigation of these subjects, accompanied with a perfect readiness to adopt any theory warranted by sound philosophy, may have a tendency to convince them that in forming improbable and unfounded hypotheses, so far from allerging the bounds of human science, they are contracting it. So far from promoting the improvement of the human mind, they are obstructing it. They are throwing us back again almost into the infancy of knowledge and weakening the foundations of that mode of philosophizing, under the auspices of which science has of late made such rapid advances. The present rage for wide and unrestrained speculation seems to be a kind of mental intoxication, arising perhaps from the great and unexpected discoveries which have been made of late years in various branches of science. To many late and giddy with such successes, everything appeared to be within the grasp of human powers, and under this illusion, they confounded subjects where no real progress could be proved with those where the progress had been marked, certain and acknowledged. Could they be persuaded to sober themselves with a little severe and chastised thinking, they would see that the cause of truth and of sound philosophy cannot but suffer by substituting wild flights and unsupported assertions for patient investigation and well-authenticated proofs. Mr. Condorcet's book may be considered not only as a sketch of the opinions of a celebrated individual, but of many of the literary men in France at the beginning of the revolution. As such, though merely a sketch, it seems worthy of attention. End of chapter nine, recording by Geoffrey Edwards. CHAPTER X MR. GODWIN'S SYSTEM OF EQUALITY Error of attributing all the vices of mankind to human institutions. Mr. Godwin's first answer to the difficulty arising from population totally insufficient. Mr. Godwin's beautiful system of equality supposed to be realized. It's utter destruction, simply from the principle of population in so short a time as 30 years. In reading Mr. Godwin's ingenious and able work on political justice, it is impossible not to be struck with the spirit and energy of his style, the force and precision of some of his reasonings, the ardent tone of his thoughts, and particularly with the impressive earnestness of manner which gives an air of truth to the whole. At the same time, it must be confessed that he has not proceeded in his inquiries with the caution that sound philosophy seems to require. His conclusions are often unwarranted by his premises. He fails sometimes in removing the objections which he himself brings forward. He relies too much on general and abstract propositions which will not admit of application. And his conjectures certainly far outstrip the modesty of nature. The system of equality which Mr. Godwin proposes is, without doubt, by far the most beautiful and engaging of any that has yet appeared. An amelioration of society to be produced merely by reason and conviction whereas much more the promise of permanence than any change affected and maintained by force. The unlimited exercise of private judgment is a doctrine inexpressibly grand and captivating and has a vast superiority over those systems where every individual is in a manner a slave of the public. The substitution of benevolence as the master spring and moving principle of society instead of self-love is a consummation devoutly to be wished for. In short, it is impossible to contemplate the whole of this fair structure without emotions of delight and admiration accompanied with ardent longing for the period of its accomplishment. But alas, that moment can never arrive. The whole is little better than a dream, a beautiful phantom of the imagination. These gorgeous palaces of happiness and immortality, these solemn temples of truth and virtue will dissolve like the baseless fabric of a vision when we awaken to real life and contemplate the true and genuine situation of man on earth. Mr. Godwin, at the conclusion of the third chapter of his eighth book, speaking of population says, there is a principle in human society by which population is perpetually kept down to the level of the means of subsistence. Thus among the wandering tribes of America and Asia we never find through the lapse of ages that population has so increased as to render necessary the cultivation of the earth. This principle, which Mr. Godwin thus mentions as some mysterious and occult cause which he does not attempt to investigate will be found to be the grinding law of necessity, misery and the fear of misery. The great error under which Mr. Godwin labors throughout his whole work is the attributing almost all the vices and misery that are seen in civil society to human institutions. Political regulations and the established administration of property are with him the fruitful sources of all evil, the hotbeds of all the crimes that degrade mankind. Were this really a true state of the case, it would not seem a hopeless task to remove evil completely from the world and reason seems to be the proper and adequate instrument for affecting so great a purpose. But the truth is that though human institutions appear to be the obvious and obtrusive causes of such mischief to mankind, yet in reality they are light and superficial. They are mere feathers that float on the surface in comparison with those deeper seated causes of impurity that corrupt the springs and render turbid the whole stream of human life. Mr. Godwin in his chapter on the benefits attendant on a system of equality says, the spirit of oppression, the spirit of servility and the spirit of fraud, these are the immediate growth of the established administration of property. They are alike hostile to intellectual improvement. The other vices of envy, malice and revenge are their inseparable companions. In a state of society where man lived in the midst of plenty and where all shared alike the bounties of nature, these sentiments would inevitably expire. The narrow principle of selfishness would vanish. No man being obliged to guard his little store or provide with anxiety and pain for his restless wants, each would lose his individual existence in the thought of the general good. No man would be an enemy to his neighbor, for they would have no subject of contention. And of consequence, philanthropy would resume the empire which reason assigns her. Mind would be delivered from her perpetual anxiety about corporeal support and free to expatiate in the field of thought, which is congenial to her. Each would assist the inquiries of all. This would indeed be a happy state, but that it is merely an imaginary picture with scarcely a feature near the truth, the reader, I am afraid, is already too well convinced. Man cannot live in the midst of plenty. All cannot share alike the bounties of nature. Were there no established administration of property, every man would be obliged to guard with force his little store. Selfishness would be triumphant. The subjects of contention would be perpetual. Every individual mind would be under a constant anxiety about corporeal support and not a single intellect would be left free to expatiate in the field of thought. How little Mr. Godwin has turned the attention of his penetrating mind to the real state of man on earth will sufficiently appear from the manner in which he endeavors to remove the difficulty of an overcharged population. He says, the obvious answer to this objection is that to reason thus is to foresee difficulties at a great distance. Three fourths of the habitable globe is now uncultivated. Parts already cultivated are capable of immeasurable improvement. Meriants of centuries of still increasing population may pass away and the earth be still found sufficient for the subsistence of its inhabitants. I have already pointed out the error of supposing that no distress and difficulty would arise from an overcharged population before the earth absolutely refused to produce anymore. But let us imagine for a moment Mr. Godwin's beautiful system of equality realized in its utmost purity and see how soon this difficulty might be expected to press under so perfect a form of society, a theory that will not admit of application cannot possibly be just. Let us suppose all the causes of misery and vice in this island removed. War and contention cease. Unwholesome trades and manufactories do not exist. Crowds no longer collect together in great and pestilent cities for purposes of court intrigue, of commerce and vicious gratifications. Simple, healthy and rational amusements take place of drinking, gaming and debauchery. There are no towns sufficiently large to have any prejudicial effects on the human constitution. The greater part of the happy inhabitants of this terrestrial paradise live in hamlets and farmhouses scattered over the face of the country. Every house is clean, airy, sufficiently roomy and in a healthy situation. All men are equal. The labors of luxury are at end. And the necessary labors of agriculture are shared amicably among all. The number of persons and the produce of the island we suppose to be the same as at present. The spirit of benevolence guided by impartial justice will divide this produce among all the members of society according to their wants. Though it would be impossible that they should all have animal food every day, yet vegetable food, with meat occasionally, would satisfy the desires of a frugal people and would be sufficient to preserve them in health, strength and spirits. Mr. Godwin considers marriage as a fraud and a monopoly. Let us suppose the commerce of the sexes established upon principles of the most perfect freedom. Mr. Godwin does not think himself that this freedom would lead to a promiscuous intercourse. And in this I perfectly agree with him. The love of variety is a vicious, corrupt and unnatural taste and could not prevail in any great degree in a simple and virtuous state of society. Each man would probably select himself a partner to whom he would adhere as long as that adherence continued to be the choice of both parties. It would be of little consequence according to Mr. Godwin how many children a woman had or to whom they belonged. Provisions and assistants would spontaneously flow from the quarter in which they abounded to the quarter that was deficient. See Book 8, Chapter 8, in the third edition, Volume 2, Page 512. And every man would be ready to furnish instruction to the rising generation according to his capacity. I cannot conceive a form of society so favorable upon the whole population, the irremediableness of marriage, as it is at presence constituted, undoubtedly deters many from entering into that state. An unshackled intercourse on the contrary would be a most powerful incitement to early attachments. And as we are supposing no anxiety about the future support of children to exist, I do not conceive that there would be one woman in 100 of 23 without a family. With these extraordinary encouragements to population and every cause of depopulation as we have supposed removed, the numbers would necessarily increase faster than in any society that has ever yet been known. I have mentioned on the authority of a pamphlet published by Dr. Stiles and referred to by Dr. Price that the inhabitants of the back settlements of America doubled their population in 15 years. England is certainly a more healthy country than the back settlements of America. And as we have supposed every house in the island to be airy and wholesome and the encouragements to have a family greater even than with the back settlers, no probable reason can be assigned why the population should not double itself in less if possible than 15 years. But to be quite sure that we do not go beyond the truth, we will only suppose the period of doubling to be 25 years, a ratio of increase which is well known to have taken place throughout all the northern states of America. There can be little doubt that the equalization of property which we have supposed added to the circumstance of the labor of the whole community being directed chiefly to agriculture would tend greatly to augment the produce of the country. But to answer the demands of a population increasing so rapidly, Mr. Godwin's calculation of half an hour a day for each man would certainly not be sufficient. It is probable that the half of every man's time must be employed for this purpose. Yet with such or much greater exertions, a person who is acquainted with the nature of the soil in this country and who reflects on the fertility of the lands already in cultivation and the barrenness of those that are not cultivated will be very much disposed to doubt whether the whole average produce could possibly be doubled in 25 years from the present period. The only chance of success would be plowing up all the grazing countries and putting an end almost entirely to the use of animal food. Yet a part of this scheme might defeat itself. The soil of England will not produce much without dressing and cattle seem to be necessary to make that species of manure which best suits the land. In China it is said that soil in some of the provinces is so fertile as to produce two crops of rice in the air without dressing. None of the lands in England will answer to this description. Difficult however, as it might be to double the average produce of the island in 25 years, let us suppose it affected. At the expiration of the first period therefore, the food, though almost entirely vegetable, would be sufficient to support in health the doubled population of 14 millions. During the next period of doubling, where will the food be found to satisfy the important demands of the increasing numbers? Where is the fresh land to turn up? Where is the dressing necessary to improve that which is already in cultivation? There is no person with the smallest knowledge of land but would say that it was impossible that the average produce of the country could be increased during the second 25 years by a quantity equal to what it at present yields. Yet we will suppose this increase, however improbable, to take place. The exuberant strength of the argument allows of almost any concession. Even with this concession, however, there would be seven millions at the expiration of the second term unprovided for. A quantity of food equal to the frugal support of 21 millions would be to be divided among 28 millions. Alas, what becomes of the picture where men lived in the midst of plenty where no man was obliged to provide with anxiety and pain for his restless wants? Where the narrow principle of selfishness did not exist? Where mind was delivered from her perpetual anxiety about corporal support and free to expatiate in the field of thought which is congenial to her? This beautiful fabric of imagination vanishes at the severe touch of truth. The spirit of benevolence cherished and invigorated by plenty is repressed by the chilling breath of want. The hateful passions that have vanished reappear. The mighty law of self-preservation expels all the softer and more exalted emotions of the soul. The temptations to evil are too strong for human nature to resist. The corn is plucked before it is ripe or secreted in unfair proportions and the whole black train of vices that belong to falsehood are immediately generated. Provisions no longer flow in for the support of the mother with a large family. The children are sickly from insufficient food. The rosy flesh of health gives place to the palate-cheek and hollow eye of misery. Benevolence, yet lingering in a few bosoms, makes some faint expiring struggles. Till at length self-love resumes his wanted empire and lords it triumphant over the world. No human institutions here existed, to the perverseness of which Mr. Godwin ascribes the original sin of the worst men. Book 8, Chapter 3 in the third edition, Volume 2, Page 462. No opposition has been produced by them between public and private good. No monopoly had been created of those advantages which reason directs to be left in common. No man had been goaded to the breach of order by unjust laws. Benevolence had established her reign in all hearts and yet in so short a period as within 50 years, violence, oppression, falsehood, misery, every hateful vice and every form of distress which degrade and sadden the present state of society seemed to have been generated by the most imperious circumstances, by laws inherent in the nature of man and absolutely independent of it human regulations. If we are not yet too well convinced of the reality of this melancholy picture, let us but look for a moment into the next period of 25 years and we shall see 28 millions of human beings without the means of support and before the conclusion of the first century, the population would be 112 millions and the food only sufficient for 35 millions leaving 77 millions unprovided for. In these ages, want would be indeed triumphant and rapine and murder must reign at large and yet all this time we are supposing the produce of the earth absolutely unlimited and the yearly increase greater than the boldest speculator can imagine. This is undoubtedly a very different view of the difficulty arising from population from that which Mr. Godwin gives when he says, myriads of centuries of still increasing population may pass away and the earth be still found sufficient for the subsistence of its inhabitants. I am sufficiently aware that the redundant 28 millions of 77 millions that I have mentioned could never have existed. It is a perfectly just observation of Mr. Godwin that there is a principle in human society by which population is perpetually kept down to the level of the means of subsistence. The sole question is, what is this principle? Is it some obscure and occult cause? Is it some mysterious interference of heaven which at a certain period strikes the men with impotence and the women with barrenness? Or is it a cause open to our researches within our view? A cause which has constantly been observed to operate though with varied force in every state in which man has been placed. Is it not a degree of misery, the necessary and inevitable result of the laws of nature which human institutions so far from aggravating have tended considerably to mitigate though they never can remove? It may be curious to observe in the case that we have been supposing how some of the laws which at present govern civilized society would be successively dictated by the most imperious necessity as man, according to Mr. Godwin, is the creature of the impressions to which he is subject, the godings of want could not continue long before some violations of public or private stock would necessarily take place. As these violations increased in number and extent, the more active and comprehensive intellects of the society would soon perceive that while population was fast increasing, the yearly produce of the country would shortly begin to diminish. The urgency of the case would suggest the necessity of some immediate measure to be taken for the general safety. Some kind of convention would then be called and the dangerous situation of the country stated in the strongest terms. It would be observed that while they lived in the midst of plenty, it was of little consequence who labored the least or who possessed the least as every man was perfectly willing and ready to supply the wants of his neighbor. But that the question was no longer whether one man should give to another, that which he did not use himself but whether he should give to his neighbor the food which was absolutely necessary to his own existence. It would be represented that the number of those that were in want very greatly exceeded the number and means of those who should supply them. That these pressing wants, which from the state of the produce of the country could not all be gratified, had occasioned some flagrant violations of justice, that these violations had already checked the increase of food and would if they were not by some means or other prevented throw the whole community in confusion. That imperious necessity seemed to dictate that a yearly increase of produce should, if possible, be obtained at all events. That in order to affect this first, great and indispensable purpose, it would be advisable to make a most complete division of land and to secure every man's stock against violation by the most powerful sanctions, even by death itself. It might be urged perhaps by some objectors that as the fertility of the land increased and various accidents occurred, the share of some men might be much more than sufficient for their support and that when the reign of self-love was once established, they would not distribute their surplus produce without some compensation in return. It would be observed in answer that this was an inconvenience greatly to be lamented, but that it was an evil which bore no comparison to the black train of distresses that would inevitably be occasioned by the insecurity of property. That the quantity of food which one man could consume was necessarily limited by the narrow capacity of the human stomach. That it was not certainly probable that he should throw away the rest, but that even if he exchanged his surplus food for the labor of others and made them in some degree dependent on him, they would still be better than that these others should absolutely starve. It seems highly probable, therefore, that an administration of property not very different from that which prevails in civilized states at present would be established as the best, though inadequate, remedy for the evils which were pressing on the society. The next subject that would come under discussion, intimately connected with the preceding, is the commerce between the sexes. It would be urged by those who had turned their attention to the true cause of the difficulties under which the community labored, that while every man felt secure that all his children would be well provided for by general benevolence, the powers of the earth would be absolutely inadequate to produce food for the population which would inevitably ensue, that even if the whole attention and labor of the society were directed to this sole point, and if by the most perfect security of property and every other encouragement that could be thought of, the greatest possible increase of produce were yearly obtained, yet still, that the increase of food would by no means keep pace with the much more rapid increase of population. That some check to population, therefore, was imperiously called for, that the most natural and obvious check seemed to be to make every man provide for his own children, that this would operate in some respect as a measure and guide in the increase of population as it might be expected that no man would bring beings into the world for whom he could not find the means of support, that where this notwithstanding was the case, it seemed necessary for the example of others that the disgrace and inconvenience attending such a conduct should fall upon the individual who had thus inconsiderably plunged himself and innocent children in misery and want. The institution of marriage, or at least of some express or implied obligation on every man to support his own children, seems to be the natural result of these reasonings in a community under the difficulties that we have supposed. The view of these difficulties presents us with a very natural origin of the superior disgrace which attends a breach of chastity in the woman than in the man. It could not be expected that women should have the resources sufficient to support their own children when therefore a woman was connected with a man who had entered into no compact to maintain her children and, aware of the inconveniences that he might bring upon himself, had deserted her, these children must necessarily fall for support upon the society or starve and to prevent the frequent recurrence of such an inconvenience as it would be highly unjust to punish so natural a fault by personal restraint or inflection, the man might agree to punish it with disgrace. The offense is besides more obvious and conspicuous in the woman and less liable to any mistake. The father of a child may not always be known but the same uncertainty cannot easily exist with regard to the mother where the evidence of the offense was most complete and the inconvenience to the society at the same time the greatest. There it was agreed that the large share of blame should fall. The obligation on every man to maintain his children the society would enforce if there were occasion and the greater degree of inconvenience or labor to which a family would necessarily subject him added to some portion of disgrace which every human being must incur who leads another into unhappiness might be considered as a sufficient punishment for the man. That a woman should at present be almost driven from society for an offense which men commit nearly with impunity seems to be undoubtedly a breach of natural justice but the origin of the custom has the most obvious and effectual method of preventing the frequent recurrence of a serious inconvenience to a community appears to be natural though not perhaps perfectly justifiable. This origin however is now lost in the new train of ideas which the custom has since generated. What at first might be dictated by state necessity is now supported by female delicacy and operates with the greatest force on the part of society where if the original intention of the custom were preserved there is the least real occasion for it. When these two fundamental laws of society the security of property and the institution of marriage were once established inequality of conditions must necessarily follow. Those who were born after the division of property would come into a world already possessed. If their parents from having too large a family could not give them sufficient for their support what are they to do in a world where everything is appropriated? We have seen the fatal effects that would result to a society if every man had a valid claim to an equal share of the produce of the earth. The members of a family which was grown too large for the original division of land appropriated to it could not then demand a part of the surplus produce of others as a debt of justice. It has appeared that from the inevitable laws of our nature some human beings must suffer from want. These are the unhappy persons who in the great lottery of life have drawn a blank. The number of these claimants would soon exceed the ability of the surplus produce to supply. Moral merit is a very difficult distinguishing criterion except in extreme cases. The owners of surplus produce would in general seek some more obvious mark of distinction. And it seems both natural and just that except upon particular occasions their choice should fall upon those who are able and profess themselves willing to exert their strength in procuring a further surplus produce and thus at once benefiting the community and enabling these proprietors to afford assistance to greater numbers. All who were in want of food would be urged by imperious necessity to offer their labor in exchange for this article so absolutely essential to existence. The fund appropriated to the maintenance of labor would be the aggregate quantity of food possessed by the owners of land beyond their own consumption. When the demands upon this fund were great and numerous it would naturally be divided in very small shares. Labor would be ill-paid. Men would offer to work for a bare subsistence and the rearing of families would be checked by sickness and misery. On the contrary, when this fund was increasing fast when it was great in proportion to the number of claimants it would be divided in much larger shares. No man would exchange his labor without receiving an ample quantity of food in return. Laborers would live in ease and comfort and would consequently be able to rear a numerous and vigorous offspring. On the state of this fund the happiness or the degree of misery prevailing among the lower classes of people in every known state at present chiefly depends. And on this happiness or degree of misery depends the increase. Stationariness or decrease of population. And thus it appears that a society constituted according to the most beautiful form that imagination can conceive with benevolence for its moving principle instead of self-love and with every evil disposition in all its members corrected by reason and not force would from the inevitable laws of nature and not from any original depravity of man in a very short period degenerate into a society constructed upon a plan not essentially different from that which prevails in every known state at present. I mean a society divided into a class of proprietors and a class of laborers and with self-love the mainspring of the great machine. In the supposition I have made I have undoubtedly taken the increase of population smaller and the increase of produce greater than they really would be. No reason can be assigned why under the circumstances I have supposed population should not increase faster than in any known instance. If then we were to take the period of doubling at 15 years instead of 25 years and reflect upon the labor necessary to double the produce in so short a time even if we allow it possible we may venture to pronounce with certainty that if Mr. Godwin's system of society was established in its utmost perfection instead of myriads of centuries not 30 years could elapse before its utter destruction from the simple principle of population. I have taken no notice of emigration for obvious reasons. If such societies were instituted in other parts of Europe these countries would be under the same difficulties with regard to population and would admit no fresh members into their bosoms. If this beautiful society were confined to this island it must have degenerated strangely from its original purity and administer but a very small portion of the happiness it proposed. In short, its essential principle must be completely destroyed before any of its members would voluntarily consent to leave it and live under such governments as at present exist in Europe or submit to the extreme hardships of first settlers in new regions. We well know from repeated experience how much misery and hardship men will undergo in their own country before they can determine to desert it and how often the most tempting proposals for new settlements have been rejected by people who appear to be almost starving. Chapter 11 of an essay on the principle of population. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jeffrey Edwards. An essay on the principle of population by Thomas Malthus. Chapter 11. Mr. Godwin's conjecture concerning the future extinction of the passion between the sexes. Little apparent grounds for such a conjecture. Passion of love, not inconsistent either with reason or virtue. We have supported Mr. Godwin's system of society once completely established but it is supposing an impossibility. The same causes in nature which would destroy it so rapidly were at once established would prevent the possibility of its establishment. And upon what grounds we can presume a change in these natural causes I am utterly at a loss to conjecture. No move towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes has taken place in the five or six thousand years that the world has existed. Men in the decline of life have in all ages declined against the passion which they have ceased to feel but with as little reason as success. Those who from coldness of constitutional temperament have never felt what love is will surely be allowed to be very incompetent judges with regard to the power of this passion to contribute to the sum of pleasurable sensations in life. Those who have spent their youth in criminal excesses and have repaired for themselves corporeal debility and mental remorse may well invade against such pleasures as vain and futile and unproductive of lasting satisfaction. But the pleasures of pure love will bear the contemplation of the most improved reason and the most exalted virtue. Perhaps there is scarcely a man who has once experienced the genuine delight of virtuous love however great his intellectual pleasure may have been that does not look back to the period he fought in his whole life where his imagination loves to bask which he recollects and contemplates with the fondest regrets and which he would most wish to live over again. The superiority of intellectual to sensual pleasures consists rather in their filling up more time in their having a larger range and in their being less liable to satiety than in their being more real and essential. Intemperance in every enjoyment defeats its own purpose. A walk in the finest day through the most beautiful country if pursued too far ends in pain and fatigue. The most wholesome and invigorating food eaten with an unrestrained appetite produces weakness instead of strength. Even intellectual pleasures though certainly less liable than others to satiety pursued with too little intermission debilitate the body and impair the vigor of the mind to argue against the reality of these pleasures from their abuse seems to be hardly just. Morality, according to Mr. Godwin is a calculation of consequences or as Archdeacon Paley very justly expresses it the will of God as collected from general expediency. According to either of these definitions a sensual pleasure not attended with the probability of unhappy consequences does not offend against the laws of morality and if it be pursued with such a degree of temperance and ample room for intellectual attainments it must undoubtedly add to the sum of pleasurable sensations in life. Virtuous love exalted by friendship seems to be that sort of mixture of sensual and intellectual enjoyment particularly suited to the nature of man and most powerfully calculated to awaken the sympathies of the soul and produce the most exquisite gratifications. Mr. Godwin says in order to show the evident inferiority of pleasures of sense strips the commerce of the sexes of all its attendant circumstances and it would be generally despised. Book 1, Chapter 5 in the third edition Volume 1, pages 71-72 He might as well say to a man who admired trees strip them of their spreading branches and lovely foliage and what beauty can you see in a bare pole but it was the tree with the branches and foliage and not without them that excited admiration. One feature of an object may be as distinct and excite as different emotions from the aggregate as any two things the most remote, as a beautiful woman and a map of Madagascar. It is the symmetry of person the vivacity, the voluptuous softness of temper, the affectionate kindness of feelings, the imagination and the wit of a woman that excites the passion of love not the mere distinction of her being female. Urged by the passion of love men have been driven into acts highly prejudicial to the general interests of society but probably they would have found no difficulty in resisting the temptation had it appeared in the form of a woman with no other attractions whatever but her sex. The strip-central pleasures of all their adjuncts in order to prove their inferiority is to deprive a magnet of some of its most essential causes of attraction and then to say that it is weak and inefficient. In the pursuit of every enjoyment whether sensual or intellectual reason that faculty which enables us to calculate consequences is the proper corrective end guide it is probable therefore that improved reason will always tend to prevent the abuse of sensual pleasures though it by no means follows that it will extinguish them. I have endeavored to expose the fallacy of that argument which infers an unlimited progress from a partial improvement the limits of which cannot be exactly ascertained it has appeared I think that there are many instances in which a decided progress has been observed where yet it would be a gross absurdity to suppose that progress indefinite but towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes no observable progress whatever has hitherto been made to suppose such an extinction therefore is merely to offer an unfounded conjecture unsupported by any philosophical probabilities it is a truth which history I am afraid makes too clear that some men of the highest mental powers have been addicted not only to immoderate but even to an immoderate indulgence in the pleasures of sensual love but allowing as I should be inclined to do notwithstanding numerous instances to the contrary that great intellectual exertions tend to diminish the empire of this passion over men it is evident that the mass of mankind must be improved more highly than the brightest ornaments of the species at present before any difference can take place sufficient sensibly to affect population I would by no means suppose that the mass of mankind has reached its term of improvement but the principal argument of this essay tends to place in a strong point of view the improbability that the lower classes of people in any country should ever be sufficiently free from want and labor to obtain any high degree of intellectual improvement End of Chapter 11 Recording by Jeffrey Edwards Chapter 12 of an essay on the principal of population this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Jeffrey Edwards an essay on the principal of population by Thomas Malthus Chapter 12 Mr. Godwin's conjecture concerning the indefinite prolongation of human life improper inference drawn from the effects of mental stimulants on the human frame illustrated in various instances conjecture is not founded on any indications in the past not to be considered as philosophical conjectures Mr. Godwin's and Mr. Condorcet's conjectures respecting the approach of man towards immortality on Earth a curious instance of the inconsistency of skepticism Mr. Godwin's conjecture respecting the future approach of man towards immortality on Earth seems to be rather oddly placed in a chapter which professes to remove the objection to his system of equality from the principal of population unless he supposes the passion between the sexes to decrease faster than the duration of life increases the Earth would be more encumbered than ever but leaving this difficulty to Mr. Godwin let us examine a few of the appearances from which the probable immortality of man is inferred to prove the power of the mind over the body Mr. Godwin observes how often do we find a piece of good news dissipating a distemper how common is the remark that those accidents which are to the indolent source of disease are forgotten and extirpated in the busy and active I walk 20 miles in an indolent and half-determined temper and am extremely fatigued I walk 20 miles full of ardour and with a motive that engrosses my soul and I come in as fresh and as alert as when I began my journey emotion excited by some unexpected word by a letter that is delivered to us by the most extraordinary revolutions in our frame accelerates the circulation causes the heart to palpitate the tongue to refuse its office and has been known to occasion death by extreme anguish or extreme joy there is nothing indeed of which the physician is more aware than of the power of the mind in assisting or reading convalescence the instances here mentioned are chiefly instances of mental stimulants on the bodily frame no person has ever for a moment doubted the near the mysterious connection of mind and body but it is arguing totally without knowledge of the nature of stimulants to suppose either that they can be applied continually with equal strengths or if they could be so applied for a time that they would not exhaust and wear out the subject in some of the cases here noticed the strength of the stimulants depends on their cruelty and unexpectedness such a stimulant cannot from its nature be repeated often with the same effect as it would by repetition lose that property which gives it its strength in the other cases the argument is from a small and partial effect to a great and general effect which will in numberless instances be found to be a very fallacious mode of reasoning the busy and active man or what is perhaps near the truth may disregard those slight disorders of frame which fix the attention of a man who has nothing else to think of but this does not tend to prove that activity of mind will enable a man to disregard a high fever the smallpox or the plague the man who walks 20 miles with a motive that engrosses his soul does not attend to his slight fatigue of body when he comes in but double his motive and set him to walk another 20 miles quadruple it and let him start a third time and so on and the length of his walk will ultimately depend on muscle and not mind Powell for a motive of ten guineas would have walked further probably than Mr. Godwin for a motive of half a million a motive of uncommon power acting upon a frame of moderate strength would perhaps make the man kill himself by his exertions but it would not make him walk a hundred miles in 24 hours this statement of the case shows the fallacy of supposing that the person was really not at all tired in his first walk of 20 miles because he did not appear to be so or perhaps scarcely felt any fatigue himself the mind cannot fix its attention strongly on more than one object at once the 20,000 pounds so engrossed his thoughts that he did not attend to any slight soreness of foot or stiffness of limb but had he been really as fresh and as alert as when he first set off he would be able to go the second 20 miles with as much ease as the first and so on the third etc which leads to a palpable absurdity when a horse of spirit is nearly half tired by the stimulus of the spur added to the proper management of the bit he may be put so much upon his middle that he would appear to a standard buy as fresh and as high spirited as if he had not gone a mile nay probably the horse himself while on the heat and passion occasioned by the stimulus would not feel any fatigue but it would be strangely contrary to all reason and experience to argue from such an appearance that if the stimulus were continued the horse would never be tired the cry of a pack of hounds will make some horses after a journey of 40 miles on the road appear relatively as when they first set out were they then to be hunted no perceptible abatement would at first be felt by their riders in their strength and spirits but towards the end of a hard day the previous fatigue would have its full weight and effect and make them tire sooner when I have taken a long walk with my gun and met with no success I have frequently returned home feeling a considerable degree of uncomfortableness from fatigue going over nearly the same extent of ground with a good deal of sport I have come home fresh and alert the difference in the sensation of fatigue upon coming in on the different days may have been very striking but on the following mornings I have found no such difference I have not perceived that I was left stiff in limbs or less foot sore on the morning after the day of the sport then on the other morning in all these cases stimulants upon the mind seem to act rather by taking off the attention from the bodily fatigue then by really and truly counteracting it if the energy of my mind had really counteracted the fatigue of my body why should I feel tired the next morning if the stimulus of the hounds had as completely overcome the fatigue of the journey in reality as it did in appearance why should the horse be tired sooner than if he had not gone the 40 miles I happen to have a very bad fit of the toothache at the time I am writing this in the eagerness of composition I every now and then for a moment or two forget it yet I cannot help thinking that the process which causes the pain is still going forwards and that the nerves which carry the information of it to the brain are even during these moments demanding attention and room for their appropriate vibrations the multiplicity of vibrations of another kind may perhaps prevent their admission or overcome them for a time when admitted till a shoot of extraordinary energy puts all other vibrations to the route destroys the vividness of my argumentative conceptions and rides triumphant in the brain in this case as in others the mind seems to have little or no power in counteracting or curing the disorder but merely possesses a power if strongly excited of fixing its attention on other subjects I do not however mean to say that a sound and vigorous mind has no tendency whatever to keep the body in a similar state so close and intimate is the union of mind and body that it would be highly extraordinary if they did not mutually assist each other's functions but perhaps upon a comparison the body has more effect upon the mind than the mind upon the body the first object of the mind is to act as purveyor to the wants of the body when these wants are completely satisfied an active mind is indeed apt to wander further to range over the fields of science or sport in the regions of imagination to fancy that it has shuffled off this motor coil and is seeking its kindred element but all these efforts are like the vein exertions of the hair in the fable the slowly moving tortoise the body never fails to overtake the mind willingly and extensively it may have ranged and the brightest and most energetic intellects unwillingly as they may attend to the first or second summons must ultimately yield the empire of the brain to the cause of hunger or sink with the exhausted body in sleep it seems as if one might say with certainty that if a medicine could be found to immortalize the body there would be no fear of it's not being accompanied by the immortality of the mind but the immortality of the mind by no means seems to infer the immortality of the body on the contrary the greatest conceivable energy of mind would probably exhaust and destroy the strength of the body a temperate figure of mind appears to be favorable to health but very great intellectual exertions tend rather as has been often observed to wear out the scabbard most of the instances which Mr. Godwin has brought to prove the power of the mind over the body and the consequent probability of the immortality of man are of this latter description and could such stimulants be continually applied instead of tending to immortalize they would tend very rapidly to destroy the human frame the probable increase of the voluntary power of man over his animal frame comes next under Mr. Godwin's consideration and he concludes by saying that the voluntary power of some men in this respect is found to extend to various articles in which other men are impotent but this is reasoning against an almost universal rule from a few exceptions and these exceptions seem to be rather tricks than powers that may be exerted to any good purpose I have never heard of any man who could regulate his pulse in a fever and doubt much if any of the persons he alluded to have made the smallest perceptible progress in the regular correction orders of their frames and the consequent prolongation of their lives Mr. Godwin says nothing can be more unphilosophical than to conclude that because a certain species of power is beyond the train of our present observation that it is beyond the limits of the human mind I own my ideas of philosophy are in this respect widely different from Mr. Godwin's the only distinction that I see between a philosophical conjecture and the assertions of the prophet Mr. Brothers is that one is founded upon indications arising from the train of our present observations and the other has no foundation at all I expect that great discoveries are yet to take place in all the branches of human science particularly in physics but the moment we leave past experience as the foundation of our conjectures concerning the future and still more if our conjectures absolutely contradict past experience we are thrown upon a wide field of uncertainty and any one supposition is then just as good as another if a person were to tell me that man would ultimately have eyes and hands behind them as well as before them I should admit the usefulness of the addition but should give as a reason for my disbelief of it that I saw no indications whatever in the past from which I could infer the smallest probability of such a change if this be not allowed a valid objection all conjectures are alike and all equally philosophical I own it appears to me that in the train of our present observations there are no more genuine indications that man will become immortal upon Earth than that he will have four eyes and four hands or that trees will grow horizontally instead of perpendicularly it will be said perhaps that many discoveries have already taken place in the world that were totally unforeseen and unexpected this I grant to be true but if a person had predicted these discoveries without being guided by any analogies or indications from past facts he would deserve the name of Seer or Prophet but not a philosopher the wonder that some of our modern discoveries would excite in the savage inhabitants of Europe in the times of Theseus and Achilles proves but little persons almost entirely unacquainted with the powers of a machine cannot be expected to guess at its effects I am far from saying that we are at present by any means fully acquainted with the powers of the human mind but we certainly know more of this instrument than was known 4,000 years ago and therefore the not to be called competent judges we are certainly much better able than savages to say what is or is not within its grasp a watch would strike a savage with as much surprise as a perpetual motion yet one is to us a most familiar piece of mechanism and the other has constantly eluded the efforts of the most acute intellects in many instances we are now able to perceive the causes which prevent an unlimited improvement in those inventions which seem to promise fairly for it at first the original improvers of telescopes would probably think that as long as the size of the specula and the length of the tubes could be increased the powers and advantages of the instruments would increase but experience has since taught us that the smallness of the field the deficiency of light and the circumstance of the atmosphere being magnified prevents the beneficial results that were to be expected from telescopes of extraordinary size and power in many parts of knowledge man has been almost constantly making some progress in other parts his efforts have been invariably baffled the savage would not probably be able to guess at the cause of this mighty difference our further experience has given us some little insight into these causes and has therefore enabled us better to judge if not of what we are able to expect in the future at least of what we are not to expect which though negative is a very useful piece of information as the necessity of sleep seems rather to depend upon the body than the mind just not appear how the improvement of the mind can tend very greatly to supersede this conspicuous infirmity a man who by great excitements on his mind is able to pass two or three nights without sleep proportionably exhausts the vigor of his body and this diminution of health and strength will soon disturb the operations of his understanding so that by these great efforts he appears to have made no real progress whatever in superseding of this species of rest there is certainly a sufficiently marked difference in the various characters of which we have some knowledge relative to the energies of their minds their benevolent pursuits etc to enable us to judge whether the operations of intellect have any decided effect in prolonging the duration of human life it is certain that no decided effect of this kind has yet been observed though no attention of any kind has ever produced such effect as could be construed into the smallest semblance of an approach towards immortality yet of the two a certain attention to the body seems to have more effect in this respect than an attention to the mind the man who takes his temperate meals and his bodily exercise with scrupulous regularity will generally be found more healthy than the man who very deeply engaged in intellectual pursuits often forgets for a time these bodily cravings the citizen who has retired and whose ideas perhaps scarcely soar above or extend beyond his little garden puddling all the morning about his borders of box well perhaps live as long as the philosopher whose range of intellect is the most extensive and whose views are the clearest of any of his contemporaries it has been positively observed by those who have attended to the bills of mortality that women live longer upon an average than men and though I would not by any means say that their intellectual faculties are inferior yet I think it must be allowed that from their different education there are not so many women as men who are excited to vigorous mental exertion as in these and similar instances or to take a larger range as in the great diversity of characters that have existed during some thousand years no decided difference has been observed in the duration of human life from the operation of intellect the mortality of man on earth seems to be as completely established and exactly upon the same grounds as anyone the most constant of the laws of nature an immediate act of power in the creator of the universe might indeed change one or all of these laws either suddenly or gradually but without some indications of such a change and such indications do not exist it is just as unphilosophical to suppose that the life of man may be prolonged beyond any assignable limits as to suppose that the attraction of the earth will gradually be changed into repulsion and that stones will ultimately rise instead of fall or that the earth will fly off at a certain period to some more genial and warmer sun the conclusion of this chapter presents us undoubtedly with a very beautiful and desirable picture but like some of the landscapes drawn from fancy and not imagined with truth it fails of that interest in the heart which nature and probability can alone give I cannot quit this subject without taking notice of these conjectures of Mr. Godwin and Mr. Condorcet concerning the indefinite prolongation of human life as a very curious instance of the longing of the soul after immortality both these gentlemen have rejected the light of revelation which absolutely promises eternal life in another state they have also rejected the light of natural religion which to the ableist intellects in all ages has indicated the future existence of the soul yet so congenial is the idea of immortality to the mind of man that they cannot consent entirely to throw it out of their systems after all their fastidious skepticism concerning the only probable mode of immortality they introduce a species of immortality of their own not only completely contradictory to every law of philosophical probability but in itself in the highest degree narrow partial and unjust they suppose that all the great virtuous and exalted minds that have ever existed or that may exist for some thousands perhaps millions of years will be sunk in annihilation that only a few beings not greater in number than can exist at once upon the earth will be ultimately crowned with immortality had such a tenant being advanced as a tenant of revelation I am very sure that all the enemies of religion and probably Mr. Godwin and Mr. Condorcet among the rest would have exhausted the whole force of their ridicule upon it as the most pure isle the most absurd the poorest the most pitiful the most iniquitously unjust and consequently the most unworthy of the deity that the superstitious folly of man could invent what a strange and curious proof through these conjectures exhibit of the inconsistency of skepticism for it should be observed that there is a very striking and essential difference between believing an assertion which absolutely contradicts the most uniform experience and an assertion which contradicts nothing but is merely beyond the power of our present observation and knowledge so diversified are the natural objects around us so many instances of mighty power daily offer themselves to our views that we may fairly presume that there are many forms in operations of nature which we have not yet observed or which perhaps we are not capable observing with our present confined inlets of knowledge the resurrection of a spiritual body from a natural body does not appear in itself a more wonderful instance of power than the germination of a blade of wheat from the grain or of an oak from an acorn could we conceive an intelligent being so placed as to be conversant only with inanimate or full grown objects and never to have witnessed the process of vegetation and growth and for another being to show him two little pieces of matter a grain of wheat and an acorn to desire him to examine them to analyze them if he pleased and endeavor to find out their properties and essences and then to tell him that however trifling these little bits of matter might appear to him that they possess such curious powers of selection, combination arrangement and almost of creation that upon being put into the ground they would choose amongst all the dirt and moisture that surrounded them those parts which best suited their purpose that they would collect and arrange these parts with wonderful taste, judgment and execution and would rise up into beautiful forms scarcely in any respect analogous to the little bits of matter which were first placed in the earth with very little doubt that the imaginary being which I have supposed would hesitate more would require better authority and stronger proofs before he believed these strange assertions than if he had been told that a being of mighty power who had been the cause of all that he saw around him and of that existence of which he himself was conscious would by a great act of power upon the death and corruption of human creatures or at least invisible form to give it a happier existence in another state. The only difference with regard to our own apprehensions that is not in favor of the latter assertion is that the first miracle we have repeatedly seen and the last miracle we have not seen. I admit the full weight of this prodigious difference but surely no man can hesitate a moment in saying that putting revelation out of the question the resurrection of a spiritual body which may be merely one among the many operations of nature which we cannot see is an event indefinitely more probable than the immortality of man on earth which is not only an event of which no symptoms or indications have yet appeared but is a positive contradiction to one of the most constant of the laws of nature that has ever come within the observation of man. When we extend our view beyond this life it is evident that we can have no other guides than authority or conjecture and perhaps indeed an obscure and undefined feeling. What I say here therefore does not appear to me in any respect to contradict what I have said before when I observed that it was unphilosophical to expect any specific event that was not indicated by some kind of analogy in the past. Enraging beyond the born from which no traveler returns we must necessarily quit this rule. But with regards to events that may be expected to happen on earth we can seldom quit it consistently with true philosophy. Analogy has however as I conceive great latitude for instance man has discovered many of the laws of nature analogy seems to indicate that he will discover many more but no analogy seems to indicate that he will discover a sixth sense or a new species of power in the human mind entirely beyond the train of our present observations. The powers of selection combination and transmutation which every seed shows are truly miraculous. Who can imagine that these wonderful faculties are contained in these little bits of matter. To me it appears much more philosophical to suppose that the mighty God of nature is present in full energy in all these operations. To this all-powerful being it would be equally easy to raise an oak without an acorn as with one. The preparatory process of putting seeds into the ground is merely ordained for the use of man as one among the various other excitements necessary to awaken matter into mind. It is an idea that will be found consistent equally with the natural phenomena around us with the various events of human life and with the successive revelations to man. To suppose that the world is a mighty process for the creation and formation of mind many vessels will necessarily come out of this great furnace in wrong shapes. These will be broken and thrown aside as useless while those vessels whose forms are full of truth grace and loveliness will be wafted into happier situations near the presence of the mighty maker. I ought perhaps again to make an apology to my readers for dwelling upon a conjecture which many I know will think too absurd and improbable to require the least discussion but if it be as improbable and as contrary to the genuine spirit of philosophy as I own I think it is why should it not be shown to be so in a candid examination? A conjecture however improbable on the first view of it advanced by able and ingenious men seems at least to deserve investigation. For my own part I feel no disinclination whatever to give that degree of credit to the opinion of the probable immortality of man on earth which the appearances that can be brought in support of it deserve. Before we decide upon the utter improbability of such an event it is but fair impartially to examine these appearances and from such an examination I think we may conclude that we have rather less reason for supposing that the life of man may be indefinitely prolonged than that trees may be made to grow indefinitely high or potatoes indefinitely large. Though Mr. Godwin advances the idea of the indefinite prolongation of human life merely as a conjecture yet as he has produced some appearances which in his conception favor the supposition he must certainly intend that these appearances should be examined and this is all that I have meant to do. End of Chapter 12 Recording by Jeffrey Edwards Chapter 13 of an essay on the principle of population this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Jeffrey Edwards an essay on the principle of population by Thomas Malthus Chapter 13 Error of Mr. Godwin in considering man too much in the light of a being merely rational in the compound being man the passions will always act as disturbing forces in the decisions of the understanding reasonings of Mr. Godwin on the subject of coercion some truths of a nature not to be communicated from one man to another in the chapter which I have been examining Mr. Godwin professes to consider the objection to his system of equality from the principle of population it has appeared I think clearly that he is greatly erroneous in his statement of the distance of this difficulty and that instead of myriads of centuries it is really not 30 years or even 30 days distant from us the supposition of the approach of man to immortality on earth is certainly not of a kind to soften the difficulty the only argument therefore in the chapter which has any tendency to remove the objection is the conjecture concerning the extinction of the passion between the sexes but as this is a mere conjecture unsupported by the smallest shadow of proof the force of the objection may be fairly said to remain unimpaired and it is undoubtedly a sufficient weight of itself completely to overturn Mr. Godwin's whole system of equality still, however, make one or two observations on a few of the prominent parts of Mr. Godwin's reasonings which will contribute to place in a still clearer point of view the little hope that we can reasonably entertain of those vast improvements in the nature of man and of society which he holds up to our admiring gaze in his political justice Mr. Godwin considers man too much in the light of a being merely intellectual this error at least such I conceive it to be pervades his whole work and mixes itself with all his reasonings the voluntary actions of men may originate in their opinions but these opinions will be very differently modified in creatures compounded of irrational faculty and corporal propensities from what they would be in being wholly intellectual Mr. Godwin, in proving that sound reasoning and truth are the example of being adequately communicated examines the proposition first practically and then adds such is the appearance which this proposition assumes when examined in a loose and practical view in strict consideration it will not admit of debate man is a rational being etc end quotes book 1 chapter 5 in the third edition so far from calling this a strict consideration of the subject I own I should call it the loosest and most erroneous way possible of considering it it is the calculating the velocity of a falling body in vacuo and persisting in it that it would be the same through whatever resisting mediums it might fall this was not newtons mode of philosophizing very few general propositions are just in application to a particular subject the moon is not kept in her orbit around the earth nor the earth in her orbit around the sun by a force that varies merely in the inverse ratio of the squares of the distances to make the general theory just in application to the revolutions of these bodies it was necessary to calculate accurately the disturbing forces of the sun upon the moon and of the moon upon the earth until these disturbing forces were properly estimated, actual observations on the motions of these bodies would have proved that the theory was not accurately true I am willing to allow that every voluntary act is preceded by a decision of the mind but it is strangely opposite to what I should conceive to be the just theory upon the subject and a palpable contradiction to all experience to say that the corporal propensities of man do not act very powerfully as disturbing forces in these decisions question therefore does not merely depend upon whether a man may be made to understand a distinct proposition or be convinced by an unanswerable argument a truth may be brought home to his conviction as a rational being though he may determine to act contrary to it as a compound being the cravings of hunger, the love of liquor the desire of possessing a beautiful woman will urge men to actions of the fatal consequences of which to the general interests of society they are perfectly well convinced even at the very time they commit them remove their bodily cravings and they would not hesitate a moment in determining against such actions ask them their opinion of the same conduct in another person and they would immediately reprobate it but in their own case and under all the circumstances of their situation with these bodily cravings the decision of the compound being is different from the conviction of the rational being if this be the just view of the subject and both theory and experience unite to prove that it is almost all Mr. Godwin's reasonings on the subject of coercion in his seventh chapter will appear to be founded on error he spends some time in placing in a ridiculous point of view the attempt to convince a man's understanding and to clear up a doubtful proposition in his mind by blows undoubtedly it is both ridiculous and barbarous and so is cockfighting but one has little more to do with the real object of human punishments than the other one frequent bracket indeed much too frequent and bracket mode of punishment is death Mr. Godwin will hardly think this intended for conviction at least it does not appear how the individual or the society could reap much future benefit from an understanding enlightened in this manner the principal objects which human punishments have in view are undoubtedly restraint and example restraint or removal of an individual member whose vicious habits are likely to be prejudicial to the society and example by which expressing the sense of the community with regard to a particular crime and by associating more nearly and visibly crime and punishment holds out a moral motive to dissuade others from the commission of it restraint Mr. Godwin thinks may be permitted as a temporary expedient though he reprobates solitary imprisonment which has certainly been the most successful and indeed almost the only attempt towards the moral amelioration of offenders he talks of the selfish passions that are fostered by solitude and of the virtues generated in society but surely these virtues are not generated in the society of a prison where the offender confined to the society of people and virtuous men he would probably be more improved than in solitude but is this practicable Mr. Godwin's ingenuity is more frequently employed in finding out evils than in suggesting practical remedies punishment for example is totally reprobated by endeavoring to make examples too impressive and terrible nations have indeed been led into the most barbarous cruelties but the abuse of any practice is not a good argument against its use the indefatigable pains taken in this country to find out a murder and the certainty of its punishment has powerfully contributed to generate that sentiment which is frequent in the mouths of the common people then a murder will sooner or later come to light and the habitual horror in which murder is inconsequence held will make a man in the agony of passion throw down his knife for fear he should be tempted to use it in the gratification of his revenge similarly where murderers by flying to a sanctuary are allowed more frequently to escape the crime has never been held in the same detestation and has consequently been more frequent no man who is at all aware of the operation of moral motives can doubt for a moment that if every murder in Italy had been invariably punished the use of the stiletto in transports of passion would have been comparatively but little known that human laws either do or can proportion the punishment accurately to the offense no person will have the folly to assert from the inscrutability of motives the thing is absolutely impossible but this imperfection though it may be called species of injustice is no valid argument against human laws it is the lot of man that he will frequently have to choose between two evils and it is a sufficient reason for the adoption of any institution that it is the best mode that suggests itself of having greater evils a continual endeavor should undoubtedly prevail to make these institutions as perfect as the nature of them will admit but nothing is so easy as to find fault with human institutions nothing so difficult as to suggest adequate practical improvements it is to be lamented that more men of talent employ their time in the former occupation than in the latter the frequency of crime among men who as the common saying is no better sufficiently proves that some truths may be brought home to the conviction of the mind without always producing the proper effect upon the conduct there are other truths of a nature that perhaps never can be adequately communicated from one man to another the superiority of the pleasures of intellect to those of sense Mr. Godwin considers as a fundamental truth taking all circumstances into consideration I should be disposed to agree with him but how am I to communicate this truth to a person who has scarcely ever felt intellectual pleasure I may as well attempt to explain the nature and beauty of colors to a blind man if I am ever so laborious patient and clear and have the most repeated opportunities of expostulation any real progress towards the accomplishment of my purpose seems absolutely hopeless there is no common measure between us I cannot proceed step by step it is a truth of a nature not visible of demonstration all that I can say is that the wisest and best men in all ages had agreed in giving the preference very greatly to the pleasures of intellect and that my own experience completely confirmed the truth of their decisions that I had found sensual pleasures vain transient and continually attended with tedium and disgust but that intellectual pleasures appeared to me ever fresh and young filled up all my hours satisfactorily gave a new zest to life and diffused a lasting serenity over my mind if he believed me it can only be from respect and veneration for my authority it is credulity and not conviction I have not said anything nor can anything be said of a nature to produce real conviction the affair is not an affair of reasoning but of experience he would probably observe in reply what you say may be very true with regard to yourself and many other good men but for my own part I feel very differently upon the subject I have very frequently taken up a book and almost as frequently gone to sleep over it but when I pass an evening with a gay party or a pretty woman I feel alive and in spirits and truly enjoy my existence under such circumstances reasoning and arguments are not instruments from which success can be expected at some future time perhaps real satiety of sensual pleasures or some accidental impressions that awakens the energies of his mind might affect that in a month which the most patient and able ex postulations might be incapable of affecting in 40 years End of Chapter 13 Recording by Jeffrey Edwards Chapter 14 of an essay on the principle of population of Thomas Malthus Chapter 14 Mr. Godwin's 5 propositions respecting political truth on which his whole work hinges not established reasons we have for supposing from the distress occasioned by the principle of population of Thomas Malthus Chapter 14 Mr. Godwin's 5 propositions respecting political truth on which his whole work hinges the distress occasioned by the principle of population that the vices and moral weakness of man can never be wholly eradicated perfect ability in the sense in which Mr. Godwin uses the term not applicable to man nature of the real perfect ability of man illustrated If the reasons of the preceding chapter are just the corollaries respecting political truth which Mr. Godwin draws from the proposition that the abstractions of man originate in their opinions will not appear to be clearly established these corollaries are sound reasoning and truth when adequately communicated must always be victorious over error sound reasoning and truth are capable of being so communicated truth is omnipotent the vices and moral weaknesses of man are not invincible man is perfectable or in other words of perpetual improvement the first three propositions may be considered a complete syllogism if by adequately communicated be meant such a conviction as to produce an adequate effect upon the conduct the major may be allowed and the minor denied the consequent or the omnipotence of truth of course falls to the ground if by quotes adequately communicated end quotes be meant merely the conviction of the rational faculty the major must be denied the minor will be only true in cases capable of demonstration and the consequent equally falls the fourth proposition Mr. Godwin calls the preceding proposition with a slight variation in the statement if so it must accompany the preceding proposition in its fall but it may be worthwhile to inquire with reference to the principal argument of this essay into the particular reasons which we have for supposing that the vices and moral weaknesses of man can never be wholly overcome in this world man according to Mr. Godwin is a creature formed what he is by the successive impressions which he has received from the first moment that the germ from which he sprung was animated could he be placed in a situation where he was subject to no evil impressions whatever though it might be doubted whether in such situation virtue could exist would certainly be banished the great bent of Mr. Godwin's work on political justice if I understand it rightly is to show that the greater part of the vices and weaknesses of man proceed from the injustice of their political and social institutions and that if these were removed and the understandings of man more enlightened there would be little or no temptation in the world to evil as it has been clearly proved however bracket at least as I think bracket that this is entirely a false conception and that independent of any political or social institutions whatever the greater part of mankind from the fixed and unalterable laws of nature must every subject to the evil temptations arising from want besides other passions it follows from Mr. Godwin's definition of man that such impressions and combinations of impressions cannot be afloat in the world without generating a variety of bad men according to Mr. Godwin's own conception of the formation of character it is surely as improbable that under such circumstances all men will be virtuous as that sixes will come up 100 times following upon the dice the great variety of combinations upon the dice in a repeated succession of throws appears to me not in aptly to represent the great variety of character that must necessarily exist in the world supposing every individual to be formed what he is by the combination of assumptions which he has received since his first existence and this comparison will in some measure show the absurdity of supposing that exceptions will ever become general rules that extraordinary and unusual combinations will be frequent or that the individual instances of great virtue which had appeared in all ages of the world will ever prevail universally I am aware that Mr. Godwin might say that the comparison is in one respect inaccurate in the case of the dice the preceding causes or rather the chances respecting the preceding causes are always the same and that therefore I could have no good reason for supposing that greater number of sixes would come up in the next hundred times of throwing than in the preceding same number of throws but that man had in some sort a power of influencing those causes that formed character and that every good and virtuous man that was produced by the influence which he must necessarily have increased the probability that another such virtuous character would be generated whereas the coming up of sixes upon the dice once would certainly not increase the probability of their coming up a second time I admit this objection to the accuracy of the comparison but it is only partially valid repeated experience has assured us that the influence of the most virtuous character will rarely prevail against very strong temptations to evil it will undoubtedly affect some but it will fail with a much greater number had Mr. Godwin succeeded in his attempt to prove that these temptations to evil could by the exertions of man be removed I would give up the comparison or at least allow that a man might be so far enlightened with regard to the mode of shaking his elbow that he would be able to throw sixes every time but as long as a great number of those impressions which form character like the nice motions of the arm remain absolutely independent of the will of man though it would be the height of folly and presumption to attempt to calculate the relative proportions of virtue and vice at the future periods of the world it may be safely asserted that the vices and moral weaknesses of mankind taken in the mass are invincible the fifth proposition is the general deduction from the four former and will consequently fall as the foundations which support it have given way in the sense in which Mr. Godwin understands the term quote perfectable end quote the perfect ability of man cannot be asserted unless the pre-seeding positions could have been clearly established there is however one sense which the term will bear in which it is perhaps just it may be said with truth that man is always susceptible of improvement or that there never has been or will be a period of his history in which he can be said to have reached his possible acme of perfection yet it does not by any means follow from this that our efforts to improve man will always succeed or even that he will ever make in the greatest number of ages any extraordinary strides towards perfection the only inference that can be drawn is that the precise limit of his improvement cannot possibly be known and I cannot help again reminding the reader of a distinction which it appears to me ought particularly to be attended to in the present question I mean the essential difference there is between an unlimited improvement and an improvement the limit of which cannot be ascertained the former is an improvement not applicable to man under the present laws of his nature the latter undoubtedly is applicable the real perfect ability of man may be illustrated as I have mentioned before by the perfect ability of a plant the object of the enterprising florist is as I conceive t-night size, symmetry and beauty of color it would surely be presumptuous in the most successful to affirm that he possessed a carnation in which these qualities existed in the greatest possible state of perfection however beautiful his flower may be other care, other soil or other suns might produce one still more beautiful yet although he may be aware of the absurdity of supposing that he has reached perfection and though he may know by what means he attained the degree of beauty in the flower which he at present possesses yet he cannot be sure that by pursuing similar means rather increased in strength he will obtain a more beautiful blossom by endeavoring to improve one quality he may impair the beauty of another the richer mold which he would employ to increase the size of his plant would probably burst the calyx and destroy at once its symmetry in a similar manner the forcing manure used to bring out the french revolution and to give a greater freedom and energy to the human mind has burst the calyx of humanity the restraining bond of all society and however large the separate petals have grown however strongly or even beautifully a few of them have been marked the whole is at present a loose deformed disjointed mass without union, symmetry or harmony of coloring worried of consequence to improve pinks and carnations though we could have no hope of raising them as largest cabbages we might undoubtedly expect by successive efforts to obtain more beautiful specimens than we at present possess no person can deny the importance of improving the happiness of the human species every the least advance in this respect is highly valuable, but an experiment with the human race is not like an experiment upon inanimate objects the bursting of a flower may be a trifle another will soon succeed it but the bursting of the bonds of society is such a separation of parts as cannot take place without giving the most acute pain to thousands and a long time may lapse and much misery may be endured before the wound grows up again as the five propositions which I have been examining must be considered as the cornerstones of Mr. Godwin's fanciful structure and indeed as expressing the aim and bent of his whole work however excellent much of his detached reasoning may be, he must be considered as having failed in the great object of his undertaking besides the difficulties arising from the compound nature of man which he has by no means sufficiently smoothed the principal argument against the perfectability of man and society remains whole and unimpaired from anything that he has advanced and as far as I can trust my own judgment this argument appears to be conclusive not only against the perfectability of man in the enlarged sense in which Mr. Godwin understands the term but against any very marked and striking change for the better in the form and structure of general society by which I mean any great and decided amelioration of the condition of the lower classes of mankind the most numerous and consequently in a general view of the subject the most important part of the human race were I to live a thousand years and the laws of nature to remain the same I should little fear or rather little hope, a contradiction from experience in asserting that no possible sacrifices or exertions of the rich in a country which has been long inhabited could for any time place the lower classes of the community in a situation equal with regard to circumstances to the situation of the common people about 30 years ago in the northern states of America the lower classes of people in Europe may at some future period be much better instructed than they are at present they may be taught to employ the little spare time they have in many better ways than at the ale house they may live under better and more equal laws than they have hitherto done perhaps in any country and I even conceive it possible though not probable, that they may have more leisure but it is not in the nature of things that they can be awarded such a quantity of money or subsistence as will allow them all to marry early with all confidence that they shall be able to provide with ease for a numerous family End of chapter 14 Recording by Jeffrey Edwards