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But this fresh assertion strengthened Comte's assertion. And, moreover, according to the ingenuous confession of the founder of Darwin's theory himself, his idea was aroused in him by the law of Malthus; and he therefore propounded the theory of the struggle of living creatures and people for existence, as the fundamental law of every living thing.
Things that in the North we had come to regard as inevitable garments, firing, income tax, morality evaporate or simplify themselves with instructive ease and phantasmagoric readiness. Malthus and the food question assume fresh forms, as in dissolving views, before our very eyes.
This, however, obviously applies only to the couples who have children. Formerly those who married expected to have a family, and were disappointed if this hope were not fulfilled. That it was possible to limit the number of their offspring, or even to avoid parenthood entirely, was of course unknown to them. Nowadays all this is changed, and the doctrines of Malthus obtain everywhere.
Ricardo himself, as appears in his letters, was painfully aware of his own awkwardness of expression, and upon that point alone all his critics seem to be in tolerable agreement. Happily, it will be enough for my purpose if I can lay down his essential premises without following him to the remoter deductions. Ricardo's pamphlet upon Malthus gives a starting-point.
Some of the clearest-headed and blackest-hearted of them, such as Malthus, saw where things were going, and boldly based their Manchester city on pessimism instead of optimism. But this was not the general case; most of the decent rich of the Bright and Cobden sort did have a kind of confused faith that the economic conflict would work well in the long run for everybody.
For, in truth, there are few things of which the light is less to be hid than that of a good newspaper. "The Register," by degrees, won a general esteem, and began to prosper. And as, according to the discovery of Malthus, Prosperity is fond of pairing, it soon happened that our printer went to falling in love.
He has as yet no fear of Malthus before his eyes. He is roused to indignation by the pessimist theory then common, that population was decaying. Everywhere he sees signs of progress; buildings, plantations, woods, and canals. Employment, he says, creates population, stimulates industry, and attracts labour from backward districts. The increase of numbers is an unqualified benefit.
Malthus declares in plain English that the right to live, a right previously asserted in favour of every man in the world, is nonsense. He quotes the words of a poet, that the poor man comes to the feast of Nature and finds no cover laid for him, and adds that "she bids him begone," for he did not before his birth ask of society whether or not he is welcome.
I found further that it consisted of three parts; the first dealt with the sexual relation, and advocated, from the standpoint of an experienced medical man, what is roughly known as "free love"; the second was entirely medical, dealing with diseases; the third consisted of a very clear and able exposition of the law of population as laid down by Malthus, and insisted as John Stuart Mill had done that it was the duty of married persons to voluntarily limit their families within their means of subsistence.
Malthus had frequented the place for two years there could be little danger for the Prince in a single evening. But Geraldine was none the less astonished, and began to suspect a mystification. "What!" cried he, "two years! I thought but indeed I see I have been made the subject of a pleasantry." "By no means," replied Mr. Malthus mildly. "My case is peculiar.
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