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Malthus has always been a sort of "darling in the public eye," whom it was unsafe to meddle with.
Finally, we know that contrary to the theory enunciated by Malthus that Oracle of middle-class Economics the productive powers of the human race increase at a much more rapid ratio than its powers of reproduction. The more thickly men are crowded on the soil, the more rapid is the growth of their wealth-creating power.
The chapters on Malthus and on the Non-Survival of the Fittest make a very genuine and original contribution to modern thought. But it is the later essays in the little volume that touched most readers, and will for long continue to touch them. They are as far as possible from being vague, or misty, or aimless. Yet they have, what is so curiously rare in English literature, the charm of reverie.
The 'poor create their own fund, and the necessity for it has arisen from the exorbitant demands made by the rich. Malthus is a Blifil, hypocritically insinuating arguments in favour of tyranny under pretence of benevolence. Hazlitt's writing, although showing the passions of a bitter partisan, hits some of Malthus's rather cloudy argumentation.
His only remedy is to abolish the poor-rates, and starve the poor into celibacy. The folly and wickedness of the book have provoked him, he admits, to contemptuous indignation; and Malthus may be a good man personally. Still, the 'farthing candle' of Malthus's fame as a political philosopher must soon go out.
We dined at Passy, and met Mrs. Malthus, M. Garnier, and M. Chaptal the great Chaptal a very interesting man. In the evening we were at the Princesse de Beauveau's and Lady Granard's. To Madame de Rumford's, and she was very agreeable this morning. Dined at Mr. Creed's under the trees in their garden, with Mr. and Mrs. Malthus, and Mrs. and Miss Eyre, fresh from Italy very agreeable.
All this seems very innocent; but it is only necessary to draw the deductions from all these laws, in order to immediately perceive that these laws incline in the same direction as the law of Malthus. These laws all point to one thing; namely, to the recognition of that division of labor which exists in human communities, as organic, that is to say, as indispensable.
That is not to be historical but to be muddleheaded. Malthus and Smith, as it seemed to Ricardo, had occasionally given explanations which, when set side by side, destroyed each other. He was therefore clearly justified in the attempt to exhibit these logical inconsistencies and to supply a theory which should be in harmony with itself.
He does not mention Malthus, but speaks of the belief as universally admitted, and afterwards illustrates it amusingly by saying that, in his ploughboy days, he used to wonder that there was always just enough hay for the horses and enough horses for the hay. David Ricardo, born 19th April 1772, was the son of a Dutch Jew who had settled in England, and made money upon the Stock Exchange.
In philosophical prose, Mill, Bentham, and Malthus made important contributions to moral, social, and political philosophy, while Coleridge opposed their utilitarian and materialistic tendencies, and codified the principles of criticism from a romantic point of view. Gardiner , Green, Walker, or Cheney.
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