education and legal means for continued and permanent instruction. It follows too from this principle that a patriotic statesman ought not to sit down contented merely with that moderate degree of attainment with respect to these blessings, which is barely sufficient to carry on the progress of society, and is at liberty to relax his attention and exertion when he may think that point has been attained; because such relaxation would immediately afford scope to the natural tendency of human affairs to degenerate, and the healthy progress of society would be checked: but I have ventured to contend that, animated by the conviction that every improvement and increase of those blessings is in itself a source of happiness and prosperity, which can never be carried too far, he should make every attainment the step to a further progress: and though he may never positively reach the exalted point to which he may aspire, he will not only be enabled to counteract the natural tendency of human institutions to decay, but will also be rewarded by a conviction of having bestowed solid accessions of power and happiness on the commonwealth.

CHAPTER X.

On the rational Hopes that may be entertained of a progressive Improvement in the Condition of Mankind.

THERE is no point of view under which the subject discussed in this treatise assumes a higher interest, than in the conclusions which may be drawn from the different hypotheses respecting our rational hopes of future improvement in the condition of mankind. If the conclusions respecting the principle of population which it has been my object to controvert be just, it is evident that very slender hopes indeed can be entertained of any material amelioration. The progress of society according to those conclusions brings with it so many insuperable difficulties, insuperable even by any adherence on the part of the people to the laws of religion and morality, that we are compelled to submit to the disheartening conviction, that the best governed and most moral nation has no sooner reaped the rewards of its conformity with the commands of Providence, in the attainment of a high degree of general happiness and prosperity, than it must, by the inevitable laws of that same Providence, begin to descend in the scale of society, and to endure all those sufferings, which have been observed by political economists to be the constant attendants of such descent, so well described by Dr. Adam Smith as "miserable" and "melancholy." So that the statesman who advances his country the

most rapidly in its career is only approximating it so much the nearer to its fall, and would have served his generation (or at least subsequent generations) better, had he bent his efforts towards repressing all those moral and political energies, by the developement of which a nation emerges from the stationary condition, which has been equally well described as “hard” and “ dull." The only prospect of obviating these consequences, even upon the hypothesis of those who differ from the conclusions of this treatise, is to be found in views of society confessed by themselves to be Utopian; or in applying to the great mass of the lower orders of mankind principles and arguments of too refined a nature to possess any general influence, except among the few who constitute the higher classes of society. Involuntary abstinence from marriage attended with moral restraint is to be increased, among the lower orders exclusively, as society advances, and as temptations to a breach of moral restraint consequently increase; and the propriety of this abstinence is enforced by arguments, and justified upon a principle of compensation, which can have no general reference whatsoever, except to the higher classes; such as the refinements of sentimental intercourse, the "distinction of a genuine from a transient passion," and the repression of love for a time" that it may afterwards burn with a brighter, purer, and steadier flame." Nor are the political expectations held out to us less brilliant and beautiful: "war," it is said, that great pest of the human race, would under such circumstances soon cease to extend its ravages so widely and so frequently as it does at present;" for "the ambition of princes would want instruments of destruction, if the distresses

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of the lower classes did not drive them under their standards." Indisposed to a war of offence, in a war of defence such a society would be strong as a rock of adamant." (Malthus, book iv. chap. ii.)

Now, without laying any stress on the utter impossibility of maintaining the lower classes in such a state as is supposed in these quotations, during the necessary fluctuations of the advanced stages of society, I do not think that it is quite consistent with the experience of history to affirm, that nations, existing in the simple states of society which render them incapable of offensive war, have usually been able to oppose "a rock of adamant" to the attacks of more powerful and ambitious rivals; but on the contrary they have usually ended in becoming the victims of their exclusive policy. Such a picture is indeed nothing more than the delineation of the peculiar comforts attending the weaker and less advanced conditions of society: its application, even theoretically, to the more advanced stages, where the loss of these peculiar comforts is, as I have shown, more than compensated by other countervailing advantages, can only lead to error by setting up a false standard of what is desirable. A commercial and manufacturing nation, conducting itself upon such principles, would tend towards its own destruction by every step it should take in a career so obviously incompatible with the rights and the intercourse it is under the necessity of maintaining with respect to other nations. The community, therefore, which should first act upon this system would soon afford an unanswerable practical evidence of the unsoundness of its general principle.

Again, we are informed that the only hopes of

ameliorating the condition of society is in the first place to cause a diminution of population. But then we are desired to consider "that this diminution is merely relative; and when once this relative diminution has been effected, by keeping the population stationary, while the supply of food had increased, it might then start afresh, and continue increasing for ages, with the increase of food, maintaining always the same relative proportion to it." (Malthus book iv. chap. iv.) Now to those who agree in the arguments of a preceding chapter, in the second book, on the order of precedence between food and population, this hypothesis of checking the increase of population till food is previously raised for its support will not require any further answer. The supposition of the practical possibility of such a system is altogether gratuitous, and is founded upon the mistaken presumption, that the springs of industry directed to agricultural improvement can continue in vigour in the advanced states of society, without a continually increasing demand for agricultural products. If, therefore, the only hopes of ameliorating the condition of society rest on the practical success of such an hypothesis, those hopes must be very slender and disheartening indeed.

among the adults.

We are further informed (Malthus, book iv. chap. v.) that the only condition under which early unions can take place among the lower orders in the advanced states of society is a great mortality "To act consistently therefore, we should facilitate instead of foolishly and vainly endeavouring to impede the operations of nature in producing this mortality, and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we