puzzle it!" He is the zealot of a sect. We are searchers after truth. He wishes to have the question settled. We wish to have it sifted first. The querulous manner in which we have been blamed for attacking Mr. Mill's system, and propounding no system of our own, reminds us of the horror with which that shallow dogmatist, Epicurus, the worst parts of whose nonsense the Utilitarians have attempted to revive, shrank from the keen and searching scepticism of the second Academy. not, however, altogether unsettled. We have an opinion about parliamentary reform, though we have not arrived at that opinion by the royal road which Mr. Mill has opened for the explorers of political science. As we are taking leave, probably for the last time, of this controversy, we will state very concisely what our doctrines are. On some future occasion we may, perhaps, explain and defend them at length. Our fervent wish, and we will add our sanguine hope, is that we may see such a reform of the House of Commons as may render its votes the express image of the opinion of the middle orders of Britain. A pecuniary qualification we think absolutely necessary; and, in settling its amount, our object would be to draw the line in such a manner that every decent farmer and shopkeeper might possess the elective franchise. We should wish to see an end put to all the advantages which It is not our fault that an experimental science of vast extent does not admit of being settled by a short demonstration;-that the subtilty of nature, in the moral as in the physical world, triumphs over the subtilty of syllogism. The quack, who declares on affidavit that, by using his pills and attending to his printed directions, hundreds who had been dismissed incurable from the hospitals have renewed their youth like the eagles, may, per-particular forms of property possess haps, think that Sir Henry Halford, when he feels the pulses of patients, inquires about their symptoms, and prescribes a different remedy to each, is unsettling the science of medicine for the sake of a fee. If, in the course of this controversy, we have refrained from expressing any opinion respecting the political institutions of England, it is not because we have not an opinion or because we shrink from avowing it. The Utilitarians, indeed, conscious that their boasted theory of government would not bear investigation, were desirous to turn the dispute about Mr. Mill's Essay into a dispute about the Whig party, rotten boroughs, unpaid magistrates, and ex-officio informations. When we blamed them for talking nonsense, they cried out that they were insulted for being reformers,just as poor Ancient Pistol swore that the scars which he had received from the cudgel of Fluellen were got in the Gallia wars. We, however, did not think it desirable to mix up political questions, about which the public mind is violently agitated, with a great problem in moral philosophy. Our notions about Government are over other forms, and particular portions of property over other equal portions. And this would content us. Such a reform would, according to Mr. Mill, establish an aristocracy of wealth, and leave the community without protection and exposed to all the evils of unbridled power. Most willingly would we stake the whole controversy between us on the success of the experiment which we propose. SADLER'S LAW OF POPULATION. The Law of Population; a Treatise in Six Books, thereupon he breaks forth into singing as follows: "What myriads wait in destiny's dark womb, Doubtful of life or an eternal tomb! 'Tis his to blot them from the book of fate, To dry the stream of being in its source, Rolls to its Ocean fount, and rests in God." If these lines are not Mr. Sadler's, we heartily beg his pardon for our suspicion--a suspicion which, we acknowledge, ought not to be lightly entertained of any human being. We can only say that we never met with them before, and that we do not much care how long it may be before we meet with them, or with any others like them, again. with the perspicuity, the precision, and the simplicity in which consists the eloquence proper to scientific writing, he indulges without measure in vague, bombastic declamation, made up of those fine things which boys of fifteen admire, and which everybody, who is not destined to be a boy all his life, weeds vigorously out of his compositions after five-and-twenty. That portion of his two thick volumes which is not made up of statistical tables, consists principally of ejaculations, apostrophes, metaphors, similes,-all the worst of their respective kinds. His thoughts are dressed up in this shabby finery with so much profusion and so little discrimination, that they remind us of a company of wretched strolling players, who have huddled on suits of ragged and faded tinsel, taken from a The spirit of this work is as bad as common wardrobe, and fitting neither its style. We never met with a book their persons nor their parts; and who which so strongly indicated that the then exhibit themselves to the laughing writer was in a good humour with himand pitying spectators, in a state of self, and in a bad humour with everystrutting, ranting, painted, gilded body else; which contained so much of beggary. "Oh, rare Daniels!" "Po- that kind of reproach which is vulgarly litical economist, go and do thou like- said to be no slander, and of that kind wise!" "Hear, ye political economists of praise which is vulgarly said to be and anti-populationists!" Popula- no commendation. Mr. Malthus is attion, if not proscribed and worried down tacked in language which it would be by the Cerberean dogs of this wretched scarcely decent to employ respecting and cruel system, really does press Titus Oates. "Atrocious," "execrable," against the level of the means of sub-" blasphemous," and other epithets of sistence, and still elevating that level, the same kind, are poured forth against it continues thus to urge society through that able, excellent, and honourable advancing stages, till at length the strong man, with a profusion which in the and resistless hand of necessity presses early part of the work excites indignathe secret spring of human prosperity, tion, but, after the first hundred pages, and the portals of Providence fly open, produces mere weariness and nausea. and disclose to the enraptured gaze the In the preface, Mr. Sadler excuses himpromised land of contented and re-self on the plea of haste. Two-thirds warded labour." These are specimens, taken at random, of Mr. Sadler's eloquence. We could easily multiply them; but our readers, we fear, are already inclined to cry for mercy. 66 Much blank verse and much rhyme is also scattered through these volumes, sometimes rightly quoted, sometimes wrongly,--sometimes good, sometimes insufferable,-sometimes taken from Shakspeare, and sometimes, for aught we know, Mr. Sadler's own. man," cries the philosopher, "take heed how he rashly violates his trust;" and "Let of his book, he tells us, were written in a few months. If any terms have escaped him which can be construed into personal disrespect, he shall deeply regret that he had not more time to revise them. We must inform him that the tone of his book required a very difierent apology; and that a quarter of a year, though it is a short time for a man to be engaged in writing a book, is a very long time for a man to be in a passion. The imputation of being in a passion Mr. Sadler will not disclaim. His is a theme, he tells us, on which "it were impious to be calm;" and he boasts that, "instead of conforming to the candour of the present age, he has imitated the honesty of preceding ones, in expressing himself with the utmost plainness and freedom throughout." If Mr. Sadler really wishes that the controversy about his new principle of population should be carried on with all the license of the seventeenth century, we can have no personal objections. We are quite as little afraid of a contest in which quarter shall be neither given nor taken as he can be. But we would advise him seriously to consider, before he publishes the promised continuation of his work, whether he be not one of that class of writers who stand peculiarly in need of the candour which he insults, and who would have most to fear from that unsparing severity which he practises and recommends. one. nishes a parallel, it professes to trace this supposed evil to its source, the laws of nature, which are those of God;' thereby implying, and indeed asserting, that the law by which the Deity multiplies his offspring, and that by tation, are different, and, indeed, irreconwhich he makes provision for their sustencilable." "This theory," he adds, " in the plain apprehension of the many, lowers the character of the Deity in that attribute, which, as Rousseau has well observed, is the most essential to him, his goodness; or otherwise, impugns his wis dom." Now nothing is more certain than that there is physical and moral evil in the world. Whoever, therefore, believes, as we do most firmly believe, in the goodness of God, must believe that there is no incompatibility between the goodness of God and the existence of physical and moral evil. If, then, the goodness of God be not incompatible with the existence of physical and moral evil, on what grounds does Mr. Sadler maintain that the goodness of God is incompatible with the law of population laid down by Mr. Malthus? There is only one excuse for the extreme acrimony with which this book is written; and that excuse is but a bad Mr. Sadler imagines that the theory of Mr. Malthus is inconsistent with Christianity, and even with the purer forms of Deism. Now, even had Is there any difference between the this been the case, a greater degree of particular form of evil which would be mildness and self-command than Mr. produced by over-population, and other Sadler has shown would have been be- forms of evil which we know to exist coming in a writer who had undertaken in the world? It is, says Mr. Sadler, to defend the religion of charity. But, not a light or transient evil, but a great in fact, the imputation which has been and permanent evil. What then? The thrown on Mr. Malthus and his follow-question of the origin of evil is a quesers is so absurd as scarcely to deserve tion of ay or no,-not a question of As it appears, however, in more or less. If any explanation can almost every page of Mr. Sadler's book, be found by which the slightest inconwe will say a few words respecting it. venience ever sustained by any sentient Mr. Sadler describes Mr. Malthus's being can be reconciled with the divine principle in the following words :attribute of benevolence, that explanation will equally apply to the most dreadful and extensive calamities that can ever afflict the human race. The an answer. difficulty arises from an apparent contradiction in terms; and that difficulty is as complete in the case of a headache which lasts for an hour as in the case of a pestilence which unpeoples an empire,-in the case of the gust which makes us shiver for a moment as in the case of the hurricane in which an Armada is cast away. "It pronounces that there exists an evil in the principle of population; an evil, not accidental, but inherent; not of occasional occurrence, but in perpetual operation; not light, transient, or mitigated, but productive of miseries, compared with which all those inflicted by human institutions, that is to say, by the weakness and wickedness of man, however instigated, are 'light' an evil, finally, for which there is no remedy save one, which had been long overlooked, and which is now enunciated in terms which evince anything rather than confidence. It is a principle, moreover, pre-eminently bold, as well as 'clear.' With a presumption, to call it by no fitter name, of which it may be doubted It is, according to Mr. Sadler, an inwhether literature, heathen or Christian, fur- stance of presumption unparalleled in cane heard mustering its devastating powers, and perpetually muttering around us; were duce one genial drop to refresh the thirsty earth, and famine, consequently, visibly on the approach; I say, would such a state of things, be reconcilable with the attributes we assign as resulting from the constant laws of Nature, to the Deity,' or with any attributes which in these inventive days could be assigned to him, so as to represent him as anything but the tormentor, rather than the kind benefactor, of his creatures? Life, in such a condition, would be like the unceasingly threatened and of Dionysius, and the tyrant himself the miserable existence of Damocles at the table worthy image of the Deity of the anti-populationists." the skieslike brass,' without a cloud to pro literature, heathen or Christian, to trace Mr. Sadler has attempted, in another part of his work, to meet these obvious arguments, by a distinction without a difference. nor of the universe; though such think that Surely this is wretched trifling. Is on the number of bad harvests, or of volcanic eruptions, that this great question depends? Mr. Sadler's piety, it seems, would be proof against one rainy summer, but would be overcome by three or four in succession. On the coasts of the Mediterranean, where earthquakes are rare, he would be an optimist. South America would make him a sceptic, and Java a decided Manichean. To say that religion as"The scourges of human existence, as necessary regulators of the numbers of mankind, it signs a solemn office to these visitations is also agreed by some, are not inconsistent is nothing to the purpose. Why was with the wisdom or benevolence of the Gover- man so constituted as to need such it is a mere after-concern to reconcile the un-warnings? It is equally unmeaning to deniable state of the fact to the attributes we say that philosophy refers these events assign to the Deity. The purpose of the earth-to benevolent general laws of nature. quake,' say they, the hurricane, the drought, In so far as the laws of nature produce or the famine, by which thousands, and sometimes almost millions, of the human race, evil, they are clearly not benevolent. are at once overwhelmed, or left the victims of They may produce much good. But singular is it that a sophism like this, so false, why is this good mixed with evil? as a mere illustration, should pass for an argu- The most subtle and powerful intelment, as it has long done! The principle of lects have been labouring for centuries population is declared to be naturally product- to solve these difficulties. The true ive of evils to mankind, and as having that constant and manifest tendency to increase their solution, we are inclined to think, is numbers beyond the means of their subsist- that which has been rather suggested, ence, which has produced the unhappy and than developed, by Paley and Butler. disgusting consequences so often enumerated. This is, then, its universal tendency or rule. But there is not one solution which But is there in Nature the same constant will not apply quite as well to the evils tendency to these earthquakes, hurricanes, of over-population as to any other evil. droughts, and famines, by which so many myriads, if not millions, are overwhelmed or Many excellent people think that it is reduced at once to ruin? No; these awful presumptuous to meddle with such events are strange exceptions to the ordinary high questions at all, and that, though course of things; their visitations are partial, and they occur at distant intervals of time. there doubtless is an explanation, our While Religion has assigned to them a very faculties are not sufficiently enlarged solemn office, Philosophy readily refers them to comprehend that explanation. This to those great and benevolent principles of Nature by which the universe is regulated. mode of getting rid of the difficulty, But were there a constantly operating ten-again, will apply quite as well to the evils dency to these calamitous occurrences; did of over-population as to any other evils. we feel the earth beneath us tremulous, and We are sure that those who humbly giving ceaseless and certain tokens of the coming catastrophe of Nature; were the hurri- confess their inability to expound the lingering want, is certainly inscrutable.' How great enigma act more rationally and more decorously than Mr. Sadler, who tells us, with the utmost confidence, which are the means and which the ends,-which the exceptions and which the rules, in the government of the universe;--who consents to bear a little evil without denying the divine benevolence, but distinctly announces that a certain quantity of dry weather or stormy weather would force him to regard the Deity as the tyrant of his crea tures. The great discovery by which Mr. Sadler has, as he conceives, vindicated the ways of Providence is enounced with all the pomp of capital letters. We must particularly beg that our readers will peruse it with attention. "No one fact relative to the human species It appears, however, that it is not to the use of mathematical words, but only to the use of those words in their right senses that Mr. Sadler objects. The law of inverse variation, or inverse proportion, is as much a part of mathematical science as the law of geometric progression. The only difference in this respect between Mr. Malthus and Mr. Sadler is, that Mr. Malthus knows what is meant by geometric progression, and that Mr. Sadler has not the faintest notion of what is meant by inverse variation. Had he understood the proposition which he has enounced with so much pomp, its ludicrous absurdity must at once have flashed on his mind. Let it be supposed that there is a tract in the back settlements of Ameis more clearly ascertained, whether by gene- rica, or in New South Wales, equal ral observation or actual proof, than that in size to London, with only a single their fecundity varies in different commu- couple, a man and his wife, living nities and countries. The principle which effects this variation, without the necessity of upon it. The population of London, those cruel and unnatural expedients so fre- with its immediate suburbs, is now quently adverted to, constitutes what I pre-probably about a million and a half. sume to call THE LAW OF POPULATION; The average fecundity of a marriage and that law may be thus briefly enunciated: "THE PROLIFICNESS OF HUMAN BEINGS, OTHERWISE SIMILARLY CIRCUMSTANCED, VARIES INVERSELY AS THEIR NUMBERS. similar circumstances will, on the average, in London is, as Mr. Sadler tells us, 2.35. How many children will the woman in the back settlements bear "The preceding definition may be thus according to Mr. Sadler's theory? The amplified and explained. Premising, as a solution of the problem is easy. As mere truism, that marriages under precisely the population in this tract in the back be equally fruitful everywhere, I proceed to settlements is to the population of state, first, that the prolificness of a given London, so will be the number of chilnumber of marriages will, all other circum-dren born from a marriage in London stances being the same, vary in proportion to the condensation of the population, so that to the number of children born from that prolificness shall be greatest where the the marriage of this couple in the back numbers on an equal space are the fewest, settlements. That is to sayand, on the contrary, the smallest where those numbers are the largest." Mr. Sadler, at setting out, abuses Mr. Malthus for enouncing his theory in terms taken from the exact sciences. Applied to the mensuration of human fecundity," he tells us, "the most fallacious of all things is geometrical demonstration ;" and he again informs us that those "act an irrational and irreverent part who affect to measure the mighty depth of God's mercies by their arithmetic, and to demonstrate, by their geometrical ratios, that it is inadequate to receive and contain the efflux of that fountain of life which is in Him." 2: 1,500,000:: 2.35: 1,762,500. The lady will have 1,762,500 children: a large "efflux of the fountain of life," to borrow Mr. Sadler's sonorous rhetoric, as the most philoprogenitive parent could possibly desire. But let us, instead of putting cases of our own, look at some of those which Mr. Sadler has brought forward in support of his theory. The following table, he tells us, exhibits a striking proof of the truth of his main position. It seems to us to prove only that Mr. Sadler does not know what inverse proportion means. |