descend to inform us where and what are the evils resulting from the power of procreation, he will enlighten our darkness, and, consequently, deserve our hearty thanks in return.

BOOK III.

On the different Systems or Expedients which have been proposed, or have prevailed in Society, as they affect the Evils arising from the Principle of Population.

CHAPTER I.

"OF SYSTEMS OF EQUALITY.-OF WALLACE.— CONDORCET."

It might be thought necessary to new-model the titles of this book and chapter, because we have seen, that the two preceding books do not, by any fair means, warrant the assertion, that evils arise from the principle of population. Moreover, equalization of property is the principal subject to be discussed, and not the equality of rights alone; and, therefore, the author's title of this chapter is unwarranted, obscure,

and ambiguous.

Equality of property is very

different, indeed, from equality of rights. Nature denies the one, but affirms the other, by distinguishing one man from another by his intellectual and bodily endowments, and by bestowing those endowments without the least respect to distinctions of rank. The son of the noble, or of the king, or even of the holy statechurch dignitary, is born equally naked and helpless; and is just as likely to be an idiot, or a cripple, or a dwarfish ugly person, or to be as viciously inclined by nature, as the son of the peasant. For which reasons, the arguments which might be unanswerable, when applied to maintain the propriety of an equality of rights, might be quite irrelevant to the subject of legal equalization of property, or other acquirements. Such equalization of property, &c., has not, to our knowledge, been ever seriously proposed, except by fools, rogues, and a certain class of philosophers, one of whose principal leaders has stated, that our earth was originally a wart on the cheek or nose of the sun, and was knocked off from thence by the forehead of an erratic comet, and sent flying with such force, that it has never since slackened its pace, &c. &c.

We must now proceed to the lecture room, that we may be able to report the heads of the professor's discourse, and our remarks there

upon,

He sets out with asserting, that, to any one who has read his two preceding books, "it cannot but be a matter of astonishment, that all the writers on the perfectibility of man, and society, have treated the argument of the principle of population very lightly, and invariably represent the difficulties arising from it, as at a great and, almost, immeasurable distance."

We

Let us not be dazzled by bold assertions. What cause for astonishment do Mr. M.'s first two books furnish? They contain ample descriptions of the vice and misery to which mankind are subjected, in the various countries of the earth; and Mr. M. distinctly and uniformly assigns ignorance and misgovernment, as the causes of those evils. How, then, can he now assume, that those vices and miseries are "evils arising from the principle of population? are, of course, aware that certain priests, and soi disant Christians, require of us to exclude reason from reasoning on matters of religion. Must we, also, exclude it from discussions on Political Economy? Do not those two books, to which Mr. M. refers, prove most clearly, that either no evils result simply from the power of procreation, or that if evils do so result, he has not pointed them out?

Whenever unnatural excitements have been offered or applied to the principle of population, they must have been offered, or applied,

by men who, we fully admit, were either so stupid, as not to foresee the consequences, or so wicked, as to propose unnatural remedies: but what use can the author make of such stupidity or wickedness? Will it prove his own assertions? He says, that in a state of equality, such as Mr. Wallace supposes, "the superior power of population must necessarily be checked by the periodical or constant action of moral restraint, vice, or misery." Now, it cannot form a primâ facie objection to any proposed system, that checks, which have always been in action, will continue to act under its operation; and, as Mr. M., malgré the observations in his last chapter, seems to wish, rather than hope, for the prevalence of moral restraint, to the exclusion of the others, it is not impossible, that some of the equality system-mongers may, plausibly enough, assert, that their proposed system may be made to produce the wished-for effect, when necessary, in a greater degree than the present systems of society have done, or are likely to do. This hint is worth attending to, and the professor's sage opinion on it will swell the next edition, and be satisfactory to his disciples, at least.

Of the author's criticisms on Condorcet, the following is the first which claims attention. "To see the human mind, in one of the most