I.Malthus's Starting-point
The political movement represented the confluence of many different streams of agitation,Enormous social changes had generated multifarious discontent.New wants and the new strains and stresses between the various parts of the political mechanism required new adaptations.But,if it were inquired what was the precise nature of the evils,and how the reform of parliament was to operate,the most various answers might be given.A most important line of division did not coincide with the line between the recognised parties.One wing of the Radicals agreed with many Conservatives in attributing the great evils of the day to the industrial movement and the growth of competition,the middle-class Whigs and the Utilitarians were,on the contrary,in thorough sympathy with the industrial movement,and desired to limit the functions of government,and trust to self-help and free competition.The Socialistic movement appeared for the present to be confined to a few dreamers and demagogues.The Utilitarians might approve the spirit of the Owenites,but held their schemes to be chimerical.Beneath the political controversies there was therefore a set of problems to be answered;and the Utilitarian answer defines their distinction from Radicals of a different and,as they would have said,unphilosophical school.
What,then,was the view really taken by the Utilitarians of these underlying problems?They not only had a very definite theory in regard to them,but in working it out achieved perhaps their most important contribution to speculation.Beneath a political theory lies,or ought to lie,what we now call a 'sociology'--a theory of that structure of society which really determines the character and the working of political institutions.The Utilitarian theory was embodied in their political economy.I must try to define as well as I can what were the essential first principles implied,without going into the special problems which would be relevant in a history of political economy.The two leading names in the literature of political economy during the first quarter of this century were undoubtedly Malthus and Ricardo.Thomas Robert Malthus 1(1766-1834)was not one of the Utilitarian hand.As a clergyman,he could not share their opinion of the thirty-nine Articles.
Moreover,he was a Whig,not a Radical;and he was even tainted with some economic heresy.Still,he became one of the prophets,if not the leading prophet,of the Utilitarians.Belief in the Malthusian theory of population was the most essential article of their faith,and marked the line of cleavage between the two wings of the Radical party.
Malthus was the son of a country gentleman in Surrey.His father was a man of studious habits,and one of the enthusiastic admirers of Rousseau,His study of mile probably led to the rather desultory education of his son,the boy,after being taught at home,was for a time a pupil of R.Graves (1715-1804),author of the Spiritual Quixote ,a Whig clergyman who was at least orthodox enough to ridicule Methodism,Malthus was next sent to attend Gilbert Wakefield's lectures at the Warrington 'Academy,'the Unitarian place of education,and in 1784went to Jesus College,Cambridge,of which Wakefield had been a fellow.For Wakefield,who had become a Unitarian,and who was afterwards a martyr to political Radicalism,he appears to have retained a strong respect.At Jesus,again,Malthus was under Frend,who also was to join the Unitarians.Malthus was thus brought up under the influences of the modified rationalism which was represented by the Unitarians outside the establishment and by Paley within.Coleridge was at Jesus while Malthus was still a fellow,and there became an ardent admirer of Priestley.Malthus remained within the borders of the church.Its yoke was light enough,and he was essentially predisposed to moderate views.He took his degree as ninth wrangler in 1788,became a fellow of his college in 1793,took orders,and in 1798was curate of Albury,near his father's house in Surrey.Malthus's home was within a walk of Farnham,where Cobbett had been born and passed his childhood.He had,therefore,before his eyes the same agricultural labourer whose degradation excited Cobbett to Radicalism.Very different views were suggested to Malthus.The revolutionary doctrine was represented in England by the writings of Godwin,whose Political Justice appeared in 1793and Enquirer in 1797.These books naturally afforded topics for discussion between Malthus and his father.The usual relations between senior and junior were inverted;the elder Malthus.as became a follower of Rousseau,was an enthusiast;and the younger took the part of suggesting doubts and difficulties.He resolved to put down his arguments upon paper,in order to clear his mind;and the result was the Essay upon Population ,of which the first edition appeared anonymously in 1798.