To Southey as to Chalmers the great evil of the day was the growth of the disorganised populace under the factory system.The difference is that while Chalmers enthusiastically adopted Malthus's theory as indicating the true remedy for the evil,Southey regards it with horror as declaring the evil to be irremediable.Chalmers,a shrewd Scot actively engaged in parochial work,had his attention fixed upon the reckless improvidence of the 'excrescent'population ,and welcomed a doctrine which laid stress upon the necessity of raising the standard of prudence and morality.He recognised and pointed out with great force the inadequacy of such palliatives as emigration,home-colonisation,and so forth.33Southey,an ardent and impulsive man of letters,with no practical experience of the difficulties of social reform,has no patience for such inquiries.His remedy,in all cases,was a 'paternal government'vigorously regulating society;and Malthus appears to him to be simply an opponent of all such action.Southey had begun the attack in 1803by an article in the Annual Review (edited by A.Aikin)for which the leading hints were given by Coleridge,then with Southey at Keswick,34in his letters and his later articles he never mentions Malthus without abhorrence.35Malthus,according to his article in the Annual Review ,regards 'vice'and 'misery'as desirable;thinks that the 'gratification of lust'is a 'physical necessity';and attributes to the 'physical constitution of our nature'what should be ascribed to the 'existing system of society.'Malthus,that is,is a fatalist,a materialist,and an anarchist.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.So in the Quarterly Review Southey attributes the social evils to the disintegrating effect of the manufacturing system,of which Adam Smith was the 'tedious and hard-hearted'prophet.The excellent Malthus indeed becomes the 'hard-hearted'almost as Hooker was the 'judicious.'this sufficiently represents the view of the sentimental Tory.Malthus,transformed into a monster,deserves the 'execrations'noticed by Chalmers.There is a thorough coincidence between this view and that of the sentimental Radicals.Southey observes that Malthus (as interpreted by him)does not really answer Godwin.
Malthus argues that 'perfectibility'gives an impossible end because equality would lead to vice and misery.But why should we not suppose with Godwin a change of character which would imply prudence and chastity?Men as they are may be incapable of equality because they have brutal passions.But men as they are to be may cease to be brutal and become capable of equality.
This,indeed,represents a serious criticism.What Malthus was really concerned to prove was that the social state and the corresponding character suppose each other;and that real improvement supposes that the individual must somehow acquire the instincts appropriate to an improved state.The difference between him and his opponents was that he emphasised the mischief of legislation,such as that embodied in the poor-law,which contemplated a forcible change,destroying poverty without raising the poor man's character.Such a rise required a long and difficult elaboration,and he therefore dwells mainly upon the folly of the legislative,unsupported by the moral,remedy.To Godwin,on the other hand,who professed an unlimited faith in the power of reason,this difficulty was comparatively unimportant.Remove political inequalities and men will spontaneously become virtuous and prudent.
Godwin accordingly,when answering Dr.Parr and Mackintosh,36in 1801,welcomed Malthus's first version of the essay.He declares it to be as 'unquestionable an Edition to the theory of political economy 'as has been made by any writer for a century past';and 'admits the ratios to their full extent.'37In this philosophical spirit he proceeds to draw some rather startling conclusions.He hopes that,as mankind improves,such practices as infanticide will not be necessity;but he remarks that it would be happier for a child to perish in infancy than to spend seventy years in vice and misery.38He refers to the inhabitants of Ceylon as a precedent for encouraging other practices restrictive of population.In short,though he hopes that such measures may be needless,he does not shrink from admitting their possible necessity.So far,then,Godwin and Malthus might form an alliance.Equality might be the goal of both;and both might admit the necessity of change in character as well as in the political framework;only that Malthus would lay more stress upon the evil of legislative changes outrunning or independent of moral change.Here,however,arose the real offence.Malthus had insisted upon the necessity of self-help.He had ridiculed the pretensions of government to fix the rate of wages;and had shown how the poor-laws defeated their own objects.This was the really offensive ground to the political Radicals.
They had been in the habit of tracing all evils to the selfishness and rapacity of the rulers;pensions,sinecures,public debts,huge armies,profligate luxuries of all kinds,were the fruits of bad government and the true causes of poverty.Kings and priests were the harpies who had settled upon mankind,and were ruining their happiness.Malthus,they thought,was insinuating a base apology for rulers when he attributed the evil to the character of the subjects instead of attributing it to the wickedness of their rulers.He was as bad as the old Tory,Johnson,39exclaiming:
'How small of all that human hearts endure That part which kings and laws can cause or cure!'