my eyes by false syllogism, or any mode of dialectic sophism. And in
relation to this particular subject of value, I flatter myself that in
a paper expressly applied to the exposure of Mr. Malthus's blunders in
his Political Economy, I have made it impossible for Mr. Malthus, even
though he should take to his assistance seven worse logicians than
himself, to put down my light with their darkness. Meantime, as a
labour of shorter compass, I will call the reader's attention to the
following blunder, in a later work of Mr. Malthus's--viz. a pamphlet
of eighty pages, entitled, _The Measure of Value, stated and applied_
(published in the spring of the present year). The question proposed
in this work is the same as that already discussed in his Political
Economy--viz. What is the measure of value? But the answer to it is
different: in the Political Economy, the measure of value was
determined to be a mean between corn and labour; in this pamphlet, Mr.
Malthus retracts that opinion, and (finally, let us hope) settles it
to his own satisfaction that the true measure is labour; not the
quantity of labour, observe, which will produce X, but the quantity
which X will command. Upon these two answers, and the delusions which
lie at their root, I shall here forbear to comment; because I am now
chasing Mr. Malthus's _logical_ blunders; and these delusions are not
so much logical as economic: what I now wish the reader to attend
to--is the blunder involved in the question itself; because that
blunder is not economic, but logical. The question is--what is the
measure of value? I say then that the phrase--'measure of value' is an
equivocal phrase; and, in Mr. Malthus's use of it, means indifferently
that which determines value, in relation to the _principium essendi_,
and that which determines value, in relation to the _principium
cognoscendi_. Here, perhaps, the reader will exclaim--'Avoid,
Satanas!' to me, falsely supposing that I have some design upon his
eyes, and wish to blind them with learned dust. But, if he thinks
_that_, he is in the wrong box: I must and will express scholastic
phrases; but, having once done this, I am then ready to descend into
the arena with no other weapons than plain English can furnish. Let us
therefore translate '_measure of value_' into '_that which determines
value_:' and, in this shape, we shall detect the ambiguity of which I
complain. For I say, that the word _determines_ may be taken
subjectively for what determines X in relation to our knowledge, or
objectively for what determines X in relation to itself. Thus, if I
were to ask--'What determined the length of the racecourse?' and the
answer were--'The convenience of the spectators who could not have
seen the horses at a greater distance,' or 'The choice of the
subscribers,' then it is plain that by the word 'determined,' I was
understood to mean 'determined objectively,' _i. e._ in relation to
the existence of the object; in other words, what _caused_ the
racecourse to be this length rather than another length: but, if the
answer were--'An actual admeasurement,' it would then be plain that by
the word 'determined,' I had been understood to mean 'determined
subjectively,' _i. e._ in relation to our knowledge;--what ascertained
it?--Now, in the objective sense of the phrase, 'determiner of value,'
the measure of value will mean _the ground of value_: in the
subjective sense, it will mean _the criterion of value_. Mr. Malthus
will allege that he is at liberty to use it in which sense he pleases.
Grant that he is, but not therefore in both. Has he then used it in
both? He will, perhaps, deny that he has, and will contend that he has
used it in the latter sense as equivalent to the _ascertainer_ or
_criterion of value_. I answer--No: for, omitting a more particular
examination of his use in this place, I say that his use of any word
is peremptorily and in defiance of his private explanation to be
extorted from the use of the corresponding term in him whom he is
opposing. Now he is opposing Mr. Ricardo: his _labour which X
commands_--is opposed to Mr. Ricardo's _quantity of labour which will
produce X_. Call the first A, the last B. Now, in making B the
determiner of value, Mr. Ricardo means that B is the ground of value:
_i. e._ that B is the answer to the question--what makes this hat of
more value than this pair of shoes? But, if Mr. Malthus means by A the
same thing, when by his own confession he has used the term _measure
of value_ in two senses: on the other hand, if he does not mean the
same thing, but simply the _criterion_ of value, then he has not used
the word in my sense which opposes him to Mr. Ricardo. And yet he
advances the whole on that footing. On either ground, therefore, he is
guilty of a logical error, which implies that, so far from answering
his own question, he did not know what his own question was.
LETTER IN REPLY TO HAZLITT CONCERNING THE MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE OF
POPULATION.
THE LION'S HEAD.[27]
_To the Editor of the London Magazine._
_Westmoreland, November 4, 1823_.
My dear Sir,--This morning I received your parcel, containing amongst
other inclosures, the two last numbers of your journal. In the first
of these is printed a little paper of mine on Mr. Malthus; and in the
second I observe a letter from Mr. Hazlitt--alleging two passages from
the 403rd and 421st pages of his _Political Essays_ as substantially
anticipating all that I had said. I believe that he _has_ anticipated
me: in the passage relating to the geometric and arithmetic ratios, it
is clear that he has: in the other passage, which objects to Mr.
Malthus's use of the term _perfection_, that he has represented it
under contradictory predicates, it is not equally clear; for I do not
find my own meaning so rigorously expressed as to exclude another[28]
interpretation even now when I know what to look for; and, without
knowing what to look for, I should certainly not have found it: on
the whole, however, I am disposed to think that Mr. Hazlitt's meaning
is the same as my own. So much for the _matter_ of Mr. Hazlitt's
communication: as to the _manner_, I am sorry that it is liable to a
construction which perhaps was not intended. Mr. Hazlitt says--'I do
not wish to bring any charge of plagiarism in this case;' words which
are better fitted to express his own forbearance, than to exonerate me
from the dishonour of such an act. But I am unwilling to suppose that
Mr. Hazlitt has designedly given this negative form to his words. He
says also--'as I have been a good deal abused for my scepticism on
that subject, I do not feel quite disposed that any one else should
run away with the credit of it.' Here again I cannot allow myself to
think that Mr. Hazlitt meant deliberately to bring me before the
reader's mind under the odious image of a person who was 'running
away' with the credit of another. As to 'credit,' Mr. Hazlitt must
permit me to smile when I read that word used in that sense: I can
assure him that not any abstract consideration of credit, but the
abstract idea of a credi_tor_ (often putting on a concrete shape, and
sometimes the odious concrete of a dun) has for some time past been
the animating principle of my labours. Credit therefore, except in the
sense of twelve months' credit where now alas! I have only six, is no
object of my search: in fact I abhor it: for to be a 'noted' man is
the next bad thing to being a 'protested' man. Seriously, however, I
sent you this as the first of four notes which I had written on the
logical blunders of Mr. Malthus (the other three being taken not from
his Essay on Population, but from works more expressly within the
field of Political Economy): not having met with it elsewhere, I
supposed it my own and sent it to complete the series: but the very
first sentence, which parodies the words of Chancellor Oxenstiern--('Go
and see--how _little_ logic is required,' &c.), sufficiently shows that,
so far from arrogating any great merit to myself for this discovery, I
thought it next to miraculous that it should have escaped any previous
reviewer of Mr. Malthus.--I must doubt, by the way, whether Mr. Hazlitt
has been 'a good deal abused' for these specific arguments against Mr.
Malthus; and my reason for doubting is this: about ten or twelve years
ago, happening to be on a visit to Mr. Southey, I remember to have met
with a work of Mr. Hazlitt's on this subject--_not_ that which he
quotes, but another (_Reply to Malthus_) which he refers to as
containing the same opinions (either _totidem verbis_, or in substance).
In Mr. Southey's library, and in competition with Mr. Southey's
conversation, a man may be pardoned for not studying any one book
exclusively: consequently, though I read a good deal of Mr. Hazlitt's
_Reply_, I read it cursorily: but, in all that I _did_ read, I remember
that the arguments were very different from those which he now alleges;
indeed it must be evident that the two logical objections in question
are by no means fitted to fill an octavo volume. My inference therefore
is--that any 'abuse,' which Mr. Hazlitt may have met with, must have
been directed to something else in his _Reply_; and in fact it has
happened to myself on several occasions to hear this book of Mr.
Hazlitt's treated as unworthy of his talents; but never on account of
the two arguments which he now claims. I would not be supposed, in
saying this, to insinuate any doubt that these arguments are really to
be found in the _Reply_; but simply to suggest that they do not come
forward prominently or constitute the main argument of that book: and
consequently, instead of being opposed, have been overlooked by those
who have opposed him as much as they were by myself.
[Footnote 27: This was the heading under which correspondence appeared
in _The London Magazine_ at that date.--H.]
[Footnote 28: What other interpretation? An interpretation which makes
Mr. Hazlitt's argument coincide with one frequently urged against Mr.
Malthus--viz. 'that in fact he himself relies practically upon _moral
restraint_ as one great check to Population, though denying that any
great revolution in the moral nature of man is practicable.' But so
long as Mr. Malthus means, by a _great revolution_, a revolution in
the sense which he imputes to Mr. Godwin--to Condorcet, &c. viz. a
revolution amounting to absolute perfection, so long there is no
logical error in all this: Mr. Malthus may consistently rely upon
moral restraint for getting rid, suppose, of ninety cases out of every
hundred which at present tend to produce an excessive population, and
yet maintain that even this tenth of the former excess would be
sufficient, at a certain stage of population, to reproduce famines,
&c., _i. e._ to reproduce as much misery and vice as had been got rid
of. Here there is an absolute increase of moral restraint, but still
insufficient for the purpose of preventing misery, &c. For, as soon as
the maximum of population is attained, even one single birth in excess
(_i. e._ which does more than replace the existing numbers)--_à
fortiori_, then, one-tenth of the present excess (though implying that
the other nine-tenths had been got rid of by moral restraint) would
yet be sufficient to prevent the attainment of a state of perfection.
And, if Mr. Malthus had so shaped his argument, whether wrong or
right--he would not have offended in point of _logic_: his logical
error lies in supposing a state of perfection already existing and yet
as brought to nothing by this excess of births: whereas it is clear
that such an excess may operate to prevent, but cannot operate to
destroy a state of perfection; because in such a state no excess could
ever arise; for, though an excess may co-exist with a vast increase of
moral restraint, it cannot co-exist with entire and perfect moral
restraint; and nothing less than _that_ is involved in the term
'perfection.' A perfect state, which allows the possibility of the
excess here spoken of, is already an imperfect state. Now, if Mr.
Hazlitt says that this is exactly what he means, I answer that I
believe it is; because I can in no other way explain his sixth
sentence--from the words 'but it is shifting the question' to the end
of that sentence. Yet again the seventh sentence (the last) is so
expressed as to be unintelligible to me. And all that precedes the
sixth sentence, though very intelligible, yet seems the precise
objection which I have stated above, and which I think untenable. Nay,
it is still less tenable in Mr. Hazlitt's way of putting it than as
usually put: for to represent Mr. Malthus as saying that, 'if reason
should ever get the mastery over all our actions, we shall then be
governed _entirely_ by our physical appetites' (which are Mr.
Hazlitt's words), would be objected to even by an opponent of Mr.
Malthus: why '_entirely_?' why more than we are at present? The utmost
amount of the objection is this:--That, relying so much upon moral
restraint _practically_, Mr. Malthus was bound to have allowed it more
weight _speculatively_, but it is unreasonable to say that in his
ideal case of perfection Mr. Malthus has allowed no weight at all to
moral restraint: even he, who supposes an increased force to be
inconsistent with Mr. Malthus's theory, has no reason to insist upon
his meaning a diminished force.]
Finally, Mr. Hazlitt calls the coincidence of my objections with his
own 'striking:' and thus (though unintentionally, I dare say) throws
the reader's attention upon it as a very surprising case. Now in this
there is a misconception which, apart from any personal question
between Mr. Hazlitt and myself, is worth a few words on its own
account for the sake of placing it in a proper light. I affirm then
that, considering its nature, the coincidence is _not_ a striking one,
if by 'striking' be meant surprising: and I affirm also that it would
not have been the more striking if, instead of two, it had extended to
two hundred similar cases. Supposing that a thousand persons were
required severally to propose a riddle, no conditions or limitations
being expressed as to the terms of the riddle, it would be surprising
if any two in the whole thousand should agree: suppose again that the
same thousand persons were required to solve a riddle, it would now be
surprising if any two in the whole thousand should differ. Why?
Because, in the first case, the act of the mind is an act of
synthesis; and there we may readily conceive a thousand different
roads for any one mind; but, in the second case, it is an analytic
act; and there we cannot conceive of more than one road for a thousand
minds. In the case between Mr. Hazlitt and myself there was a double
ground of coincidence for any possible number of writers: first the
object was given; _i. e._ we were not left to an unlimited choice of
the propositions we were to attack; but Mr. Malthus had himself, by
insisting on two in particular (however erroneously) as the capital
propositions of his system, determined our attention to these two as
the assailable points: secondly, not only was the object given--_i. e._
not only was it predetermined for us where[29] the error must lie,
if there were an error; but the nature of that error, which happened
to be logical, predetermined for us the nature of the solution. Errors
which are such _materialiter_, _i. e._ which offend against our
_knowing_, may admit of many answers--involving more and less of
truth. But errors, which are such logically, _i. e._ which offend
against the form (or internal law) of our _thinking_, admit of only
one answer. Except by failing of any answer at all, Mr. Hazlitt and I
could not _but_ coincide: as long as we had the same propositions to
examine (which were not of our own choice, but pointed out to us _ab
extra_), and as long as we understood those propositions in the same
sense, no variety was possible except in the expression and manner of
our answers; and to that extent a variety exists. Any other must have
arisen from our understanding that proposition in a different sense.
[Footnote 29: 'Where the error must lie'--_i. e._ to furnish a
sufficient answer _ad hominem_: otherwise it will be seen that I do
not regard either of the two propositions as essential to Mr.
Malthus's theory: and therefore to overthrow those propositions is not
to answer that theory. But still, if an author will insist on
representing something as essential to his theory which is not so, and
challenges opposition to it,--it is allowable to meet him on his own
ground.]
My answer to Mr. Hazlitt therefore is--that in substance I think his
claim valid; and though it is most true that I was not aware of any
claim prior to my own, I now formally forego any claim on my own part
to the credit of whatsoever kind which shall ever arise from the two
objections to Mr. Malthus's logic in his _Essay on Population_. In
saying this, however, and acknowledging therefore a coincidence with
Mr. Hazlitt in those two arguments, I must be understood to mean a
coincidence only in what really belongs to them; meantime Mr. Hazlitt
has used two expressions in his letter to yourself which seem to
connect with those propositions other opinions from which I dissent:
that I may not therefore be supposed to extend my acquiescence in Mr.
Hazlitt's views to these points, I add two short notes upon them:
which however I have detached from this letter--as forming no proper
part of its business.--Believe me, my dear Sir, your faithful humble
servant. X.Y.Z.
1. Mr. Hazlitt represents Mr. Malthus's error in regard to the
different ratios of progression as a _mathematical_ error; but the
other error he calls _logical_. This may seem to lead to nothing
important: it is however not for any purpose of verbal cavil that I
object to this distinction, and contend that both errors are logical.
For a little consideration will convince the reader that he, who
thinks the first error mathematical, will inevitably miss the true
point where the error of Mr. Malthus arises; and the consequence of
that will be--that he will never understand the Malthusians, nor ever
make himself understood by them. Mr. Hazlitt says, 'a bushel of wheat
will sow a whole field: the produce of that will sow twenty fields.'
Yes: but this is not the point which Mr. Malthus denies: this he will
willingly grant: neither will he deny that such a progression goes on
by geometrical ratios. If he did, then it is true that his error would
be a mathematical one. But all this he will concede. Where then lies
his error? Simply in this--that he assumes (I do not mean in words,
but it is manifestly latent in all that he says) that the wheat shall
be continually resown on the same area of land: he will not allow of
Mr. Hazlitt's 'twenty fields:' keep to your original field, he will
say. In this lies his error: and the nature of that error is--that he
insists upon shaping the case for the wheat in a way which makes it no
fair analogy to the case which he has shaped for man. That it is
unfair is evident: for Mr. Malthus does not mean to contend that his
men will go on by geometrical progression; or even by arithmetical,
upon the _same_ quantity of food: no! he will himself say the positive
principle of increase must concur with the same sort of increase in
the external (negative) condition, which is food. Upon what sort of
logic therefore does he demand that his wheat shall be thrown upon the
naked power of its positive principle, _not_ concurring with the same
sort of increase in the negative condition, which in this case is
land? It is true that at length we shall come to the end of the land,
because that is limited: but this has nothing to do with the race
between man and his food, so long as the race is possible. The race is
imagined for the sake of trying their several powers: and the terms of
the match must be made equal. But there is no equality in the terms as
they are supposed by Mr. Malthus. The amount therefore is--that the
case which Mr. Malthus everywhere supposes and reasons upon, is a case
of false analogy: that is, it is a logical error. But, setting aside
the unfairness of the case, Mr. Malthus is perfectly right in his
mathematics. If it were fair to demand that the wheat should be
constantly confined to the same space of land, it is undeniable that
it could never yield a produce advancing by a geometrical progression,
but at the utmost by a very slow arithmetical progression.
Consequently, taking the case as Mr. Malthus puts it, he is right in
calling it a case of arithmetical progression: and his error is in
putting that case as a logical counterpart to his other case.
2. Mr. Hazlitt says--'This, Mr. Editor, is the writer whom "our full
senate call all-in-all sufficient."'--And why not? I ask. Mr.
Hazlitt's inference is--that, because two propositions in Mr.
Malthus's Essay are overthrown, and because these two are propositions
to which Mr. Malthus ascribes a false importance, in relation to his
theory, therefore that theory is overthrown. But, if an architect,
under some fancied weakness of a bridge which is really strong and
self-supported, chooses to apply needless props, I shall not injure
the bridge by showing these to be rotten props and knocking them away.
What is the real strength and the real use of Mr. Malthus's theory of
population, cannot well be shown, except in treating of Political
Economy. But as to the influence of his logical errors upon that
theory, I contend that it is none at all. It is one error to affirm a
different law of increase for man and for his food: it is a second
error to affirm of a perfect state an attribute of imperfection: but
in my judgment it is a third error, as great as either of the others,
to suppose that these two errors can at all affect the Malthusian
doctrine of Population. Let Mr. Malthus say what he will, the first of
those errors is not the true foundation of that doctrine; the second
of those errors does not contain its true application.