“_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
{218}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 whether literature, heathen or Christian,
furnishes 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 which he makes provision for their sustentation,
are different, and, indeed, irreconcilable_.”
“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 wisdom.”
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?
Is there any difference between the particular form of evil which would
be produced by over-population, and other forms of evil which we know
to exist in the world? It is, says Mr. Sadler, not a light or transient
evil, but a great and permanent evil. What then? The question of the
origin of evil is a question of ay or no,--not a question of more
or less. If any explanation can be found by which the slightest
inconvenience {219}ever sustained by any sentient being can be
reconciled with the divine attribute of benevolence, that explanation
will equally apply to the most dreadful and extensive calamities that
can ever afflict the human race. The 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 is, according to Mr. Sadler, an instance of presumption unparalleled
in literature, heathen or Christian, to trace an evil to “the laws of
nature, which are those of God,” as its source. Is not hydrophobia
an evil? And is it not a law of nature that hydrophobia should be
communicated by the bite of a mad dog? Is not malaria an evil? And is it
not a law of nature that in particular situations the human frame should
be liable to malaria? We know that there is evil in the world. If it is
not to be traced to the laws of nature, how did it come into the world?
Is it supernatural? And, if we suppose it to be supernatural, is not the
difficulty of reconciling it with the divine attributes as great as if
we suppose it to be natural? Or, rather, what do the words natural and
supernatural mean when applied to the operations of the Supreme Mind?
Mr. Sadler has attempted, in another part of his work, to meet these
obvious arguments, by a distinction without a difference.
“_The scourges of human existence, as necessary regulators of the
numbers of mankind, it is also agreed by some, are not inconsistent with
the wisdom or benevolence of the Governor of the {220}universe; though
such think that it is a mere after-concern to ‘reconcile the undeniable
state of the fact to the attributes we assign to the Deity.’ ‘The
purpose of the earthquake,’ say they, ‘the hurricane, the drought, or
the famine, by which thousands, and sometimes almost millions, of the
human race, are at once overwhelmed, or left the victims of lingering
want, is certainly inscrutable.’ How singular is it that a sophism like
this, so false, as a mere illustration, should pass for an argument,
as it has long done! The principle of population is declared to be
naturally productive of evils to mankind, and as having that constant
and manifest tendency to increase their numbers beyond the means
of their subsistence, which has produced the unhappy and disgusting
consequences so often enumerated. This is, then, its universal tendency
or rule. But is there in Nature the same constant tendency to these
earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts, and famines, by which so many
myriads, if not millions, are overwhelmed or reduced at once to ruin?
No; these awful events are strange exceptions to the ordinary course
of things; their visitations are partial, and they occur at distant
intervals of time. While Religion has assigned to them a very solemn
office, Philosophy readily refers them to those great and benevolent
principles of Nature by which the universe is regulated. But were there
a constantly operating tendency to these calamitous occurrences; did we
feel the earth beneath us tremulous, and giving ceaseless and certain
tokens of the coming catastrophe of nature; were the hurricane heard
mustering its devastating powers, and perpetually muttering around us;
were the skies ‘like brass,’ without a cloud to produce one genial drop
to refresh the thirsty earth, and famine, consequently, visibly on the
approach; I say, would such a state of things, as resulting from the
constant laws of Nature, be ‘reconcilable with the attributes we assign
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 miserable
existence of Damocles at the table of Dionysius, and the tyrant himself
the worthy image of the Deity of the anti-populationists_.”
Surely this is wretched trifling. Is it on the number of bad harvests,
or of volcanic eruptions, that this {221}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 assigns a solemn office to these visitations is
nothing to the purpose. Why was man so constituted as to need such
warnings? It is equally unmeaning to say that philosophy refers these
events to benevolent general laws of nature. In so far as the laws of
nature produce evil, they are clearly not benevolent. They may produce
much good. But why is this good mixed with evil? The most subtle and
powerful intellects have been labouring for centuries to solve these
difficulties. The true solution, we are inclined to think, is that which
has been rather suggested, than developed, by Paley and Butler. But
there is not one solution which will not apply quite as well to the
evils of over population as to any other evil. Many excellent people
think that it is presumptuous to meddle with such high questions at all,
and that, though there doubtless is an explanation, our faculties are
not sufficiently enlarged to comprehend that explanation. This mode of
getting rid of the difficulty, again, will apply quite as well to the
evils of over-population as to any other evils. We are sure that those
who humbly confess their inability to expound the 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,
{222}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
creatures.
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 is more clearly ascertained,
whether by general observation or actual proof, than that their
fecundity varies in different communities and countries. The principle
which effects this variation, without the necessity of those cruel
and unnatural expedients so frequently adverted to, constitutes what I
presume to call The Law of Population; and that law may be thus briefly
enunciated:--
“The Prolificness of human beings, otherwise similarly CIRCUMSTANCED,
VARIES INVERSELY AS THEIR NUMBERS.
“The preceding definition may be thus amplified and explained.
Premising, as a mere truism, that marriages under precisely similar
circumstances will, on the average, be equally fruitful everywhere,
I proceed to state, first, that the prolificness of a given number
of marriages will, all other circumstances being the same, vary
in proportion to the condensation of the population, so that that
prolificness shall be greatest where the numbers on an equal space are
the fewest, and, 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 {223}contain
the efflux of that fountain of life which is in Him.”
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
America, or in New South Wales, equal in size to London, with only a
single couple, a man and his wife, living upon it. The population of
London, with its immediate suburbs, is now probably about a million and
a half. The average fecundity of a marriage in London is, as Mr. Sadler
tells us, 2.35. How many children will the woman in the back settlements
bear according to Mr. Sadler’s theory? The solution of the problem is
easy. As the population in this tract in the back settlements is to
the population of London, so will be the number of children born from a
marriage in London to the number of children born from the marriage
of this couple in the back settlements. That is to say-- 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. {224}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.
[Illustration: 0230]
Is 1 to 160 as 3.66 to 5.48? If Mr. Sadler’s principle were just, the
number of children produced by a marriage at the Cape would be, not
5.48, but very near 600. Or take America and France. Is 4 to 140 as
4.22 to 5.22? The number of births to a marriage in North America ought,
according to this proportion, to be about 150.