The English system of his day was,indeed,a vicious one,though acting in some degree as a corrective of other evils in oursocial institutions;and efforts for its amendment tended to the public good.But the proposal of abolition is one from whichstatesmen have recoiled,and which general opinion has never adopted.It is difficult to believe that the present system willbe permanent;it is too mechanical and undiscriminating;on some sides too lax,it is often unduly rigorous in the treatment ofthe worthy poor who are the victims of misfortune;and,in its ordinary modes of dealing with the young,it is open to graveobjection.But it would certainly be rash to abolish it;it is one of several institutions which will more wisely be retained untilthe whole subject of the life of the working classes has been more thoroughly,and also more sympathetically,studied.Theposition of Malthus with respect to the relief of destitution is subject to this general criticism,that,first proving too much,he then shrinks from the consequences of his own logic.it follows from his arguments,and is indeed explicitly stated in acelebrated passage of his original essay,that he who has brought children into the world without adequate provision forthem should be left to the punishment of Nature,that "it is a miserable ambition to wish to snatch the rod from her hand,"and to defeat the action of her laws,which are the laws of God,and which "have doomed him and his family to suffer."Though his theory leads him to this conclusion,he could not,as a Christian clergyman,maintain the doctrine that,seeing ourbrother in need,we ought to shut up our bowels of compassion from him;and thus he is involved in the radicalinconsequence of admitting the lawfulness,if not the duty,of relieving distress in cases where he yet must regard the act asdoing mischief to society.Buckle,who was imposed on by more than one of the exaggerations of the economists,acceptsthe logical inference which Malthus evaded.He alleges that the only ground on which we are justified in relieving destitutionis the essentially self-regarding one,that by remaining deaf to the appeal of the sufferer we should probably blunt the edge ofour own finer sensibilities.
It can scarcely be doubted that the favour which was at once accorded to the views of Malthus in certain circles was due inpart to an impression,very welcome to the higher ranks of society,that they tended to relieve the rich and powerful ofresponsibility for the condition of the working classes,by showing that the latter had chiefly themselves to blame,and noteither the negligence of their superiors or the institutions of the country.The application of his doctrines,too,made by someof his successors had the effect of discouraging all active effort for social improvement.Thus Chalmers "reviews seriatim,and gravely sets aside all the schemes usually proposed for the amelioration of the economic condition of the people"on theground that an increase of comfort will lead to an increase of numbers,and so the last state of things will be worse than thefirst.
Malthus has in more recent times derived a certain degree of reflected lustre from the rise and wide acceptance of theDarwinian hypothesis.Its author himself,in tracing its filiation,points to the phrase "struggle ior existence"used by Malthusin relation to the social competition.Darwin believes that man has advanced to his present relatively high condition throughsuch a struggle,consequent on his rapid multiplication.He regards,it is true,the agency of this cause for the improvementof our race as largely superseded by moral influences in the more advanced social stages.Yet he considers it,even in thesestages,of so much importance towards that end,that notwithstanding the individual suffering arising from the struggle forlife,he deprecates any great reduction in the natural,by which he seems to mean the ordinary,rate of increase.
