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A Reply to the Essay on Population, by the Rev. T.r. Malthus
A Reply to the Essay on Population by the Rev Tr Malthus Author:William Hazlitt Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: heartedness of mankind, with metaphysical distinctions and the cobwebs of philosophy. The1 balance inclines too much on that side already, Without the addition o... more »f false weights. I confess I do feel some degree of disgust and indignation rising within me, when I see a man of Mr. Mal- thus's character and calling standing forward as the accuser of those " who have none' to help them,5 as the high-priest of " pride and covet- ousness," forming selfishness into a regular code, with its codicils, institutes and glosses annexed, 'trying to muffle up the hand ' of charity in the fetters of the law, to suppress " the compunctious visitings of nature," to make men ashamed of compassion and good-nature as folly and weakness, " laying the flattering unction" of religion to the conscience of the riotous and lyx-. urious liver, and " grinding the faces of the poor" with texts of scripture. Formerly the feelings of compassion, and the dictates of justice were found to operate as correctives on the habitual meanness and selfishness of our nature: at present this order is reversed; and it is discovered that justice and humanity are not obstacles in the way of, but that they are the most effectual strengtheners and supporters of our prevailing passions. Mr. Malthus has " admirably reconciled the old quarrel between speculation and practice," by shewing (I suppose in humble imitation of Mandeville) that our duty and our vices both lean the same way, and that the ends of public virtue and benevolence are best answered by the meanness, pride, extravagance, and insensibility of individuals. This is certainly a very convenient doctrine; and it is not to be wondered at, that it should have become so fashionable as it has. While the prejudice infused into the public mind by this gentleman's writings s...« less