University of Virginia Library

TO EDWARD EVERETT.

Dr. Sir,—I recd. several weeks ago your favor
of Ocr. 30, accompanied by the little Treatise on
population analyzing & combating the Theory of
Malthus, which Till within a few days I have been
deprived of the pleasure of reading.[57] Its reasoning
is well entitled to the commendation you bestow
on its ingenuity which must at least contribute to a
more accurate view of the subject; and on its style,
which is characterized by the artless neatness always
pleasing to the purest tastes. Be so obliging as to
convey my debt of thanks to the Author, and to
accept the share of them due to yourself.

Notwithstanding the adverse aspects under which
the two Authors present the question discussed, the
one probably with an eye altogether to the case of
Europe, the other chiefly to that of Ama, I should
suppose that a thorough understanding of each
other ought to narrow not a little the space which
divides them.

The American admits the capacity of the prolific

principle in the human race to exceed the sources
of attainable food; as is exemplified by the occasions
for colonization. And the European could not deny
that as long as an increase of the hands and skill
in procuring food should keep pace with the increase
of mouths, the evils proceeding from a disproportion
could not happen.

It may be presumed also that Mr. Malthus would
not deny that political institutions and social habits,
as good or bad, would have a degree of influence
on the exertion & success of labour in procuring
food: Whilst his opponent seems not unaware of the
tendency of a scanty or precarious supply of it, to
check the prolific principle by discouraging marriages,
with a consequent increase of the moral evils
of licentious intercourse among the unmarried, &
to produce the physical evils of want & disease,
with the moral evils engendered by the first.

An essential distinction between the U. S. and the
more crowded parts of Europe lies in the greater
number of early marriages here than there, proceeding
from the greater facility of providing subsistence;
this facility excluding a certain portion of
the Physical evils of Society, as the marriages do
a certain portion of the moral one. But that the
rate of increase in the population of the U.S. is
influenced at the same time by their political &
social condition is proved by the slower increase
under the vicious institutions of Spanish America
where Nature was not less bountiful. Nor can it
be doubted that the actual population of Europe

wd. be augmented by such reforms in the systems
as would enlighten & animate the efforts to render
the funds of subsistence more productive. We see
everywhere in that quarter of the Globe, the people
increasing in number as the ancient burdens & abuses
have yielded to the progress of light & civilization.

The Theory of Mr. Godwin, if it deserves the name,
is answered by the barefaced errors both of fact and
of inference which meet the eye on every page.

Mr. Malthus has certainly shewn much ability in
his illustrations & applications of the principle he
assumes, however much he may have erred in some
of his positions. But he has not all the merit of
originality which has been allowed him. The principle
was adverted to & reasoned upon, long before
him, tho' with views & applications not the same
with his. The principle is indeed inherent in all
the organized beings on the Globe, as well of the
animal as the vegetable classes; all & each of which
when left to themselves, multiply till checked by the
limited fund of their pabulum, or by the mortality
generated by an excess of their numbers. A productive
power beyond a mere continuance of the
existing Stock was in all cases necessary to guard
agst. the extinction which successive casualties would
otherwise effect; and the checks to an indefinite
multiplication in any case, were equally necessary
to guard agst. too great a disturbance of the general
symmetry & economy of nature. This is a speculation
however, diverging too much from the object
of a letter chiefly intended to offer the acknowledgments

& thanks which I beg leave to repeat with
assurances of my continued esteem and respect.