It is an evident truth that, whatever may be the rate of increase in the means of subsistence, the increase of population must be limited by it, at least after the food has once been divided into the smallest shares that will support life. All the children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to this level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the deaths of grown persons. It has appeared indeed clearly in the course of this work, that in all old states the marriages and births depend principally upon the deaths, and that there is no encouragement to early unions so powerful as a great mortality. To act consistently therefore, we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavouring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits.

In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations. 12 but above all, we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases and those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders. If by these and similar means the annual mortality were increased from 1 in 36 or 40, to 1 in 18 or 20, we might probably every one of us marry at the age of puberty, and yet few be absolutely starved. If, however, we all marry at this age, and yet still continue our exertions to impede the operations of nature, we may rest assured that all our efforts will be vain.

The necessary mortality must come, in some form or other and the extirpation of one disease will only be the signal for the birth of another perhaps more fatal. We cannot lower the waters of misery by pressing them down in different places, which must necessarily make them rise somewhere else the only way in which we can hope to effect our purpose, is by drawing them off. To this course nature is constantly directing our attention by the chastisements which await a contrary conduct. These chastisements are more or less severe, in proportion to the degree in which her admonitions produce their intended effect. The preventive check to population prevails to a considerable degree, and her chastisements are in consequence moderate: but if we were all to marry at the age of puberty, they would be severe indeed. A people goaded by constant distress, and visited by frequent returns of famine, could not be kept down but by a cruel despotism.

Melting Pot Essay

We should approach to the state of the people in egypt or abyssinia and i would ask, whether in that case it is probable, that we should be more virtuous? question stated. Little prospect of a determination of it, from the enmity of the opposing parties. The principal argument against the perfectibility of man and of society has never been fairly answered. It has been said, that the great question is now at issue, whether man shall henceforth start forwards with accelerated velocity towards illimitable, and hitherto unconceived improvement or be condemned to a perpetual oscillation between happiness and misery, and after every effort remain still at an immeasurable distance from the wished for goal. Yet, anxiously as every friend of mankind must look forwards to the termination of this painful suspense and, eagerly as the inquiring mind would hail every ray of light that might assist its view into futurity, it is much to be lamented, that the writers on each side of this momentous question still keep far aloof from each other.

The question is not brought to rest on fewer points and even in theory scarcely seems to be approaching to a decision. The advocate for the perfectibility of man, and of society, retorts on the defender of establishments a more than equal contempt. He brands him as the slave of the most miserable and narrow prejudices or, as the defender of the abuses of civil society, only because he profits by them.

He paints him either as a character who prostitutes his understanding to his interest or as one whose powers of mind are not of a size to grasp any thing great and noble who cannot see above five yards before him and who must therefore be utterly unable to take in the views of the enlightened benefactor of mankind. The really good arguments on each side of the question are not allowed to have their proper weight. Each pursues his own theory, little solicitous to correct, or improve it, by an attention to what is advanced by his opponents. The friend of the present order of things condemns all political speculations in the gross. He will not even condescend to examine the grounds from which the perfectibility of society is inferred.

Much less will he give himself the trouble in a fair and candid manner to attempt an exposition of their fallacy. With eyes fixed on a happier state of society, the blessings of which he paints in the most captivating colours, he allows himself to indulge in the most bitter invectives against every present establishment, without applying his talents to consider the best and safest means of removing abuses, and without seeming to be aware of the tremendous obstacles that threaten, even in theory, to oppose the progress of man towards perfection. It is an acknowledged truth in philosophy, that a just theory will always be confirmed by experiment. Yet so much friction, and so many minute circumstances occur in practice, which it is next to impossible for the most enlarged and penetrating mind to foresee, that on few subjects can any theory be pronounced just, that has not stood the test of experience. But an untried argument cannot fairly be advanced as probable, much less as just, till all the arguments against it, have been maturely weighed, and clearly and consistently refuted. I have read some of the speculations on the perfectibility of man and of society, with great pleasure. I have been warmed and delighted with the enchanting picture which they hold forth.

But i see great, and, to my understanding, unconquerable difficulties in the way to them. These difficulties it is my present purpose to state declaring, at the same time, that so far from exulting in them, as a cause of triumph over the friends of innovation, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see them completely removed. It has been advanced and applied to the present subject, though not with its proper weight, or in the most forcible point of view, by mr. I should certainly therefore not think of advancing it again, though i mean to place it in a point of view in some degree different from any that i have hitherto seen, if it had ever been fairly and satisfactorily answered. The cause of this neglect on the part of the advocates for the perfectibility of mankind is not easily accounted for. To my understanding, and probably to that of most others, the difficulty appears insurmountable. Yet these men of acknowledged ability and penetration, scarcely deign to notice it, and hold on their course in such speculations, with unabated ardour, and undiminished confidence.

I have certainly no right to say that they purposely shut their eyes to such arguments. I ought rather to doubt the validity of them, when neglected by such men, however forcibly their truth may strike my own mind. Yet in this respect it must be acknowledged that we are all of us too prone to err. If i saw a glass of wine repeatedly presented to a man, and he took no notice of it, i should be apt to think that he was blind or uncivil. A juster philosophy might teach me rather to think that my eyes deceived me, and that the offer was not really what i conceived it to be. In entering upon the argument i must premise that i put out of the question, at present, all mere conjectures: that is, all suppositions, the probable realization of which cannot be inferred upon any just philosophical grounds. But before he can expect to bring any reasonable person over to his opinion, he ought to shew, that the necks of mankind have been gradually elongating that the lips have grown harder and more prominent that the legs and feet are daily altering their shape and that the hair is beginning to change into stubs of feathers.

Music While Writing Papers