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it had extended to two hundred similar cases. Supposing that a thousand persons were required severally to propose a riddle, no conditions or limitations being expressed as to the terms of the riddle, it would be surprising if any two in the whole thousand should agree : suppose again that the same thousand persons were required to solve a riddle, it would now be surprising if any two in the whole thousand should differ. Why? Because, in the first case, the act of the mind is an act of synthesis; and there we may readily conceive a thousand different roads for any one mind; but, in the second case, it is an analytic act; and there we cannot conceive of more than one road for a thousand minds. In the case between Mr. Hazlitt and myself there was a double ground of coincidence for any possible number of writers: first the object was given; i. e. we were not left to an unlimited choice of the propositions we were to attack; but Mr. Malthus had himself, by insisting on two in particular (however erroneously) as the capital propositions of his system, determined our attention to these two as the assailable points : secondly, not only was the object given-i. e. not only was it predetermined for us where * the error must lie, if there were an error; but the nature of that error, which happened to be logical, predetermined for us the nature of the solution. Errors which are such materinliter, i. e. which offend against our

knowing, may admit of many answers --involving more and less of truth. But errors, which are such logically, i. e. which offend against the form (or internal law) of our thinking, admit of only one answer. Except by failing of any answer at all, Mr. Hazlitt and I could not but coincide: as long as we had the same propositions to examine (which were not of our own choice, but pointed out to us ab extra), and as long as we understood those propositions in the same sense, no variety was possible except in the expression and manner of our answers; and to that extent a variety exists. Any other must have arisen from our understanding that proposition in a different sense.

My answer to Mr. Hazlitt therefore is—that in substance I think his claim valid; and though it is most true that I was not aware of any claim prior to my own, I now formally forego any claim on my own part to the credit of whatsoever kind which shall ever arise from the two objections to Mr. Malthus's logic in his Essay on Population. In saying this however, and acknowledging therefore a coincidence with Mr. Hazlitt in those two arguments, I must be understood to mean a coincidence only in what really belongs to them; meantime Mr. Hazlitt has used two expressions in his letter to yourself which seem to connect with those propositions other opinions from which I dissent: that I may not therefore be supposed to extend my acquiescence in Mr. Hazlitt's views to these points, I add two short notes upon them: which however I have detached from this letter-as forming no proper part of its business.-Believe me, my dear Sir, your faithful humble servant.

X. Y. Z.

1. Mr. Hazlitt represents Mr. Malthus's error in regard to the different ratios of progression as a mathematical error; but the other error he calls logical. This may seem to lead to nothing important: it is however not for any purpose of verbal cavil that I object to this distinction, and contend that both errors are logical. For a little consideration will convince the reader that he, who thinks the first error mathematical, will inevitably miss the true point where the error of Mr. Malthus arises ; and the consequence of that will be that he will never understand the Malthusians, nor ever make himself understood by them. Mr. Hazlitt says, “ a bushel of wheat will sow a whole field : the produce of that will sow twenty fields." Yes : but this is not the point which Mr. Malthus denies: this he will willingly

* “ Where the error must lie"_i. e. to furnish a sufficient answer ad hominem : otherwise it will be seen that I do not regard either of the two propositions as essential to Mr. Malthus's theory: and therefore to overthrow those propositions is not to answer that theory. But still, if an author will insist on representing something as essential to his theory' which is not so, and challenges opposition to it, it is allowable to meet him on his own ground.

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grant : neither will he deny that such a progression goes on by geometrical ratios. If he did, then it is true that his error would be a mathematical one." But all this he will concede. Where then lies his error? Simply in this that he assumes (I do not mean in words, but it is manifestly latent in all that he says) that the wheat shall be continually resown on the same area of land: he will not allow of Mr. Hazlitt's “twenty fields :” keep to your original field, he will say. In this lies his error: and the nature of that error is--that he insists upon shaping the case for the wheat in a way which makes it no fair analogy to the case which he has shaped for man. That it is unfair is evident: for Mr. Malthus does not mean to contend that his men will go ou by geometrical progression; or even by arithmetical, upon the same quantity of food : no! he will himself say the positive principle of increase must concur with the same sort of increase in the external (negative) condition, which is food. Upon what sort of logic therefore does he demand that his wheat shall be thrown upon the naked power of its positive principle, not concurring with the same sort of increase in the negative condition, which in this case is land ? It is true that at length we shall come to the end of the land, because that is limited: but this has nothing to do with the race between man and his food, so long as the race is possible. The race is imagined for the sake of trying their several powers : and the terms of the match must be made equal. But there is no equality in the terms as they are supposed by Mr. Malthus. The amount therefore is that the case which Mr. Malthus everywhere supposes and reasons upon, is a case of false analogy: that is, it is a logical error. But, setting aside the unfaimess of the case, Mr. Malthus is perfectly right in his mathematics. If it were fair to demand that the wheat should be constantly confined to the same space of land, it is undeniable that it could never yield a produce advancing by a geometrical progression, but at the utmost by a very slow arithmetical progression. Consequently, taking the case as Mr. Malthus puts it, he is right in calling it a case of arithmetical progression : and his error is in putting that case as a logical counterpart to his other case.

2. Mr. Hazlitt says This Mr. Editor, is the writer whom our full senate call all-in-all sufficient.'"-And why not? I ask. Mr. Hazlitt's inference is that, because two propositions in Mr. Malthus's Essay are overthrown, and because these two are propositions to which Mr. Malthus ascribes a false importance, in relation to his theory, therefore that theory is overthrown. But, if an architect, under some fancied weakness of a bridge which is really strong and self-supported, chooses to apply needless props, I shall not injure the bridge by showing these to be rotten props and knocking them away. What is the real strength and the real use of Mr. Malthus's theory of population, cannot well be shown, except in treating of Political Economy. But as to the influence of his logical errors upon that theory, I contend that it is none at all. It is one error to affirm a different law of increase for man and for his food: it is a second error to affirm of a perfect state an attribute of imperfection : but in my judgment it is a third error, as great as either of the others, to suppose that these two errors can at all affect the Malthusian doctrine of Population. Let Mr. Malthus say what he will, the first of those errors is not the true foundation of that doctrine ; the second of those errors does not contain it's true application.

Two private communications on the paper which refuted Mr. Malthus, both expressed in terms of personal courtesy, for which I am bound to make my best acknowledgments, have reached me through the Editor of the London Magazine. One of them refers me “ to the number of the New Monthly Magazine for March or April, 1821, for an article on Malthus, in which the view” taken by myself is of his doctrine, as an answer to Godwin, seems to have been anticipated.” In reply to this I have only to express my regret that my present situation, which is at a great distance from any town, has not yet allowed me an opportunity for making the reference pointed out. The other letter disputes the soundness of my arguments-not so much in themselves, as in their application to Mr. Malthus: I know not that I am authorized to speak of the author by name : his arguments I pre

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sume that I am at liberty to publish: they are as follows: The first objection appears untenable for this reason: Mr. Malthus treats of the abstract tendency to increase in Man, and in the Food of Man, relatively. Whereas you do not discuss the abstract tendency to increase, but only the measure of that increase, which is food. To the second objection I thus answer: Mr. Godwin contends not (I presume) for abstract, essential, perfection; but for perfection relating to, and commensurate with, the capabilities of an earthly nature and habitation. All this Mr. Malthus admits argumenti gratiâ : and at the same time asserts that Mr. Godwin's estimate in his own terms is incompatible with our state. 8 October, 1823.”—To these answers my rejoinder is this:-The first argument I am not sure that I perfectly understand; and therefore I will not perplex myself or its author by discussing it. To the second argument I reply thus: I am aware that whatsoever Mr. Malthus admits from Mr. Godwin, he admits only argumenti gratid. But for whatsoever purpose he admits it, he is bound to remember, that he has admitted it. Now what is it that he has admitted ? A state of perfection. This term, under any explanation of it, betrays him into the following dilemma: Either he means absolute perfection, perfection which allows of no degrees; or he means (in the sense which my friendly antagonist has supposed) relative perfection, quoad our present state-i. e. a continual approxi. mation to the ideal of absolute perfection, without ever reaching it. If he means the first, then he is exposed to the objection (which I have already insisted on sufficiently) of bringing the idea of perfection under an inconsistent and destructory predicate. If he means the second, then how has he overthrown the doctrine of human perfectibility as he professes to have done? At this moment, though the earth is far from exhausted (and still less its powers), many countries are, according to Mr. Malthus, suffering all the evils which they could suffer if population had reached it's maximum: innumerable children are born which the poverty of their parents (no less fatal to them than the limitation of the earth) causes to be thrown back prematurely into the grave. Now this is the precise kind of evil which Mr. Malthus anticipates for the human species when it shall have reached it's numerical maximum. But in degree the evil may then be much less-even upon Mr. Malthus's own showing : for he does not fix any limit to the increase of moral restraint, but only denies that it will ever become absolute and universal. When the principle of population therefore has done it's worst, we may be suffering the same kind of evil-but, in proportion to an indefinitely increasing moral restraint, an indefinitely decreasing degree of that evil: i. e. we may continually approximate to the ideal of perfection: i. e. if the second sense of perfection be Mr. Godwin's sense, then Mr. Malthus has not overthrown Mr. Godwin.

X. Y. Z.

The following admirable letter seems to refer to the observations on Kant, contained in the Opium Eater's Letters. Perhaps that acute logician may be able to discover its meaning: or if not, he may think it worth preserving as an illustration of Shakspeare's profound knowledge of character displayed in Ancient Pistol.

Can Neptune sleep ?-Is Willich dead ?— Him who wielded the trident of Albion! Is it thus you trample on the ashes of my friend ? All the dreadful energies of thought -all the sophistry of fiction and the triumphs of the human intellect are waving o'er his peaceful grave. “ He understood not Kant.” Peace then to the harmless invincible. I have long been thinking of presenting the world with a Metaphysical Dictionary of elucidating Locke's romance.-I await with impatience Kant in English.

Give me that! Your letter has awakened me to a sense of your merits. Beware of squabbles ; I know the literary infirmities of man. Scott rammed his nose against mortals -he grasped at death for fame to chaunt the victory.

THINE. How is the Opium Fater ?

We have to thank an unknown correspondent for the following

SONNET

Occasioned by reading in ELIA's Letter to Dr. Southey, that the admirable translator of Dante, the modest and amiable C- still remained a curateor, as a waggish friend observed,—after such a Translation should still be without Preferment."

O Thou! who enteredst the tangled wood,
By that same spirit trusting to be led,

That on the first discoverer's footsteps shed
The light with which another world was view'd;

Thou hast well scann'd the path, and firmly stood
With measured niceness in his holy tread,
"Till, mounting up thy star-illumined head,
Thou lookedst in upon the perfect good!

What treasures does thy golden key unfold!
Riches immense, the pearl beyond all price,
And saintly truths to gross ears vainly told!

Say, gilds thy earthly path some Beatrice?—
If bread thou want'st, they will but give thee stones,
And when thou'rt gone, will quarrel for thy bones!
AN UNWORTHY RECTOR.

* We suspect, by the way, this is not strictly the case, though we believe it is very nearly so.

We thought the death of our friend R. A. would excite some concern among our readers, but were not prepared to expect so many kind expressions of regret as we have received from various quarters. To the Authors of Verses on the Death of R. A. and an Elegy, &c. we feel particularly obliged; but much as we respect the feeling which is displayed in these effusions, we do not think they come up to the standard of true poetry, and without this we could not conscientiously insert them.

The article on Malthus shall be forwarded, as soon as opportunity offers, according to its address.

N. O. S. will probably see some notice taken of his interesting communication in one of our earliest forthcoming Numbers. Two papers, from "The Coal Hole," shall be treated with all due attention.

The articles not included in the following list are reserved for further consideration :

Observations on Homer-The Pilgrim-Lines on the Death of Major the Hon. F. Howard-On Hobbies-Bachelor's Plagues-To Anna-Ode on the Air Lines addressed to Mr. and Mrs. H-s-P. H.'s Letter to John Lacy.

THE

London Magazine.

DECEMBER, 1823.

ODE ON THE DEATH OF

MARCO BOZZARI.

No man in the heroic struggle which is taking place in Greece seemed worthier to rank with the most illustrious of his ancestors than Marco Bozzari, the Suliote Chief. His death, which took place in September, 1823, in a most heroic and successful attempt to surprise the Pacha of Scutari, is, perhaps, one of the greatest calamities with which the Greeks have been visited, and his countrymen, who speak of him with enthusiastic veneration, are about to raise a statue of Carrara marble to his memory.-We would suggest for an inscription :

Ενθάδε τίς; Μάρκος Μπότσαρης, αθάνατος φώς·
Ελλάδ ̓ ἀνιστὰς ὁ γὰρ πέσε μαρνάμενος.

The following Ode is one of the best and purest specimens of modern Greek which the contest has produced.

DEC. 1823.

Ο ΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΜΑΡΚΟΥ ΜΠΟΤΖΑΡΗ.

Κυλοῦν τὰ φύλλα καὶ μουρμουρίζουν,
Επεσαν κρύα καὶ μαραμένα,
Χειμώνας τὰ 'κοψεν ἕνα ἕνα,

Τὰ περιβόλια εἶναι γυμνά.
̓Αλλάζ ̓ ἡ φύσις τὸ ἔνδυμά της,
Κράζει τοὺς πάγους, τὰ δάκρυά της,
Καὶ εἰς τὸν κόσμον λύπαις μηνᾷ.

Ετσι Πατρίδα ἡ πικραμένη
Τὰ σιδερένια κλαιει παιδιάτης,
Ὁποῦ ἐλυῶσαν 'ς τὴ συμφορά της,
Οποῦ ἐσβῦσαν, ὡς ἀστραπαίς·
Ηλιοι φανῆκαν, καὶ βασιλεῦσαν,
Μὲ τὰ θηρία ἀφ' οὗ παλεῦσαν,
Καὶ τὰ παράχωσαν ἐς ἐντροπαίς.
2 Ρ

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