CHAPTER III. Observations on the Reply of Mr. Godwin. MR. GODWIN in a late publication has replied to those parts of the Essay on the Principle of Population, which he thinks bear the hardest on his system. A few remarks on this reply will be sufficient. In a note to an early part of his pamphlet he observes, that the main attack of the essay is not directed against the principles of his work, but its conclusion.' It may be true indeed, that as Mr. Godwin had dedicated one particular chapter towards the conclusion of his work to the consideration of the objections to his system, from the principle of population, this particular chapter is most frequently alluded to: but certainly if the great principle of the essay be admitted it affects his whole work, and essentially alters the founda 1 Reply to the attacks of Dr. Parr, Mr. Mackintosh, the author of an Essay on Population, and others, p. 10. vol. ii: r Observations on the reply of Mr. Godwin. tions of political justice. A great part of Mr. Godwin's book consists of an abuse of human institutions, as productive of all or most of the evils which afflict society. The acknowledgment of a new and totally unconsidered cause of misery would evidently alter the state of these arguments, and make it absolutely necessary that they should be either newly modified or entirely rejected. In the first book of Political Justice, chap. iii. entitled, "The Spirit of Political Institutions," Mr. Godwin observes, that "Two of the greatest "abuses relative to the interior policy of nations "which at this time prevail in the world consist "in the irregular transfer of property, either first "by violence, or secondly by fraud." And he goes on to say, that if there existed no desire in individuals to possess themselves of the substance of others, and if every man could with perfect facility obtain the necessaries of life, civil society might become what poetry has feigned of the golden age. Let us inquire, he says, into the principles to which these evils are indebted for existence. After acknowledging the truth of the principal argument in the essay on population, I do not think that he could stop in this inquiry at mere human institutions. Many other parts of his work ? Observations on the reply of Mr. Godwin. would be affected by this consideration in a similar manner. As Mr. Godwin seems disposed to understand, and candidly to admit the truth of the principal argument in the essay, I feel the more mortified that he should think it a fair inference from my positions, that the political superintendents of a community are bound to exercise a paternal vigilance and care over the two great means of advantage and safety to mankind, misery and vice; and that no evil is more to be dreaded than that we should have too little of them in the world to confine the principle of population within its proper sphere. I am at a loss to conceive what class of evils Mr. Godwin imagines is yet behind, which these salutary checks are to prevent. For my own part I know of no greater evils than vice and mi sery; and the sole question is respecting the most effectual mode of diminishing them. The only reason why I object to Mr. Godwin's system is my full conviction, that an attempt to execute it would very greatly increase the quantity of vice and misery in society. If Mr. Godwin will undo this conviction, and prove to me though it be Observations on the reply of Mr. Godwin. only in theory, provided that theory be consistent and founded on a knowledge of human nature, that his system will really tend to drive vice and misery from the earth, he may depend upon having me one of its steadiest and warmest advocates. Mr. Godwin observes, that he should naturally be disposed to pronounce that man strangely indifferent to schemes of extraordinary improvement in society, who made it a conclusive argument againt them, that when they were realized, they might peradventure be of no permanence and duration. And yet, what is morality individual or political, according to Mr. Godwin's own definition of it, but a calculation of consequences? Is the physician the patron of pain who advises his patient to bear a present evil rather than betake himself to a remedy, which though it might give momentary relief would afterwards greatly aggravate all the symptoms? Is the moralist to be called an enemy to pleasure, because he recommends to a young man just entering into life not to ruin his health and patrimony in a few years by an excess of present gratifications, but to economize his enjoyments that he may spread them over a longer period? Of Mr. Godwin's system, according to the present arguments by which it is. Observations on the reply of Mr. Godwin. supported, it is not enough to say, peradventure it will be of no permanence; but we can pronounce with certainty that it will be of no permanence: and under such circumstances an attempt to execute it would unquestionably be a great political immorality. Mr. Godwin observes, that after recovering from the first impression made by the Essay on Population, the first thing that is apt to strike every reflecting mind is, that the excess of power in the principle of population over the principle of subsistence has never, in any past instance, in any quarter or age of the world, produced those great and astonishing effects, that total breaking up of all the structures and maxims of society, which the essay leads us to expect from it in certain cases in future.' This is undoubtedly true; and the reason is, that in no past instance, nor in any quarter or age of the world, has an attempt been made to establish such a system as Mr. Godwin's, and without an attempt of this nature none of these great effects will follow. The convulsions of the social system, described in the last chapter, appear 1 Reply, p. 70 |