Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches Volume Ii Part 15

Mr Sadler seems to us to have fallen into a somewhat similar error. He should remember that, though Locke may have been laughed at, so has Sir Claudius Hunter; and that it takes something more than the laughter of all the world to make a Locke.

The body of this pamphlet by no means justifies the parallel so modestly insinuated on the t.i.tle-page. Yet we must own that, though Mr Sadler has not risen to the level of Locke, he has done what was almost as difficult, if not as honourable--he has fallen below his own. He is at best a bad writer. His arrangement is an elaborate confusion. His style has been constructed, with great care, in such a manner as to produce the least possible effect by means of the greatest possible number of words. Aspiring to the exalted character of a Christian philosopher, he can never preserve through a single paragraph either the calmness of a philosopher or the meekness of a Christian. His ill-nature would make a very little wit formidable. But, happily, his efforts to wound resemble those of a juggler's snake. The bags of poison are full, but the fang is wanting. In this foolish pamphlet, all the unpleasant peculiarities of his style and temper are brought out in the strongest manner. He is from the beginning to the end in a paroxysm of rage, and would certainly do us some mischief if he knew how. We will give a single instance for the present. Others will present themselves as we proceed. We laughed at some doggerel verses which he cited, and which we, never having seen them before, suspected to be his own. We are now sure that if the principle on which Solomon decided a famous case of filiation were correct, there can be no doubt as to the justice of our suspicion. Mr Sadler, who, whatever elements of the poetical character he may lack, possesses the poetical irritability in an abundance which might have sufficed for Homer himself, resolved to retaliate on the person, who, as he supposed, had reviewed him. He has, accordingly, ransacked some collection of college verses, in the hope of finding, among the performances of his supposed antagonist, something as bad as his own.

And we must in fairness admit that he has succeeded pretty well. We must admit that the gentleman in question sometimes put into his exercises, at seventeen, almost as great nonsense as Mr Sadler is in the habit of putting into his books at sixty.

Mr Sadler complains that we have devoted whole pages to mere abuse of him. We deny the charge. We have, indeed, characterised, in terms of just reprehension, that spirit which shows itself in every part of his prolix work. Those terms of reprehension we are by no means inclined to retract; and we conceive that we might have used much stronger expressions, without the least offence either to truth or to decorum.

There is a limit prescribed to us by our sense of what is due to ourselves. But we think that no indulgence is due to Mr Sadler. A writer who distinctly announces that he has not conformed to the candour of the age--who makes it his boast that he expresses himself throughout with the greatest plainness and freedom--and whose constant practice proves that by plainness and freedom he means coa.r.s.eness and rancour--has no right to expect that others shall remember courtesies which he has forgotten, or shall respect one who has ceased to respect himself.

Mr Sadler declares that he has never vilified Mr Malthus personally, and has confined himself to attacking the doctrines which that gentleman maintains. We should wish to leave that point to the decision of all who have read Mr Sadler's book, or any twenty pages of it. To quote particular instances of a temper which penetrates and inspires the whole work, is to weaken our charge. Yet, that we may not be suspected of flinching, we will give two specimens,--the two first which occur to our recollection. "Whose minister is it that speaks thus?" says Mr Sadler, after misrepresenting in a most extraordinary manner, though, we are willing to believe, unintentionally, one of the positions of Mr Malthus.

"Whose minister is it that speaks thus? That of the lover and avenger of little children?" Again, Mr Malthus recommends, erroneously perhaps, but a.s.suredly from humane motives, that alms, when given, should be given very sparingly. Mr Sadler quotes the recommendation, and adds the following courteous comment:--"The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." We cannot think that a writer who indulges in these indecent and unjust attacks on professional and personal character has any right to complain of our sarcasms on his metaphors and rhymes.

We will now proceed to examine the reply which Mr Sadler has thought fit to make to our arguments. He begins by attacking our remarks on the origin of evil. They are, says he, too profound for common apprehension; and he hopes that they are too profound for our own. That they seem profound to him we can well believe. Profundity, in its secondary as in its primary sense, is a relative term. When Grildrig was nearly drowned in the Brobdingnagian cream-jug he doubtless thought it very deep. But to common apprehension our reasoning would, we are persuaded, appear perfectly simple.

The theory of Mr Malthus, says Mr Sadler, cannot be true, because it a.s.serts the existence of a great and terrible evil, and is therefore inconsistent with the goodness of G.o.d. We answer thus. We know that there are in the world great and terrible evils. In spite of these evils, we believe in the goodness of G.o.d. Why may we not then continue to believe in his goodness, though another evil should be added to the list?

How does Mr Sadler answer this? Merely by telling us, that we are too wicked to be reasoned with. He completely shrinks from the question; a question, be it remembered, not raised by us--a question which we should have felt strong objections to raising unnecessarily--a question put forward by himself, as intimately connected with the subject of his two ponderous volumes. He attempts to carp at detached parts of our reasoning on the subject. With what success he carries on this guerilla war after declining a general action with the main body of our argument our readers shall see.

"The Reviewer sends me to Paley, who is, I confess, rather more intelligible on the subject, and who, fortunately, has decided the very point in dispute. I will first give the words of the Reviewer, who, when speaking of my general argument regarding the magnitude of the evils, moral and physical, implied in the theory I oppose, sums up his ideas thus:--'Mr Sadler says, that it is not a light or transient evil, but a great and permanent evil. What then? The question of the origin of evil is a question of aye or no,--not a question of MORE or LESS.' But what says Paley? His express rule is this, that 'when we cannot resolve all appearances into benevolence of design, we make the FEW give place to the MANY, the LITTLE to the GREAT; that we take our judgment from a large and decided preponderancy.' Now in weighing these two authorities, directly at issue on this point, I think there will be little trouble in determining which we shall make 'to give place;' or, if we 'look to a large and decided preponderancy' of either talent, learning, or benevolence, from whom we shall 'take our judgment.' The effrontery, or, to speak more charitably, the ignorance of a reference to Paley on this subject, and in this instance, is really marvellous."

Now, does not Mr Sadler see that the very words which he quotes from Paley contain in themselves a refutation of his whole argument? Paley says, indeed, as every man in his senses would say, that in a certain case, which he has specified, the more and the less come into question.

But in what case? "When we CANNOT resolve all appearances into the benevolence of design." It is better that there should be a little evil than a great deal of evil. This is self-evident. But it is also self-evident, that no evil is better than a little evil. Why, then, is there any evil? It is a mystery which we cannot solve. It is a mystery which Paley, by the very words which Mr Sadler has quoted, acknowledges himself unable to solve; and it is because he cannot solve that mystery that he proceeds to take into consideration the more and the less.

Believing in the divine goodness, we must necessarily believe that the evils which exist are necessary to avert greater evils. But what those greater evils are, we do not know. How the happiness of any part of the sentient creation would be in any respect diminished if, for example, children cut their teeth without pain, we cannot understand. The case is exactly the same with the principle of Mr Malthus. If superfecundity exists, it exists, no doubt, because it is a less evil than some other evil which otherwise would exist. Can Mr Sadler prove that this is an impossibility?

One single expression which Mr Sadler employs on this subject is sufficient to show how utterly incompetent he is to discuss it. "On the Christian hypothesis," says he, "no doubt exists as to the origin of evil." He does not, we think, understand what is meant by the origin of evil. The Christian Scriptures profess to give no solution of that mystery. They relate facts: but they leave the metaphysical question undetermined. They tell us that man fell; but why he was not so const.i.tuted as to be incapable of falling, or why the Supreme Being has not mitigated the consequences of the Fall more than they actually have been mitigated, the Scriptures did not tell us, and, it may without presumption be said, could not tell us, unless we had been creatures different from what we are. There is something, either in the nature of our faculties or in the nature of the machinery employed by us for the purpose of reasoning, which condemns us, on this and similar subjects, to hopeless ignorance. Man can understand these high matters only by ceasing to be man, just as a fly can understand a lemma of Newton only by ceasing to be a fly. To make it an objection to the Christian system that it gives us no solution of these difficulties, is to make it an objection to the Christian system that it is a system formed for human beings. Of the puzzles of the Academy, there is not one which does not apply as strongly to Deism as to Christianity, and to Atheism as to Deism. There are difficulties in everything. Yet we are sure that something must be true.

If revelation speaks on the subject of the origin of evil it speaks only to discourage dogmatism and temerity. In the most ancient, the most beautiful, and the most profound of all works on the subject, the Book of Job, both the sufferer who complains of the divine government, and the injudicious advisers who attempt to defend it on wrong principles, are silenced by the voice of supreme wisdom, and reminded that the question is beyond the reach of the human intellect. St Paul silences the supposed objector, who strives to force him into controversy, in the same manner. The church has been, ever since the apostolic times, agitated by this question, and by a question which is inseparable from it, the question of fate and free-will. The greatest theologians and philosophers have acknowledged that these things were too high for them, and have contended themselves with hinting at what seemed to be the most probable solution. What says Johnson? "All our effort ends in belief that for the evils of life there is some good reason, and in confession that the reason cannot be found." What says Paley? "Of the origin of evil no universal solution has been discovered. I mean no solution which reaches to all cases of complaint.--The consideration of general laws, although it may concern the question of the origin of evil very nearly, which I think it does, rests in views disproportionate to our faculties, and in a knowledge which we do not possess. It serves rather to account for the obscurity of the subject, than to supply us with distinct answers to our difficulties." What says presumptuous ignorance? "No doubt whatever exists as to the origin of evil." It is remarkable that Mr Sadler does not tell us what his solution is. The world, we suspect, will lose little by his silence.

He falls on the reviewer again.

"Though I have shown," says he, "and on authorities from which none can lightly differ, not only the cruelty and immorality which this system necessarily involves, but its most revolting feature, its gross partiality, he has wholly suppressed this, the most important part of my argument; as even the bare notice of it would have instantly exposed the sophistry to which he has had recourse. If, however, he would fairly meet the whole question, let him show me that 'hydrophobia,' which he gives as an example of the laws of G.o.d and nature, is a calamity to which the poor alone are liable; or that 'malaria,' which, with singular infelicity, he has chosen as an ill.u.s.tration of the fancied evils of population, is a respecter of persons."

We said nothing about this argument, as Mr Sadler calls it, merely because we did not think it worth while: and we are half ashamed to say anything about it now. But, since Mr Sadler is so urgent for an answer, he shall have one. If there is evil, it must be either partial or universal. Which is the better of the two? Hydrophobia, says this great philosopher, is no argument against the divine goodness, because mad dogs bite rich and poor alike; but if the rich were exempted, and only nine people suffered for ten who suffer now, hydrophobia would forthwith, simply because it would produce less evil than at present, become an argument against the divine goodness! To state such a proposition, is to refute it. And is not the malaria a respecter of persons? It infests Rome. Does it infest London? There are complaints peculiar to the tropical countries. There are others which are found only in mountainous districts; others which are confined to marshy regions; others again which run in particular families. Is not this partiality? Why is it more inconsistent with the divine goodness that poor men should suffer an evil from which rich men are exempt, than that a particular portion of the community should inherit gout, scrofula, insanity, and other maladies? And are there no miseries under which, in fact, the poor alone are suffering? Mr Sadler himself acknowledges, in this very paragraph, that there are such; but he tells us that these calamities are the effects of misgovernment, and that this misgovernment is the effect of political economy. Be it so. But does he not see that he is only removing the difficulty one step further? Why does Providence suffer men, whose minds are filled with false and pernicious notions, to have power in the state? For good ends, we doubt not, if the fact be so; but for ends inscrutable to us, who see only a small part of the vast scheme, and who see that small part only for a short period. Does Mr Sadler doubt that the Supreme Being has power as absolute over the revolutions of political as over the organisation of natural bodies?

Surely not: and, if not, we do not see that he vindicates the ways of Providence by attributing the distresses, which the poor, as he confesses, endure, to an error in legislation rather than to a law of physiology. Turn the question as we may, disguise it as we may, we shall find that it at last resolves itself into the same great enigma,--the origin of physical and moral evil: an enigma which the highest human intellects have given up in despair, but which Mr Sadler thinks himself perfectly able to solve.

He next accuses us of having paused long on verbal criticism. We certainly did object to his improper use of the words "inverse variation." Mr Sadler complains of this with his usual bitterness.

"Now what is the Reviewer's quarrel with me on this occasion? That he does not understand the meaning of my terms? No. He acknowledges the contrary. That I have not fully explained the sense in which I have used them? No. An explanation, he knows, is immediately subjoined, though he has carefully suppressed it. That I have varied the sense in which I have applied them? No. I challenge him to show it. But he nevertheless goes on for many pages together in arguing against what he knows, and, in fact, acknowledges, I did not mean; and then turns round and argues again, though much more feebly, indeed, against what he says I did mean!

Now, even had I been in error as to the use of a word, I appeal to the reader whether such an unworthy and disingenuous course would not, if generally pursued, make controversy on all subjects, however important, that into which, in such hands, it always degenerates--a dispute about words."

The best way to avoid controversies about words is to use words in their proper senses. Mr Sadler may think our objection captious; but how he can think it disingenuous we do not well understand. If we had represented him as meaning what we knew that he did not mean, we should have acted in a disgraceful manner. But we did not represent him, and he allows that we did not represent him, as meaning what he did not mean.

We blamed him, and with perfect justice and propriety, for saying what he did not mean. Every man has in one sense a right to define his own terms; that is to say, if he chooses to call one two, and two seven, it would be absurd to charge him with false arithmetic for saying that seven is the double of one. But it would be perfectly fair to blame him for changing the established sense of words. The words, "inverse variation," in matters not purely scientific, have often been used in the loose way in which Mr Sadler has used them. But we shall be surprised if he can find a single instance of their having been so used in a matter of pure arithmetic.

We will ill.u.s.trate our meaning thus. Lord Thurlow, in one of his speeches about Indian affairs, said that one Hastings was worth twenty Macartneys. He might, with equal propriety, have said ten Macartneys, or a hundred Macartneys. Nor would there have been the least inconsistency in his using all the three expressions in one speech. But would this be an excuse for a financier who, in a matter of account, should reason as if ten, twenty, and a hundred were the same number?

Mr Sadler tells us that he purposely avoided the use of the word proportion in stating his principle. He seems, therefore, to allow that the word proportion would have been improper. Yet he did in fact employ it in explaining his principle, accompanied with an awkward explanation intended to signify that, though he said proportion, he meant something quite different from proportion. We should not have said so much on this subject either in our former article, or at present, but that there is in all Mr Sadler's writings an air of scientific pedantry, which renders his errors fair game. We will now let the matter rest; and, instead of a.s.sailing Mr Sadler with our verbal criticism, proceed to defend ourselves against his literal criticism.

"The Reviewer promised his readers that some curious results should follow from his shuffling. We will enable him to keep his word.

"'In two English counties,' says he, 'which contain from 50 to 100 inhabitants on the square mile, the births to 100 marriages are, according to Mr Sadler, 420; but in 44 departments of France, in which there are from one to two hecatares [hectares] to each inhabitant, that is to say, in which the population is from 125 to 250, or rather more, to the square mile, the number of births to one hundred marriages is 423 and a fraction.'

"The first curious result is, that our Reviewer is ignorant, not only of the name, but of the extent, of a French hectare; otherwise he is guilty of a practice which, even if transferred to the gambling-table, would, I presume, prevent him from being allowed ever to shuffle, even there, again. He was most ready to p.r.o.nounce upon a mistake of one per cent. in a calculation of mine, the difference in no wise affecting the argument in hand; but here I must inform him, that his error, whether wilfully or ignorantly put forth, involves his entire argument.

"The French hectare I had calculated to contain 107,708 67/100 English square feet, or 2 47265/100000 acres; Dr Kelly takes it, on authority which he gives, at 107,644 143923/1000000 English square feet, or 2 471169/1000000 acres. The last French "Annuaires", however, state it, I perceive, as being equal to 2 473614/1000000 acres. The difference is very trifling, and will not in the slightest degree cover our critic's error. The first calculation gives about 258 83/100 hectares to an English square mile; the second, 258 73/100; the last, or French calculation 258 98/100. When, therefore, the Reviewer calculates the population of the departments of France thus: 'from one to two hectares to each inhabitant, that is to say, in which the population is from 125 to 250, or rather more, to the square mile; his 'that is to say,' is that which he ought not to have said--no rare case with him, as we shall show throughout."

We must inform Mr Sadler, in the first place, that we inserted the vowel which amuses him so much, not from ignorance or from carelessness, but advisedly, and in conformity with the practice of several respectable writers. He will find the word hecatare in Ree's Cyclopaedia. He will find it also in Dr Young. We prefer the form which we have employed, because it is etymologically correct. Mr Sadler seems not to know that a hecatare is so-called, because it contains a hundred ares.

We were perfectly acquainted with the extent as well as with the name of a hecatare. Is it at all strange that we should use the words "250, or rather more," in speaking of 258 and a fraction? Do not people constantly employ round numbers with still greater looseness, in translating foreign distances and foreign money? If indeed, as Mr Sadler says, the difference which he chooses to call an error involved the entire argument, or any part of the argument, we should have been guilty of gross unfairness. But it is not so. The difference between 258 and 250, as even Mr Sadler would see if he were not blind with fury, was a difference to his advantage. Our point was this. The fecundity of a dense population in certain departments of France is greater than that of a thinly scattered population in certain counties of England. The more dense, therefore, the population in those departments of France, the stronger was our case. By putting 250, instead of 258, we understated our case. Mr Sadler's correction of our orthography leads us to suspect that he knows very little of Greek; and his correction of our calculation quite satisfies us that he knows very little of logic.

But, to come to the gist of the controversy. Our argument, drawn from Mr Sadler's own tables, remains absolutely untouched. He makes excuses indeed; for an excuse is the last thing that Mr Sadler will ever want.

There is something half laughable and half provoking in the facility with which he a.s.serts and retracts, says and unsays, exactly as suits his argument. Sometimes the register of baptisms is imperfect, and sometimes the register of burials. Then again these registers become all at once exact almost to an unit. He brings forward a census of Prussia in proof of his theory. We show that it directly confutes his theory; and it forthwith becomes "notoriously and grossly defective." The census of the Netherlands is not to be easily dealt with; and the census of the Netherlands is therefore p.r.o.nounced inaccurate. In his book on the Law of Population, he tells us that "in the slave-holding States of America, the male slaves const.i.tute a decided majority of that unfortunate cla.s.s." This fact we turned against him; and, forgetting that he had himself stated it, he tells us that "it is as erroneous as many other ideas which we entertain," and that "he will venture to a.s.sert that the female slaves were, at the nubile age, as numerous as the males." The increase of the negroes in the United States puzzles him; and he creates a vast slave-trade to solve it. He confounds together things perfectly different; the slave-trade carried on under the American flag, and the slave-trade carried on for the supply of the American soil,--the slave-trade with Africa, and the internal slave-trade between the different States. He exaggerates a few occasional acts of smuggling into an immense and regular importation, and makes his escape as well as he can under cover of this hubbub of words. Doc.u.ments are authentic and facts true precisely in proportion to the support which they afford to his theory. This is one way, undoubtedly, of making books; but we question much whether it be the way to make discoveries.

As to the inconsistencies which we pointed out between his theory and his own tables, he finds no difficulty in explaining them away or facing them out. In one case there would have been no contradiction if, instead of taking one of his tables, we had multiplied the number of three tables together, and taken the average. Another would never have existed if there had not been a great migration of people into Lancashire.

Another is not to be got over by any device. But then it is very small, and of no consequence to the argument.

Here, indeed, he is perhaps right. The inconsistencies which we noticed, were, in themselves, of little moment. We give them as samples,--as mere hints, to caution those of our readers who might also happen to be readers of Mr Sadler against being deceived by his packing. He complains of the word packing. We repeat it; and, since he has defied us to the proof, we will go fully into the question which, in our last article, we only glanced at, and prove, in such a manner as shall not leave even to Mr Sadler any shadow of excuse, that his theory owes its speciousness to packing, and to packing alone.

That our readers may fully understand our reasoning, we will again state what Mr Sadler's proposition is. He a.s.serts that, on a given s.p.a.ce, the number of children to a marriage becomes less and less as the population becomes more and more numerous.

We will begin with the census of France given by Mr Sadler. By joining the departments together in combinations which suit his purpose, he has contrived to produce three tables, which he presents as decisive proofs of his theory.

The first is as follows:--

"The legitimate births are, in those departments where there are to each inhabitant--

Hectares Departments To every 1000 marriages

4 to 5 2 130 3 to 4 3 4372 2 to 3 30 4250 1 to 2 44 4234 .06 to 1 5 4146 .06 1 2657

The two other computations he has given in one table. We subjoin it.

Hect. to each Number of Legit. Births to Legit. Births to Inhabitant Departments 100 Marriages 100 Mar. (1826)

4 to 5 2 497 397 3 to 4 3 439 389 2 to 3 30 424 379 1 to 2 44 420 375 under 1 5 415 372 and .06 1 263 253

These tables, as we said in our former article, certainly look well for Mr Sadler's theory. "Do they?" says he. "a.s.suredly they do; and in admitting this, the Reviewer has admitted the theory to be proved." We cannot absolutely agree to this. A theory is not proved, we must tell Mr Sadler, merely because the evidence in its favour looks well at first sight. There is an old proverb, very homely in expression, but well deserving to be had in constant remembrance by all men, engaged either in action or in speculation--"One story is good till another is told!"

We affirm, then, that the results which these tables present, and which seem so favourable to Mr Sadler's theory, are produced by packing, and by packing alone.

In the first place, if we look at the departments singly, the whole is in disorder. About the department in which Paris is situated there is no dispute: Mr Malthus distinctly admits that great cities prevent propagation. There remain eighty-four departments; and of these there is not, we believe, a single one in the place which, according to Mr Sadler's principle, it ought to occupy.

That which ought to be highest in fecundity is tenth in one table, fourteenth in another, and only thirty-first according to the third.

That which ought to be third is twenty-second by the table, which places it highest. That which ought to be fourth is fortieth by the table, which places it highest. That which ought to be eighth is fiftieth or sixtieth. That which ought to be tenth from the top is at about the same distance from the bottom. On the other hand, that which, according to Mr Sadler's principle, ought to be last but two of all the eighty-four is third in two of the tables, and seventh in that which places it lowest; and that which ought to be last is, in one of Mr Sadler's tables, above that which ought to be first, in two of them, above that which ought to be third, and, in all of them, above that which ought to be fourth.

By dividing the departments in a particular manner, Mr Sadler has produced results which he contemplates with great satisfaction. But, if we draw the lines a little higher up or a little lower down, we shall find that all his calculations are thrown into utter confusion; and that the phenomena, if they indicate anything, indicate a law the very reverse of that which he has propounded.

Let us take, for example, the thirty-two departments, as they stand in Mr Sadler's table, from Lozere to Meuse inclusive, and divide them into two sets of sixteen departments each. The set from Lozere and Loiret inclusive consists of those departments in which the s.p.a.ce to each inhabitant is from 3.8 hecatares to 2.42. The set from Cantal to Meuse inclusive consists of those departments in which the s.p.a.ce to each inhabitant is from 2.42 hecatares to 2.07. That is to say, in the former set the inhabitants are from 68 to 107 on the square mile, or thereabouts. In the latter they are from 107 to 125. Therefore, on Mr Sadler's principle, the fecundity ought to be smaller in the latter set than in the former. It is, however, greater, and that in every one of Mr Sadler's three tables.

Let us now go a little lower down, and take another set of sixteen departments--those which lie together in Mr Sadler's tables, from Herault to Jura inclusive. Here the population is still thicker than in the second of those sets which we before compared. The fecundity, therefore, ought, on Mr Sadler's principle, to be less than in that set.

But it is again greater, and that in all Mr Sadler's three tables. We have a regularly ascending series, where, if his theory had any truth in it, we ought to have a regularly descending series. We will give the results of our calculation.