ience to be practically true; and
therefore, finally, the proportion is maintained by 'misery and
vice.' That is the main conclusion which not unnaturally startled the
world. Malthus always adhered in some sense to the main doctrine,
though he stated explicitly some reserves already implicitly involved.
A writer must not be surprised if popular readers remember the
unguarded and dogmatic utterances which give piquancy to a theory, and
overlook the latent qualifications which, when fully expressed, make
it approximate to a commonplace. The political bearing of his
reasoning is significant. The application of Godwin's theories of
equality would necessarily, as he urges, stimulate an excessive
population. To meet the consequent evils, two measures would be
obviously necessary; private property must be instituted in order to
stimulate prudence; and marriage must be instituted to make men
responsible for the increase of the population. These institutions are
necessary, and they make equality impossible. Weak, then, as foresight
may be with most men, the essential social institutions have been
developed by the necessity of enabling foresight to exercise some
influence; and thus indirectly societies have in fact grown in wealth
and numbers through arrangements which have by one and the same action
strengthened prudence and created inequality. Although this is clearly
implied, the main impression produced upon Malthus's readers was that
he held 'vice and misery' to be essential to society; nay, that in
some sense he regarded them as blessings. He was accused, as he tells
us,[222] of objecting to vaccination, because it tended to prevent
deaths from small-pox, and has to protest against some one who had
declared his principles to be favourable to the slave trade.[223] He
was represented, that is, as holding depopulation to be good in
itself. These perversions were grotesque, but partly explain the
horror with which Malthus was constantly regarded; and we must
consider what made them plausible.

I must first notice the maturer form of his doctrine. In the second
edition he turns to account the result of his later reading, his
personal observations, and the statistical results which were
beginning to accumulate. The remodelled book opens with a survey of
the observed action of the checks; and it concludes with a discussion
of the 'moral restraint' which is now added to 'vice and misery.'
Although considerable fragments of the old