that,
so far from arrogating any great merit to myself for this discovery, I
thought it next to miraculous that it should have escaped any previous
reviewer of Mr. Malthus.--I must doubt, by the way, whether Mr. Hazlitt
has been 'a good deal abused' for these specific arguments against Mr.
Malthus; and my reason for doubting is this: about ten or twelve years
ago, happening to be on a visit to Mr. Southey, I remember to have met
with a work of Mr. Hazlitt's on this subject--_not_ that which he
quotes, but another (_Reply to Malthus_) which he refers to as
containing the same opinions (either _totidem verbis_, or in substance).
In Mr. Southey's library, and in competition with Mr. Southey's
conversation, a man may be pardoned for not studying any one book
exclusively: consequently, though I read a good deal of Mr. Hazlitt's
_Reply_, I read it cursorily: but, in all that I _did_ read, I remember
that the arguments were very different from those which he now alleges;
indeed it must be evident that the two logical objections in question
are by no means fitted to fill an octavo volume. My inference therefore
is--that any 'abuse,' which Mr. Hazlitt may have met with, must have
been directed to something else in his _Reply_; and in fact it has
happened to myself on several occasions to hear this book of Mr.
Hazlitt's treated as unworthy of his talents; but never on account of
the two arguments which he now claims. I would not be supposed, in
saying this, to insinuate any doubt that these arguments are really to
be found in the _Reply_; but simply to suggest that they do not come
forward prominently or constitute the main argument of that book: and
consequently, instead of being opposed, have been overlooked by those
who have opposed him as much as they were by myself.

[Footnote 27: This was the heading under which correspondence appeared
in _The London Magazine_ at that date.--H.]

[Footnote 28: What other interpretation? An interpretation which makes
Mr. Hazlitt's argument coincide with one frequently urged against Mr.
Malthus--viz. 'that in fact he himself relies practically upon _moral
restraint_ as one great check to Population, though denying that any
great revolution in the moral nature of man is practicable.' But so
long as Mr. Malthus means, by a _great revolution_, a revolution in
the sense which he imputes to Mr. Godwin--to Condorcet, &c. viz. a
revolution amounting to absolute perfection, so long there is no
logi