than we are at present? The utmost
amount of the objection is this:--That, relying so much upon moral
restraint _practically_, Mr. Malthus was bound to have allowed it more
weight _speculatively_, but it is unreasonable to say that in his
ideal case of perfection Mr. Malthus has allowed no weight at all to
moral restraint: even he, who supposes an increased force to be
inconsistent with Mr. Malthus's theory, has no reason to insist upon
his meaning a diminished force.]

Finally, Mr. Hazlitt calls the coincidence of my objections with his
own 'striking:' and thus (though unintentionally, I dare say) throws
the reader's attention upon it as a very surprising case. Now in this
there is a misconception which, apart from any personal question
between Mr. Hazlitt and myself, is worth a few words on its own
account for the sake of placing it in a proper light. I affirm then
that, considering its nature, the coincidence is _not_ a striking one,
if by 'striking' be meant surprising: and I affirm also that it would
not have been the more striking if, instead of two, 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[29] 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
whic