at should be
constantly confined to the same space of land, it is undeniable that
it could never yield a produce advancing by a geometrical progression,
but at the utmost by a very slow arithmetical progression.
Consequently, taking the case as Mr. Malthus puts it, he is right in
calling it a case of arithmetical progression: and his error is in
putting that case as a logical counterpart to his other case.

2. Mr. Hazlitt says--'This, Mr. Editor, is the writer whom "our full
senate call all-in-all sufficient."'--And why not? I ask. Mr.
Hazlitt's inference is--that, because two propositions in Mr.
Malthus's Essay are overthrown, and because these two are propositions
to which Mr. Malthus ascribes a false importance, in relation to his
theory, therefore that theory is overthrown. But, if an architect,
under some fancied weakness of a bridge which is really strong and
self-supported, chooses to apply needless props, I shall not injure
the bridge by showing these to be rotten props and knocking them away.
What is the real strength and the real use of Mr. Malthus's theory of
population, cannot well be shown, except in treating of Political
Economy. But as to the influence of his logical errors upon that
theory, I contend that it is none at all. It is one error to affirm a
different law of increase for man and for his food: it is a second
error to affirm of a perfect state an attribute of imperfection: but
in my judgment it is a third error, as great as either of the others,
to suppose that these two errors can at all affect the Malthusian
doctrine of Population. Let Mr. Malthus say what he will, the first of
those errors is not the true foundation of that doctrine; the second
of those errors does not contain its true application.

Two private communications on the paper which refuted Mr. Malthus,
both expressed in terms of personal courtesy, for which I am bound to
make my best acknowledgments, have reached me through the Editor of
the _London Magazine_. One of them refers me 'to the number of the
_New Monthly Magazine_ for March or April, 1821, for an article on
Malthus, in which the view' taken by myself 'of his doctrine, as an
answer to Godwin, seems to have been anticipated.' In reply to this I
have only to express my regret that my present situation, which is at
a great distance from any town, has not yet allowed me an opportunity
for making the reference pointed out.--The other letter disputes the
soundness of my arg