It is open to many criticisms. In his ethics he seems to have made no distinct analysis or classification of the passions. He takes for granted that the Passions are on one side and Reason on the other, and there is no middle term between the two except the Design of God, which is worked out by the passions of men as by external nature, and which is (we are left to infer) in some way akin to human reason, for human reason can find it out. The impulse of benevolence, for example, is said to be, like all our natural passions, “general” (by which he seems to mean vague), “and in some degree indiscriminate and blind;” and, like the impulses of love, anger, ambition, the desire of eating and drinking, or any other of our “natural propensities,” it must be regulated by experience and frequently brought to the test of utility, or it will defeat its own purpose.[744] In other words, Malthus treats all human impulses as if they were appetites, co-ordinate with each other, primary and irresolvable. All desires are equally natural, and abstractedly considered equally virtuous,[745] though not equally strong, and therefore not equally fit at first sight to carry out their Creator’s purpose. The Reason of Man, therefore, must assist the Reason of his Maker in carrying out the teleology of his passions, as well as the teleology of nature itself.[746] The “apparent object” (or evident final cause), for example, of the desire of marriage is the continuance of the race and the care of the weak, and not merely the happiness of the two persona most concerned.[747] To take another example, the object of the impulse of benevolence is to increase the sum of human happiness by binding the human race together.[748] Self-love is made a stronger motive than benevolence for a wise and perfectly ascertainable purpose. The ascertainment of the purpose, however, presents a difficulty. Acknowledging that we ought to do the will of God, how are we to discover it?