Our author’s historical sense saved him from Ricardian presumptions in favour of _laissez faire_. Writers go too far, however, in declaring unlimited competition to be against the spirit of his work, and asserting that he undervalued the influence of institutions, only that he might save his country’s institutions from hasty reform.[797] He knew that society did not grow up on economical principles; instead of beginning with non-interference, and extending interference by degrees where it was found imperative, it began with interference everywhere, and relaxed the interference by degrees where it was found possible and thought desirable. We have begun with status and paternal government, and have made our way towards contract and _laissez faire_; but we have never reached them, because, as men now are, we cannot go on without damage to the common weal. But it seemed to Malthus that experience had shown the need as clearly as the dangers of natural liberty;—history, for example, had clearly proved that the material relief of the poor, which had never been abandoned by the Government, might best have been left to private action. The extreme view would have been that it was not every one’s duty in general, but every one’s in particular, a responsibility of which no one could divest himself. But, though Malthus often speaks as if the burden ought to lie specially on a man’s relatives and private friends, he does not share Adam Smith’s antipathy to associations, and would probably have recognized division of labour to be as necessary in charity as in industry. Still, even as administered by an organization of men specially fitted for the work by nature and choice, the distribution of material relief never seems to him a case where society can help the poor without in some degree injuring their independence and their strength of character. In the matter of charity he is clearly on the side of natural liberty and individualism. But, in other directions, he has made admissions which seriously modify the unlimited competition of natural liberty. He admits, first of all, that the struggle for existence when it is the struggle for bare life does not lead to progress;[798] and he admits, therefore, in the second place, that the state should interfere with the “system of natural liberty,” positively, to educate the citizens,[799] and to grant medical aid to the poor,[800] to assist emigration,[801] and even to give direct relief in money to men that have a family of more than six children,[802]—as well as negatively, to restrict foreign trade when it causes more harm to the public than good to the traders,[803] and to restrict the home trade where children’s labour is concerned.[804]