Godwin’s _Political Justice_ was written in 1793, his _Enquirer_ in 1797, and Malthus’ _Essay_ in 1798. Others kept the ball a-rolling. On the Easter Tuesday of 1800 Dr. Samuel Parr preached an anniversary sermon in Christ’s Hospital before the Corporation of London. He chose his text from Galatians vi. 10: “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.” Like Butler’s sermons in the Rolls Chapel, the discourse was really a treatise on moral philosophy. It began by contrasting the selfish and the benevolent system of ethics, pronouncing both of them faulty. If the one has done less harm, the other has done less good than might have been expected, for it has been connected with the new doctrine of universal philanthropy. The new doctrine is false because local neighbourhood of all men is impossible, _vi terminorum_, and a widening out of the feelings that usually prevail between local neighbours would only make those feelings thin and watery.[816] Man’s obligations cannot be stretched beyond his powers; he has no powers, and therefore no obligation to do good unto all men.[817] Love of the universe, in the intense sense of the word love, can only belong to the omnipotent Being who has the care of the universe upon Him. We, being men, must only see to it that our benevolence is of His quality, extending, like His, to the unthankful and to the evil. But a universal philanthropist exaggerates and pampers this one particular form of the duty of benevolence at the expense of the rest, and forgets duties that lie near to him, towards kindred and friends and neighbours; he neglects common duties of life in favour of the uncommon and fanciful. Very different is “the calm desire of general happiness,” which draws those that are near still nearer, and makes us value and assist the benevolent institutions, like Christ’s Hospital, which are at our own doors. The hearers of the sermon could have no doubt at whom it was aimed; and the footnotes of the published version of it contained large quotations from the _Essay on Population_ and large direct commendations of its author, which made the sermon’s oblique censure of Godwin the more stinging.