Pulpit philosophizing was not rare in those times; it had been practised since Butler’s days by Dr. Ezra Styles[818] in 1761; and Dr. Richard Price had used a dissenter’s pulpit to utter his enthusiastic views on the future improvement of mankind (1787) and the love of our country (1789).[819] Burke had denounced him for this in his _Reflections_;[820] but, if Parr could do the same thing on the other side a few years afterwards, it cannot have been any great singularity. Parr’s sermon was the subject of Sydney Smith’s first paper in the _Edinburgh Review_ (Oct 1802); but its economical interest is due to its effect on Godwin. Godwin had been assailed shortly before by Sir James Mackintosh, a former friend and political ally, in his _Discourse on the Law of Nature and Nations_, delivered in Lincoln’s Inn Hall, 1799; but Dr. Parr’s censures were more severe. Parr may have been alienated by an offensive description in the _Enquirer_[821] of the clergy, as characterized by “a perennial stationariness of understanding, abortive learning, artificial manners, infantine prejudices, and arrogant infallibility.” As all the other professions were equally well abused, the censure need not have been taken to heart. The letter of Malthus to Godwin, written after the publication of the _Enquirer_, is full of courtesy. At that time, and indeed for a few years afterwards, there was nothing but good-will between the two writers. When Godwin in 1801 made his letters to his three critics into a book,[822] under the title, _Thoughts on Dr. Parr’s Spital Sermon_, with remarks on Mackintosh and the writer of the _Essay on Population_, he was bitter only against the two former. He was surprised at the “overbearing scornfulness” of Mackintosh, and at the “venom” of Dr. Parr. If he had changed some of his views it was not in deference to their criticism. Of the _Essay on Population_, “and the spirit in which it is written,” he “can never speak but with unfeigned respect;” contending only that it is meant to attack his conclusions and not his premises.[823] Parr had hailed it as a complete demonstration that Godwin’s scheme of equality would not work, and many better men had felt their mouths shut, and had begged Godwin to speak for them. Godwin consents in these _Thoughts_. If he was sincere in saying, “I confess I could not see that the essay had any very practical bearing on my own hopes” (p. 55), he must have been in the state which the _Enquirer_ ascribes to the clergyman: “He lives in the midst of evidence and is insensible to it. He is in daily contemplation of contradictions and finds them consistent. He listens to arguments that would impress conviction upon every impartial hearer and is astonished at their futility. He never dares trust himself to one unprejudiced contemplation. He starts with impatience and terror from its possible result.” Malthus, on the other hand, though in orders, has behaved very