le droit de subsister.” He might with just as much propriety have said, that before the institution of social laws, every man had a right to live a hundred years. Undoubtedly he had then, and has still, a good right to live a hundred years, nay a thousand _if he can_, without interfering with _the right of others to live_; but the affair, in both cases, is principally an affair of power, not of right. Social laws very greatly increase this power, by enabling a much greater number to subsist than could subsist without them, and so far very greatly enlarge _le droit de subsister_; but neither before nor after the institution of social laws, could _an unlimited number subsist_; and before, as well as since, he who ceased to have _the power_, ceased to have _the right_.’ In this passage Mr. Malthus ‘sharpens his understanding upon his flinty heart.’ The logic is smart and lively and unembarrassed: it is not encumbered with any of the awkward feelings of humanity. After all, he misses his aim. For his argument proves that the right of subsistence or one man’s right to live is only limited by its interfering with the right of others to live: that is, that a man has then only no right to live, when there is nothing for him to live upon; in which case the question becomes an affair of power, not of right. But it is not the question whether the proprietor should starve himself in order that the labourer may live; but whether the proprietor has a right to live in extravagance and luxury, while the labourer is starving. As to his absolute right to the produce of the soil, that is to say, of the labour of others, we have seen that he has no such right either to the whole of the surplus produce, or to _as much of it as he pleases_. With respect then to the share of the produce which the labourer has a right to demand, ‘it is not likely that he should exchange his labour, without receiving a _sufficient_ quantity of food in return,’ to enable him to live, unless the right of the proprietor to exact the labour of others on what terms he chuses, is seconded by a kind of power, which has very little connection with the power of the earth to bring forth no more produce. As to the right of the rich, in a moral point of view, wantonly to starve the poor, it is I think best to say nothing about it. Social institutions, on which our author lays great stress as enlarging the power of subsistence and the right along with it, do not deny relief to the poor. For this very reason Mr. Malthus wishes to shoulder them aside, in order to make room for certain regulations of his own, more agreeable to _the laws of nature and the principle of population_. A little farther on he says, ‘As a previous step even to any considerable alteration in the present system, which would _contract_ or stop the increase of the relief to be given, it appears to me that we are bound in justice and honour ‘_formally to disclaim the right of the poor to support_.’ It would be more modest in Mr.