not only to supply his own wants, but the wants of those who depend upon him, and who do nothing to support either him or themselves. He is something in the situation of a balance-master, who undertakes to support twenty men, some on his head, some on his shoulders, and others suspended from different parts of his body: his own weight is nothing: it is the weight of those who hang upon him that makes the rich man a burthen to the poor. I see a little old emaciated man riding on a poney along the street, and a stout healthy, well looking man riding behind him at some distance, who follows him like his puppet, who turns as he turns, and whenever he passes him touches his hat in a respectful manner. What is the meaning of this? It is a nobleman, and his servant. The man is as well-fed, as comfortably clothed, and as well-mounted as his master: what makes all the difference is, that there are thirty or forty gradations of society between them, each looking up with envy, or down with contempt on the other, as they have more or less power over the necessaries and conveniences of life not for themselves, but others, and so can hire the respect of a certain number of dependents. So little can we judge of the state of society in the mechanical way pointed out by Mr. Malthus. But it is time to proceed with my author. ‘As Mr. Godwin seems disposed to understand, and candidly to admit the truth of, the principal argument in the essay, I feel the more mortified, that he should think it a fair inference from my positions, that the political superintendents of a community are bound to exercise a paternal vigilance and care over the two great means of advantage and safety to mankind, misery and vice; and that no evil is more to be dreaded than that we should have too little of them in the world, to confine the principle of population within its proper sphere.’ [This I think a fair statement of the argument.] ‘I am at a loss to conceive what class of evils Mr. Godwin imagines is yet behind, which these salutary checks are to prevent.’ [It is not Mr. Godwin’s business, but our author’s to find out such a class of evils.] ‘For my own part, I know of no stronger or more general terms than vice and misery; and the sole question is, respecting a greater or less degree of them. The only reason why I object to Mr. Godwin’s system, is, my full conviction that an attempt to execute it, would very greatly increase the quantity of vice and misery in society.’ Be it so. But still Mr. Malthus thinks a less degree of them necessary to prevent a greater; and it therefore seems a fair inference from his positions to say, that the greatest care ought to be taken, not to diminish the necessary quantity. He approves much of the things in his own mind, but he does not like to hear them called by their names in a disrespectful way. He does not like the odium attached to them.