excused if I consider them as in the highest degree false and dangerous, and treat them accordingly. LETTER IV ON THE GENERAL TENDENCY OF POPULATION TO EXCESS SIR,—Mr. Malthus’s argument against a state of _unlimited_ improvement, of perfect wisdom, virtue and happiness, from the vice, misery, and madness inseparable from such a state would, if admitted, be an effectual bar to all limited improvement whatever. It is for this reason, that I have dwelt so long on the subject. If out of timidity, or complaisance, or prejudice against an unpopular system, we suffer ourselves to be wheedled into a silly persuasion, that the worst thing that could happen for the human race would be their being able to realise not in words only, but in deed all the fine things, that have been said of them, we then fairly throw ourselves upon the mercy of our adversaries. For what is there in this case, to hinder Mr. Malthus, or any one else, from representing every degree of practical improvement as an approximation to this deplorable crisis, from binding up the slips and scyons of human happiness with this great trunk of evil, and root of all our woe, from marking with his slider and graduated scale all our advances towards this ideal perfection, however partial or necessary, as so many deviations from the strict line of our duty, and only sphere of our permanent happiness? It is evident, that the only danger of all imaginary schemes of improvement arises from their being _exaggerations_ of the real capacities of our nature, from supposing that we can pick out all the dross, and leave nothing but the gold; that is, from their being carried to excess, and aiming at more than is practicable. But if we allow that improvement is an evil in the abstract, and that the greater the improvement, the greater the mischief, that the actual and complete success of all such schemes would be infinitely worse even than their failure, for that the most complete and extensive improvement would only prepare the way for the most deplorable wretchedness, and that the very next step after reaching the summit of human glory would plunge us into the lowest abyss of vice and misery,—why truly there will be little encouragement to set out on a journey that promises so very disagreeable a conclusion; such a representation of the matter will not add wings to our zeal for practical reform, but will rather make us stop short in our career, and refuse to advance one step farther in a road, that is beset with danger and destruction. People will begin to look with a jaundiced eye at the most obvious advantages, to resist every useful regulation, and dread every change for the better. Our feelings are governed very much by common-place associations, and are most influenced by that sort of logic which is the shortest. Thus, ‘that the parts are contained in the whole,’ is a general rule which is found to