The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1: With a Preface and Annotations by James HoggDe Quincey, Thomas
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The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1: With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg
De Quincey, Thomas
English literature
[Footnote 26: In a slight article on Mr. Malthus, lately published, I
omitted to take any notice of the recent controversy between this
gentleman--Mr. Godwin--and Mr. Booth; my reason for which was--that I
have not yet found time to read it. But, if Mr. Lowe has rightly
represented this principle of Mr. Booth's argument in his late work on
the Statistics of England, it is a most erroneous one: for Mr. Booth
is there described as alleging against Mr. Malthus that, in his view
of the tendencies of the principle of population, he has relied too
much on the case of the United States--which Mr. Booth will have to be
an extreme case, and not according to the general rule. But of what
consequence is this to Mr. Malthus? And how is he interested in
relying on the case of America rather than that of the oldest European
country? Because he assumes a perpetual nisus in the principle of
human increase to pass a certain limit, he does not therefore hold
that this limit ever _is_ passed either in the new countries or in old
(or only for a moment, and inevitably to be thrown back within it).
Let this limit be placed where it may, it can no more be passed in
America than in Europe; and America is not at all more favourable to
Mr. Malthus's theory than Europe. Births, it must be remembered, are
more in excess in Europe than in America: though they do not make so
much positive addition to the population.]
'Avoid, old Satanas!' I exclaim, if any man attempts to fling dust in
my eyes by false syllogism, or any mode of dialectic sophism. And in
relation to this particular subject of value, I flatter myself that in
a paper expressly applied to the exposure of Mr. Malthus's blunders in
his Political Economy, I have made it impossible for Mr. Malthus, even
though he should take to his assistance seven worse logicians than
himself, to put down my light with their darkness. Meantime, as a
labour of shorter compass, I will call the reader's attention to the
following blunder, in a later work of Mr. Malthus's--viz. a pamphlet
of eighty pages, entitled, _The Measure of Value, stated and applied_
(published in the spring of the present year). The question proposed
in this work is the same as that already discussed in his Political
Economy--viz. What is the measure of value? But the answer to it is
different: in the Political Economy, the measure of value was
determined to be a mean between corn and labour; in this pamphlet, Mr.
Malthus retracts that opinion, and (finally, let us hope) settles it
to his own satisfaction that the true measure is labour; not the
quantity of labour, observe, which will produce X, but the quantity
which X will command. Upon these two answers, and the delusions which
lie at their root, I shall here forbear to comment; because I am now
chasing Mr. Malthus's _logical_ blunders; and these delusions are not
so much logical as economic: what I now wish the reader to attend
to--is the blunder involved in the question itself; because that
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