serious economical writer has adopted the old
hasty guesses, or has ventured to propose a theory without regard to
the principles of which he first brought out the full significance.

V. POLITICAL APPLICATION

This I take to indicate one real and permanent value of Malthus's
writings. He introduced a new method of approaching the great social
problems. The value of the method may remain, however inaccurate may
be the assumptions of facts. The 'tendency,' if interpreted to mean
that people are always multiplying too rapidly, may be a figment. If
it is taken as calling attention to one essential factor in the case,
it is a most important guide to investigation. This brings out another
vital point. The bearing of the doctrine upon the political as well as
upon the economical views of the Utilitarians is of conspicuous
importance. Malthus's starting-point, as we have seen, was the
opposition to the doctrine of 'perfectibility.' Hard facts, which
Godwin and Condorcet had neglected, were fatal to their dreams. You
have, urged Malthus, neglected certain undeniable truths as to the
unalterable qualities of human nature, and, therefore, your theories
will not work. The revolutionists had opposed an ideal 'state of
nature' to the actual arrangements of society. They imagined that the
'state of nature' represented the desirable consummation, and that the
constitution of the 'natural' order could be determined from certain
abstract principles. The equality of man, and the absolute rights
which could be inferred by a kind of mathematical process, supplied
the necessary dogmatic basis. The antithesis to the state of nature
was the artificial state, marked by inequality, and manifesting its
spirit by luxury. Kings, priests, and nobles had somehow established
this unnatural order; and to sweep them away summarily was the way of
bringing the natural order into full activity. The ideal system was
already potentially in existence, and would become actual when men's
minds were once cleared from superstition, and the political made to
correspond to the natural rights of man. To this Malthus had replied,
as we have seen, that social inequality was not a mere arbitrary
product of fraud and force, but an expedient necessary to restrain the
primitive instincts of mankind. He thus coincides with Bentham's
preference of 'security' to 'equality,' and illustrates the real
significance of that doctrine. Property and marriage, though they
involve