thousand more baptisms than burials
within the bills of mortality. It follows, therefore, that, even within
London itself, an increase of the population is taking place by internal
propagation.

Now, if the population of a place in which the fecundity is less and
the mortality greater than in other places still goes on increasing
by propagation, it follows that in other places the population will
increase, and increase still faster. There is clearly nothing in Mr
Sadler's boasted law of fecundity which will keep the population from
multiplying till the whole earth is as thick with human beings as St
Giles's parish. If Mr Sadler denies this, he must hold that, in places
less thickly peopled than London, marriages may be less fruitful than
in London, which is directly contrary to his own principles; or that in
places less thickly peopled than London, and similarly situated, people
will die faster than in London, which is again directly contrary to his
own principles. Now, if it follows, as it clearly does follow, from Mr
Sadler's own doctrines, that the human race might be stowed together
by three or four hundred to the acre, and might still, as far as the
principle of propagation is concerned, go on increasing, what advantage,
in a religious or moral point of view, has his theory over that of
Mr Malthus? The principle of Mr Malthus, says Mr Sadler, leads to
consequences of the most frightful description. Be it so. But do not
all these consequences spring equally from his own principle? Revealed
religion condemns Mr Malthus. Be it so. But Mr Sadler must share in the
reproach of heresy. The theory of Mr Malthus represents the Deity as a
Dionysius hanging the sword over the heads of his trembling slaves. Be
it so. But under what rhetorical figure are we to represent the Deity of
Mr Sadler?

A man who wishes to serve the cause of religion ought to hesitate long
before he stakes the truth of religion on the event of a controversy
respecting facts in the physical world. For a time he may succeed in
making a theory which he dislikes unpopular by persuading the public
that it contradicts the Scriptures and is inconsistent with the
attributes of the Deity. But, if at last an overwhelming force of
evidence proves this maligned theory to be true, what is the effect of
the arguments by which the objector has attempted to prove that it is
irreconcilable with natural and revealed religion? Merely this, to make
men infidels. Like th