the reign of George III. Such is the logical result of their mode of reasoning, though they do not push it to this length;—they only apply it to the defence of all existing abuses, and the prevention of all timely reform! Its advocates are contented to make use of it as a lucky diversion against all Utopian projects of perfectibility, and against every practical advance in human improvement. But they cannot consistently stop here, for it requires not only a shrinking back from every progressive refinement, but a perpetual deterioration and retrograde movement from the positive advances we have made in civilization, comfort, and population, to the lowest state of barbarism, ignorance, and depopulation—till we come back to the age of acorns and pig-nuts, and reduce this once flourishing, populous, free, industrious, independent, and contented people, to a horde of wandering savages, housing in thickets, and living on dewberries, shell-fish, and crab-apples. This will never do.
ON THE
ORIGINALITY OF MR. MALTHUS'S ESSAY.
We asserted in a former article, upon what we thought sufficient and mature grounds, that the author of the "Essay on Population" had taken the leading principle of that essay, and the general inference built on it, from Wallace's work, entitled, "Various Prospects of Mankind, Nature and Providence." We here repeat that assertion; and to enable our readers to judge for themselves, shall give the passage in Wallace on which it is founded. It is as follows:—
"But without entering further into these abstracted and uncertain speculations, it deserves our particular attention that as no Government which hath hitherto been established is free from all seeds of corruption, or can be expected to be eternal; so if we suppose a Government to be perfect in its original frame,
