lost a beloved and affectionate daughter in the bloom of youth, who was carried off by a rapid decline, "a sad break in," as he said, "upon their small and happy family circle;" he bore it, however, with his usual resignation, but for the sake of Mrs. Malthus, who felt her loss most acutely, and in the hope of bringing more composure to all their minds, he made a tour upon the continent with his family, but returned in the autumn to his ordinary duties at Haileybury, and his usual domestic habits.
It has been sometimes insinuated by persons who have been desirous to depreciate the merits of Mr. Malthus as an original writer, that he was indebted to his father for those new views of population which appeared in his first essay and have since excited so much attention in the world. There is no foundation whatever for this report; but it is not difficult to explain in what manner it took its rise. The mind of Mr. Malthus was certainly set to work upon the subject of population, in consequence of frequent discussions between his father and himself respecting another question, in which they differed entirely from each other. The former, a man of romantic and somewhat sanguine temper, had warmly adopted the opinions of Condorcet and Godwin respecting the perfectibility of man, to which the sound and practical sense of the latter was always opposed; and when the question had been often the subject of animated discussion between them, and the son had rested his cause, principally upon the obstacles which the tendency of population to increase faster than the means of subsistence, would always throw in the way; he was desired to put down in writing, for maturer consideration, the substance of his argument, the consequence of which was, the Essay on Population. Whether the father was converted or not we do not know, but certain it is that he was strongly
