"For thirty years it rained refutations. Malthus was the most abused man of the age, put down as a man who defended smallpox, slavery and child murder, who denounced soup kitchens, early marriage and parish allowances; who had the impudence to marry after preaching against the evils of a family; who thought the world so badly governed that the best actions do the most harm; who, in short, took all romance out of life."17

"The storm aroused by the essay is still a familiar tradition. A score of forgotten 'replies' intervened between the first edition and the second. Tories, theologians, democrats and poets, for the most part denounced it; but the Whig lawyers and economists rallied with surprising alacrity to its defence. Mackintosh and Brougham gave in their adhesion, Dr. Parr, in his famous Spital Sermon, 1800, used it with damaging effect against Godwin, and Pitt himself dropped his proposed additions to the Poor-law in deference to Malthus's criticism; - a foretaste of the day, a generation later, when the entire Poor-law system was to be recast under Malthus's influence."

What Malthus had to say about the poor, was this:

"The poor-laws of England tend to depress the general condition of the poor in these two ways. This first obvious tendency is to increase population without increasing the food for its support. A poor man may marry with little or no prospect of being able to support a family in independence. They may be said therefore in some measure to create the poor which they maintain; and as the provisions of the country must, in consequence of the increased population, be distributed to every man in smaller proportions, it is evident that the labour of those who are not supported by parish assistance will purchase a smaller quantity of provisions than before, and consequently, more of them must be driven to ask for support. Secondly, the quantity of provisions consumed in workhouses upon a part of the society, that cannot in general be considered the most valuable part, diminishes the shares that would otherwise belong to more worthy members; and thus in the same manner forces more to become dependent. ...
Other circumstances being the same, it may be affirmed that countries are populous according to the quantity of human food which they produce or can acquire, and happy according to the liberality with which this food is divided, or the quantity which a day's labour will purchase. Corn countries are more populous than pasture countries, and rice countries more populous than corn countries. But their happiness does not depend upon their being thinly or fully inhabited, upon their poverty or their richness, their youth or their age, but on the proportion which the population and the good bear to each other."

Hazlitt was much at odds with the theories as expressed by Malthus. To Hazlitt, Malthus had proceeded, a priori, in accepting his opponent's (Godwin's) position, viz., "a state of perfectibility" was achievable; but once achieved, so Malthus argued, would come apart, in time, due to over population. How, Hazlitt wondered, being perfect, could such a society come apart. Hazlitt seem to think that once one imagined a perfect society then one imagined a society with a population that was fully in control. How could "enlightened, quick-sighted and public spirited [men] ... show themselves utterly blind to the consequences of their actions, utterly blind to the consequences of their well-being ..." Hazlitt did not deal with the question, as to how a state, as it progressed to its perfect state, will curb its population growth (I shutter to think). Hazlitt did not deal with the question because he did not accept the premise, viz., that man was perfectible.

"Several philosophers and speculatists had supposed that a certain state of society very different from any that has hitherto existed was in itself practicable; and that if it were realised, it would be productive of a far greater degree of human happiness than is compatible with the present institutions of society."21 Malthus' argument, as stated by Hazlitt, is that if man were to give up his existing social institutions then there would be as much bad as good come of it. "For, says Mr Malthus, though this improved state of society were actually realized, it could not possibly continue, but must soon terminate in a state of things pregnant with evils far more insupportable than any we at present endure..." Hazlitt, to put it simply, had difficulty with Malthus' logic: "It is absurd to object to a system on account of the consequences which would follow if we once suppose men to be actuated by entirely different motives and principles from what they are at present, and then to say, that those consequences would necessarily follow, because men would never be what we suppose them. ... Mr Malthus has written nonsense..." Hazlitt was of the view that Malthus confounded cause with effect. "The wide spreading tyranny, dependence, indolence, and unhappiness, of which Mr. Malthus is so sensible, are not occasioned by the increase of the poor-rates, but these are the natural consequence of that increasing tyranny, dependence, indolence, and happiness occasioned by other causes. ... he shall have my perfect leave to disclaim the right of the poor to subsistence, and to tie them down by severe penalties to their good behaviour, on the same profound principles. But why does Mr Malthus practise his demonstrations on the poor only?"22

One, in pursuing their study of Malthus, should read the essays that Hazlitt has written on Malthus and his theories. There is not that many and they are online here at www.blupete.com. I now list them, next following together with a short synoptic excerpt from each.

§ From Reply to Malthus, 1807:
"Malthus And The Liberties Of The Poor": "It is a fearful shame and calamity ... The greater part of a community ought not to be paupers or starving. When the interests of the many are thus regularly and outrageously sacrificed to those of the few, the social order needs repairing. A street lined with coaches and with beggars dying at the Steps of the doors, gives a strong lesson to common thought and political foresight, if not to humanity."
§ From Political Essays, 1819:
"An Examination of Mr Malthus's Doctrines": "This doctrine is false in fact and theory. ... the population confessedly never can or does exceed the means of subsistence in a literal sense ... the disciples of Mr Malthus ... have but this one idea in their heads; it comes in at every turn, and nothing can drive it out. ... Mr Malthus's arithmetical and geometrical ratios ... [to the exclusion and] the prevention of all timely reforms!"
"On the Originality of Mr Malthus's Essay": "... Wallace [an earlier writer from whom Hazlitt claims Malthus took his notions] has here stated the argument against the progressive and ultimate amelioration of human society, from the sole principle of population. ... The argument is a solecism; but if Wallace showed his ingenuity in inventing it, Mr Malthus has not shown his judgment in adopting it."
"Affect on the Schemes of Utopian Improvement": "He [Malthus] contradicts the opinion of Mr Godwin that vice and misery are not the only checks to population, and ... after flatly denying that moral restraint has any effect at all, he modestly concludes by saying that it has had some, no doubt, but promises that it will never have a great deal. Yet in ... [his intended sequel], 'I shall lay considerable stress.' This kind of reasoning is enough to give one the headache. .. I cannot agree with Mr Malthus that they [Utopian schemes; though "false, sophistical, unfounded in the extreme"] would be bad, in proportion as they were good; that their excellence would be their ruin ...."
"On the Application of Mr Malthus's Principle": "I shall not myself be so uncandid as not to confess, that I think the poor laws bad things; and that it would be well, if they could be got rid of, consistently with humanity and justice. ... The reason why I object to Mr Malthus's plan is, that it does not go to the root of the evil, or attack it in its principle, but its effects. He confounds the cause with the effect. ... why does Mr Malthus practise his demonstrations on the poor only? Why are they to have a perfect system of rights and duties prescribed to them? I do not see ... why it should be meat and drink to them, more than to others, to do the will of God. Mr Malthus's gospel is preached only to the poor!"
"Queries Relating to the Essay on Population": Hazlitt's sets forth his eighteen indictments of Malthus' work: for example, No. 6: "... the most extravagant conclusions, [that leads to the] throwing a suspicion and a stigma on all subordinate improvements or plans of reform ... Whether the stumbling-block thus thrown in the way of those who aimed at any amendment in social institutions does not obviously account for the alarm and opposition which Mr Malthus' work excited on the one hand, and for the cordiality and triumph with which it was hailed on the other?"
§ From The Spirit of the Age, 1825:
"Mr Malthus": "Mr. Malthus ... assumes, a state of perfectibility such as his opponents imagine, in which the general good is to obtain the entire mastery of individual interests, and reason of gross appetites and passions: and then he argues that such a perfect structure of society will fall by its own weight, or rather be undermined by the principle of population ...."