網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

to be precisely the fulfilment of the design, for the accomplishmeat of which, the apparently inconsistent suggestions of propensities. seem to be contrived. In page 99, Mr. E. himself says, "it is an immoral act for a man to marry without a reasonable prospect of being able to support a family." Now, this is precisely what Mr. Malthus insists on. He certainly never said that it was an immoral act for a man to marry who could maintain his family; and if we look no farther, we should say that the parties are agreed. But Mr. Everett likewise says, "On the system of Mr. Malthus, the poor* in addition to their other inconveniences, are required to sacrifice the comforts of domestic life to the general good; and the rich are invested, beside all their other advantages, with a monopoly of love and marriage. Such a plan is neither just nor safe; and the privations and sufferings imposed upon communities by common necessities, should be shared by all alike." Laying Malthus aside, for the present, we would inquire, with deference, what Mr. Everett's opinion on the subject really is. We confess we are at a loss to discover; for by the above extract, it would seem that he thinks the poor are equally at liberty to marry with the rich. It is admitted on all hands that the rich may marry whenever they choose; therefore, says Mr. E., the poor also may marry, whenever they choose; being as much entitled to do so as the rich. But this conclusion is totally at variance with the assertion, "that it is an immoral act for a man to marry without a reasonable prospect of being able to support a family." And this again is brouillé with the extract from page 100; so that, however much we might be inclined to adopt Mr. Everett's ideas, it is totally out of our power, as long as we cannot discover what they are. In page 101, it is stated, that Mr. Malthus recommends legislative interference on this subject. It is presumed that this is an error. In no part of his essay can we find any thing which, by the most remote inference, can be construed into a recommendation to so gross a violation of all natural right; on the contrary, speaking of the sufferings of the poor from want, he says, The means of redress are in their own hands, and in the hands of no other persons whatever; the society in which they live, and the government which presides over it, are without any direct power in this respect; and however ardently they may desire to relieve them, and whatever attempts they may make to do so, are really and truly unable to execute what

66

* The terms, rich and poor, are relative; the first signifies the ability to support a family, and the second the inability to do so.

Vol. II. No. I.

they benevolently wish, but unjustly promise." Can it be, that after saying, government cannot possibly relieve the poor, he would turn round, and advise the same government to pass laws for their relief?

That department of the work devoted to a discussion of the policy and justice of a public provision for the poor must pass, for the present, unnoticed. We shall discuss the question more at large at a future period, when Mr. Everett's views will be taken into consideration.

One extract more, and we shall close our remarks.

"The wages of labour are its products. Hence if labour becomes more productive, as population increases on a given territory, the natural consequence would be, that the wages of labour must rise in proportion." p. 111.

We have two motives for noticing this paragraph, the first is, to revenge ourselves on Mr. Everett, for his verbal criticism on Malthus's "direct products;" and the second is to point out what to us appears the errors of the proposition generally.

Wages may be defined to be the recompense paid by the employer to the workman'for his labour; and as no man would employ workmen if he did not expect to make a profit by them, it follows that the workmen can never get all the products of their labour, because it is shared by their employer: therefore, it is inaccurate to say, "The wages of labor are its products." This proposition, when stated properly, resolves itself into the following truism: If the labourer received the whole producę of his labour, then, as labour becomes more productive, he would receive more, &c.

We have always thought that the rate of wages is determined by the supply of labour, compared with the demand; and we still think, notwithstanding Mr. Everett's very ingenious and elegant chapter on the subject, that our rule applies exactly to all the cases mentioned. Agreeably to our theory, the degree of productiveness of labour does not affect wages at all; they being regulated by the principle just stated. It is true enough, that if the labourer enjoyed the whole fruits of his labour, every increase of productiveness would directly benefit him either by enabling him to procure the same comforts with less labour, or more comforts with the same labour. But such is not the order of things, for the employer and the landholder must be paid out of this fund. The competition between the labourers tends to reduce the price of wages, and similar competition between the employers, on the other hand, tends to raise it. This rival competition is the only circumstance which determines

the rate of wages. Now let us test this rule by experience. Wages are higher in America than Great Britain. Why? Be cause there are fewer labourers in the former country than in the latter; that is, fewer labourers who work for wages. Men who are at once labourers and capitalists, as is the case with a large class of Americans, do not come within the rule, since there is, on their parts, no competition for wages. That the amount of the product is no criterion of the rate of wages is evident, since, if we suppose a country which contained ten masters and one workman, we well know his wages would be higher, and his products less, than a country where there was but one master and ten workmen. Thus, therefore, we see no good reason to change our original opinion, that the rate of wages depends upon the supply of labour compared with the demand.

We have now candidly stated some of our leading objections to Mr. Everett's new theory. It may possibly be, that our scep-. ticism has arisen from those preconceived notions which we have long entertained. We are fully aware of the power of habit, and are not perhaps enough on our guard to counteract its frequently pernicious influence. We do not think, however, that any thing has fallen from us which was not dictated by a cool dispassionate view of the subject.

The review, which we have already mentioned, of Mr. Everett's work in the North American has exhibited the subject in a rather different light; but the examination of both would have extended this article to an unreasonable length. One single observation, however, we will venture to make. The reviewer says, that the phrase, "tendency of population to increase in a given ratio," does not convey a distinct idea to the mind. We will not venture to say it docs to others, but to us, it really seems to be as clear as any idea can be. In matter, there is a tendency to gravitate at given points, with certain velocities, and in animated nature there is a like tendency to reproduction. The laws may be suspended by intervening obstacles, but still there is in both cases a principle which will operate the moment the counteracting power is removed; and this is exactly what we understand by a tendency to reproduction of the species.

Mr. Everett's "New Ideas on Population," is a model of elegance in style and adroitness in argument. And although we are not fortunate enough to coincide entirely with this gentleman's ideas, in this branch of political science, yet we will cheerfully express our admiration of the benevolent feeling with which he has advanced, and the extreme ingenuity with which he has supported them,

Reminiscences of Charles Butler, Esq. of Lincoln's Inn, with a Letter to a lady on Ancient and Modern Music. From the fourth London edition. New-York. E. Bliss & E. White. 1824. pp. 351.

6

Mr. Butler is well known to the members of the legal profession, in this country and his own, as the continuator of Hargrave's Notes on Coke upon Littleton, the author of Hora Juridicæ Subcecivæ, and editor of Fearne on Remainders. The present volume is, we believe, the first of his miscellaneous works that has been republished on this side of the Atlantic. It is, as he himself terms it, opus senile; the adversaria of a professional man, advanced in life, who, in the course of long and useful labours, has come often in contact with philosophers and politicians; been led by their affinity to the subjects of his study into the many collateral topics connected with the history of law; and occasionally stolen an interval from severer pursuits, to amuse himself with the gayer attractions of classical and imaginative literature.

On all the themes which have occupied his attention, since his earliest years, the Reminiscent, as he rather quaintly styles himself, makes passing remarks in this volume. It contains, also, anecdotes and characters of the eminent statesmen and jurists of his time. The titles and contents of the author's own publications, which are not few in number, are interspersed among these materials. We cannot discover that the author has adopted any particular principle of arrangement, chronological, or resulting from the nature of the different matters on which he touches, in compiling these Reminiscences.' The contents of his port-folio have been poured forth, apparently, without much concern as to the order in which they fell into the press; and the author having, at one period of his life, amused his leisure hours with mathematics, has given us here, among his other lucubrations, a solution, by no means ingenious, of an ordinary algebraical problem.

But, notwithstanding the want of method in the book, and although many of the facts mentioned are far from being new to the general reader, the items possess generally an intrinsic interest; and as a whole, we have found the work highly entertaining. It could indeed hardly fail of being so, containing, as it does, the reflections and opinions formed at different periods in the life of a man of great industry and mental respectability. Such a production would be peculiarly interesting from the pen of any enlightened man, who, having been de

voted to a particular profession, and been a disinterested auditor of the opinions and disputes of his times, should record the history of his own mind, from the first active operations of intellect, and the changes it had undergone in its admiration or dislike of men, their actions and their writings. In youth, we look down with contempt on what had constituted our childish ideal of beauty or excellence. In manhood, we reject as fantastic or unprofitable, that which had excited our youthful enthusiasm; while in age, we frequently return with delight to the simple images which pleased us in our infancy. There is, perhaps, an analogy between these variations of individual perceptions, and the changes which public taste undergoes, in relation to its favourites or successful courtiers. Novelty either pleases or displeases on its first appearance; whether it does or does not, is at least as often determined by the influence of accident or caprice, as by the actual merit of the candidate for fame. Fashion gives currency to these first impressions, and its sanction settles the question for a time; but the next generation often revises its decrees, and prostrates the idols of its worship. By and by comes the antiquarian, laudator temporis acti, and rouses from the sleep of ages forgotten wits and poets. National pride, respect for what is old, a proneness to slight what is new, perhaps a jealousy of cotemporary talents, combine to assist his efforts in effecting a resurrection of buried works. Such has often been the changeful aspect of celebrated names-not only of the secondary but of the primary planets in the intellectual firmament.

Mr. Butler's early education on the continent appears to have given to his mind a bias in favour of French literature. He states the relative pretensions of the English and their neighbours, however, with great fairness, as far as his parallels extend.

"Equally subscribing to the decided superiority which the English assign to Shakspeare and Milton over all the poets of France, the Reminiscent yet feels that other nations do not seem to acquiesce in this opinion. This is usually ascribed to their imperfect knowledge of the English language; but it may be observed, that few, who are not natives of France, have that complete knowledge of the French language, which constitutes the difference between a perfect and an imperfect style. It must be added, that both Mr. Fox and Mr. Gibbon, the former a real, the latter a professed admirer of the Grecian School, are said to have preferred Corneille and Rarine to the two great English bards.

In the second order of French poets,-none can be compared to Dryden. Boileau and Pope may be considered to be equally balanced; the style of the former is singularly perfect: and his poems have nothing of the useless epithet, the pertness, or the ribaldry which too often disfigure the strains of Pope; but in vain should we seek in the pages of Boileau, for the fire, the

« 上一頁繼續 »