Thomas Malthus：An Essay on the Principle of Population, Excerpt 144

The form and structure of society which Mr Godwin describes is as essentially distinct from any forms of society which have hitherto prevailed in the world as a being that can live without food or sleep is from a man. By improving society in its present form, we are making no more advances towards such a state of things as he pictures than we should make approaches towards a line, with regard to which we were walking parallel. The question, therefore, is whether, by looking to such a form of society as our polar star, we are likely to advance or retard the improvement of the human species? Mr Godwin appears to me to have decided this question against himself in his essay on 'Avarice and Profusion' in the Enquirer.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4239
Locator：Excerpt 144 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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