Heart of the Matter

"Want was the goad that drove the Scythian shepherds from their native haunts" (p28, Ch III).

"Some of the noblest exertions of the human mind have been set in motion by the necessity of satisfying the wants of the body" (114, Ch XVIII).

"When the mind has been awakened into activity by the passions and the wants of the body, intellectual wants arise; and the desire of knowledge and the impatience under ignorance form a new and important class of excitements" (119, Ch XVIII).

For the first 17 chapters (excluding ones we did not read), Malthus paints a desperately grim picture of the human condition - especially for the less fortunate classes - in terms of health and living necessities/conveniencies (two "universally acknowledged ingredients" of human happiness (p99, Ch XVI)), the necessities including food and "passion between the sexes" (19, I). He hammers home the gravity of humanity's dilemma, ending Ch 17 with the powerful line, "We shall not only exhaust our strength in fruitless exertions and remain at as great a distance as ever from the summit of our wishes, but we shall be perpetually crushed by the recoil of this rock of Sisyphus" (111, XVII).

However, Malthus does not end the book there. He adds two chapters to develop his theory that the earth is a state of trial by which our minds are developed to their highest ends. He describes how bodily wants develop from stimuli and spur development of the mind and its wants, which in turn develop from the infinite variety of earthly stimuli. He gradually shows how Metaphysics also "add to that class of excitements which arise from the thirst of knowledge" (120, XIX). He even approves of theology (a shocking feat in seminar four!), as long as it does not eliminate the Mystery or instantly satisfy all of the desire to know. He goes on to remark that it would seem "consonant to our reason" that minds highly developed by the trials of this world would be given immortality in the next; but even without heaven, "Life is [in light of the bigger worldview presented in the last two chapters] a blessing independent of a future state" (123, XIX).

What I find most impressive is that Malthus did not stay wallowing in the dismal picture that he portrayed as strict fact. He was impelled to move beyond the limited view of the principles of population (which are, doubtless, important!) to find something else with which he could be happy. This movement took him through physics, metaphysics, and theology to an afterlife or at least a better view of life here ("symmetry, grace, and fair proportion of the whole" (120, XIX)). What was it that impelled him to go beyond the abysmal principles of population? What was it about his heart that made him able to say "Hope springs eternal in the human breast" (124, XIX)? What did his own wants promise him, and why was this promise credible enough for him?