----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Surely the most influential use of the p-d before it was named was that which Malthus sprang on Godwin. Here is a nice statement of the issue from Godwin's 1801 response to Malthus and other critics: "It is true, the ill consequence of a numerous family will not come so coarsely home to each man's individual interest, as they do at present. It is true, a man in such a state of society might say, if my children cannot subsist at my expense, let them subsist at the expense of my neighbour." (1801, pp. 61-62) Of course Godwin resisted the implication arguing for moral development. The nicest statement of the issue that I know comes in W. F. Lloyd 1837 Whately lecture: "Now, the objection, drawn from the theory of population, against such systems of equality, is this. Marriage is a present good. The difficulties attending the maintenance of a family are future. But in a community of goods, where the children are maintained at public tables, or where each family takes according to its necessaries out of the common stock, these difficulties are removed from the individual. They spread themselves, and overflow the whole surface of society, and press equally on every part." (1837, p. 21) David Levy ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]