THE NEW REPUBLIC
The first chapter in the history of this intellectual development, its definite and formal opening, coincides with the opening of the nineteenth century and the publication of Malthus's "Essay on Population." Malthus is one of those cardinal figures in intellectual history who state definitely for all time, things apparent enough after their formulation, but never effectively conceded before. He brought clearly and emphatically into the sphere of discussion a vitally important issue that had always been shirked and tabooed heretofore, the fundamental fact that the main mass of the business of human life centres about reproduction. He stated in clear, hard, decent, and unavoidable argument what presently Schopenhauer was to discover and proclaim in language at times, it would seem, quite unfitted for translation into English. And having made his statement, Malthus left it in contact with its immediate results.
Probably no more shattering book than the "Essay on Population" has ever been, or ever will be, written. It was aimed at the facile Liberalism of the Deists and Atheists of the eighteenth century; it made as clear as daylight that all forms of social reconstruction, all dreams of earthly golden ages must be either futile or insincere or both, until the problems of human increase were manfully faced. It proffered no suggestions for facing them (in spite of the subsequent association of Malthus's name with birth control), it aimed simply to wither the Rationalistic Utopias of the time and by anticipation, all the Communisms and Earthly Paradise movements that have since been so abundantly audible in the world.
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