16 APRIL 1881, Page 23

Pat-son Malthus. By James Bonar, 13.A. (Glasgow : James Maclehose.)—This

brochure of Mr. Bonar is a very unpretentious publication, but it is a very lucid and thoughtful contribution to the literature of " the dismal science." Within the brief compass of fifty-eight pages, the author has succeeded in telling us the saliout facts of the life of Malthus himself, who, though in holy orders, never was a "parson," as Cobbett nicknamed him, and la vividly representing the political and social circumstances in which the first edition of the " Essay on Population " was given to the world, in tracing the various phases through which the essay passed in the six editions of it which were pub- lished in the writer's lifetime, in contrasting his teaching with that of Godwin in his "Political Justice," and in expounding the principles which alone are entitled to bo called " Malthusian." Mr. Boner, with our entire concurrence, writes that " Malthus, instead of agreeing with Nee-Malthusianism, goes very nearly to the opposite extreme. His prophetic soul has put the NomMalthusians in the Malthusiun pillory, whether they like it or not ; and it is for them to decide whether they are entitled to weal: his name, after rejecting

half his teachings There is no doubt that they are the children, not of Robert Malthus, but of Robert Owen." We heartily commend Mr. Boner's essay to our readers.