Suppressed work! On the possibility of limiting populousness : to which is added, the theory of painless extinction / by Marcus.

  • Marcus, active 19th century
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Suppressed work! On the possibility of limiting populousness : to which is added, the theory of painless extinction / by Marcus. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    be an absence of—as nearly as possible a pureness lrorfi—any quality, whose existence might controvert the action we expect from those we have named our main springs. It would not destroy that action, but, adding its own, it would compose a new one, hostile in effect to us. Thus in the physical world a body moves] through space. Collided by another moving body, the two motions may simply destroy each other ; a reason enough for our argument; but there may be more. The two may meet, not diametrically, but inclinedly : and, united, form a motion in a new direction. g Or the nature of the bodies may be such,, that by a rebound the motion intended for our use, may be turned hack upon its source, and destroy those who] created it. So, that un¬ easy discontent, which pants but to be unloosed and to act—we must calculate well before-hand, in which direction it will act; what other springs may come to compose the moving force, and to give it inclina¬ tion, The not-well-off may be animated by the spirit , Of amendment; 'Of amendment and vengeance at once ; ] Of vengeance only. From the latter of the three, it may seem, we can hope no good. Sometimes to that stage of temper we come in the decline of life, when we begin to lose the likelihood of sharing in the prosperity we may procure for others; of seeing with our own eyes the promised land. In years past our spirit was not that of vengeance simple. If then we can contrive to obtain that sufficiency of vengeance, called Reparation; an homage imaginary, yet not unreal (for what enjoyment is not ima¬ ginary?) we shall be replaced where we formerly were : in that place whence we looked forward to happiness for ourselves and for others, the prolongation of ourselves. Then, I say we shall return to the spirit of Amendment. But those who hate now, and hated always with the brief interval of moments in which they were being tickled: those whose appetites were so angrily sensitive,hhat the sight of others' enjoyment caused in them, not a sensation gentle and therefore pleasing, but violent, and therefore painful—those, if they be well-off, will be hostile to us : if they be not well-off, still will they be hostile to us. They are the persons, who not only will refuse to amend the future, but just the reverse—would take vengeance on the future, as a sub¬ stitution for the vengeance they would have taken on the past, but which they can no longer take or think of taking; since the genera¬ tion responsible to them is now gone by. Equally of our vengeance too may it be said, that we would take it on the future as a substi- tion for that, to have been taken on the past. But this our vengeance has not yet lost its original nature : we have still the lingering in¬ clination to aim it, as we used to do, against those who opposed our design of universalizing enjoyment. No doubt it is to be dreaded so long as vengeance it be : it is still to be regarded as an element which may be disastrous and widely noxious;—like fire, or like those poison-drugs, which are to be used only with tenfold discretion, and still are most dangerous. But after all this due pause, who will not admit the distinction between this vengeance benign—and that other truly virulent, which would stifle all enjoyment except the one, the very pleasure of stifling. This latter alone is the spirit, which, disimprisoned, and com¬ bined with that of discontent, would retrovert that motive force. Not those are to be feared, simple people, who, under the pressure of poverty sigh for relief in any way : who, tempted much, are but little seduced, are reconducted easily, and appeased with a little; but those, in heart like the famous Robespierre, who, intend subversion but as a scheme for destroying those who enjoy, and not at all as one for expanding enjoyment, or for restoringjand comforting the faint and the miserable.