The Shadow of Great Britain-Chapter 624 - 310: The Academic Circle is Also a Circle

Thomas Robert Malthus, this name was not unfamiliar in 19th-century Britain, and even less so to modern people of the 21st century.

However, interestingly, whether in the 21st century or the 19th century, whenever this name appears, it always seems to be accompanied by a great deal of debate and controversy.

Nevertheless, even those who disliked Malthus could not deny his pivotal status in the British economic academic community.

As a priest, Malthus had a family background that corresponded to his social status.

Back in the Cromwell era, the Malthus family had already begun to pursue the profession of the clergy.

The Malthus family’s initial contact with economics started with the South Sea Company affair, which caused a seismic event in the London Stock Exchange; Mr. Thomas Malthus’s grandfather, Sydney Malthus, was one of the members of the South Sea Company’s board of directors.

Since the grandfather could even outwit a figure like Isaac Newton in the stock market, the intelligence of the Malthus family descendants naturally wouldn’t lag far behind.

The wealth accumulated in the stock market also enabled them to invest more in the education of future generations and to expand their social circles.

David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, representative figures from Britain and France during the Enlightenment movement of the 18th century, maintained a longstanding friendship with the Malthus family.

When Rousseau was on his deathbed, he even entrusted his will to Daniel Malthus of the Malthus family, hoping he would help execute his final wishes.

The Malthus family’s long-term interactions with representative figures of the Enlightenment further influenced their views on education and faith.

Although, according to family tradition, young Malthus was still sent to study at Christ’s College at Cambridge University, he evidently had a different understanding of God compared to the typical Anglican Church priest.

He was still a Christian, but his thoughts increasingly leaned toward Unitarianism within Christianity; he rejected the Trinity, denying that God was composed of three persons (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit).

In young Malthus’s view, God is God, and only the "Bible" is the sole basis for faith. Those who want to patch up the "Bible" or engage in interpretative explanations are harboring ill-intentions and seeking self-profit; these impure thoughts are the main reason for the decline of the church.

If it had been a few centuries earlier, even during the Reformation, Malthus might have been persecuted by both Catholicism and Protestantism based on his aforementioned views.

Since Catholicism had recognized ’unitarianism’ as heresy at the Council of Nicaea already in the 4th century A.D., and key figures of the Reformation such as Martin Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli also opposed such views.

Therefore, during that time, cases of arrest, imprisonment, and execution for supporting ’unitarianism’ were not uncommon.

Fortunately, in the 18th century when young Malthus grew up, even though Britain had not yet achieved religious freedom on the political level, society had at least reached this point.

Moreover, in the view of Parliament members, organized Catholics were the real concern. While branches of Protestantism like Unitarianism and the Scottish Elders said disagreeable things, at least they were willing to swear allegiance to the King. As long as they were not problematic in this aspect, everything else was a minor issue.

Additionally, the Malthus family was a true English family that had adhered to the principle of ’loyalty to Parliament’ since the Cromwell era, so Cambridge University turned a blind eye to his heresy.

After all, during the Renaissance, there were quite a few people like young Malthus in the campuses of Cambridge.

Even Oxford produced a Jeremy Bentham; Cambridge having a Malthus was not a significant problem.

After all, compared to Malthus, Cambridge’s alumni like Lord Byron and Shelley, who was expelled from Oxford for publishing "On the Necessity of Atheism," were real heavyweights.

At least Malthus still acknowledged the existence of God, didn’t he?

That’s about it.

But just because the Cambridge University board didn’t have an issue with Malthus, it didn’t mean his classmates didn’t. Even if their objections weren’t faith-based, they were personal and borne out of private grudges.

In a nutshell, although Malthus was generally a gentle, humble, and calm British gentleman, perhaps it was his character and somewhat extreme views that led him to not get along very well with a particular outgoing and frank Cambridge junior.

What’s worse is that this junior was none other than the future representative of the British Lake Poets and social critic — Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

And the discord between the two had continued from their university days to the present.

When Malthus’s "An Essay on the Principle of Population" was published, Coleridge immediately initiated an assault from his stronghold — Blackwood’s.

"Look at this mighty kingdom! Its rulers and wise men are heeding the words of William Paley and Thomas Malthus! How pitiful. Is this quarto telling us that poverty brings great miseries and sins? That to the places with more mouths than bread, more heads than intellect, poverty is bound to peak?"

Coleridge’s attack on "the Principle of Population" was not an isolated case; to put it accurately, in Britain’s literary circles, not to criticize Malthus had become the minority.