I was reading Malthus just the other night, and was surprised at just how optimistic he was, metaphysically speaking.
For instance, this:
The idea that the excitements and impressions of this world are the instruments with which the Supreme Being forms matter into mind, and that the necessity of constant exertion to avoid evil and to pursue good is the principle spring of these impressions and excitements, seems to smooth many of the difficulties that occur in a contemplation of human life, and appears to me to give a satisfactory reason for the existence of natural and moral evil, and, consequently, for that part of both, and it certainly is not a very small part, which arises from the principle of population. But, though, upon this supposition, it seems highly improbable that evil should ever be removed from the world; yet it is evident that this impression would not answer the apparent purpose of the Creator; it would not act so powerfully as an excitement to exertion, if the quantity of it did not diminish or increase with the activity or indolence of man. The continual variations in the weight and in the distribution of this pressure keep alive a constant expectation of throwing it off.
“Hope springs eternal in the Human breast, Man never is, but always to be blest.”
Evil exists in the world not to create despair but activity.
Taken from Malthus, quoted in “The Price if Everything” Michael Lewis
