18: Distress as Diving Will
When one considers the constant pressure on man that arises from the difficulty of subsistence, it becomes evident that the present situation is highly imperfect, and that there is little expectation that this can be remedied in the near term, though hope seems to rest upon a distant future.
Social institutions, chiefly religion, capitalize upon this distress: earthly life is frequently portrayed as a trial that must be undergone to gain a superior state of happiness in the hereafter. In effect, this fascination with the supernatural leads us to question why some things are not otherwise instead of endeavoring to account for them such as they actually are, which leads to "the grossest and most childish absurdities."
Seeking to understand the intent of the divine by contemplating the abstract and invented notion of divinity, the "extravagant dreams of fancy," seems less suited to the purpose than considering nature, such as it is. The intent of the creator can be understood by contemplating creation itself, such as it is, rather than the way in which it was imagined to have been intended to be. If we accept the notion that the Great Creator is all-powerful and all-knowing, we cannot conclude but that the world, such as it is, is exactly as he intended it to be.
With that in mind, Malthus rejects the notion of the present life as an ordeal, a waiting room for the afterlife - though the does seem to consider it as a kind of ordeal that leads to "the creation and formation" of mind and spirit, a test of our ability to make sense of the "chaotic matter in which [man] may be said to be born." This considered, the phenomena that surround us and the various events of human life seem calculated to promote the development of mind and spirit.
The wants of the body are "the first great awakeners of the mind." If it were not for the cravings of hunger and the discomfort of cold, man would be contented to remain in slumber. We are instead compelled to seek food, to build a shelter, and to undertake a myriad of activities to dismiss the complaints and achieve the desires of the body. While this seems entirely pedestrian and beneath the dignity of intellectuals to consider, many of the noblest exertions of the human mind have been set in motion buy the necessity of addressing the needs of the body.
Malthus agrees with John Locke, in his opinion that the desire to avoid pain is stronger than the desire to obtain pleasure: man often contemplates the notion of what would be pleasant without undertaking any action in order to obtain it; whereas distress and pain tend to invigorate us with great energy and initiative. This can also be seen in the sharper desire to escape evil rather than to achieve good.
The necessity of food to support life seems to be the greatest incentive for exertion than any other want, physical or mental. And the supreme being has designed the earth not to provide food easily, but to require much labor and ingenuity to produce it. Returning to an earlier point, less progress is made toward the goal of escaping hunger by contemplating the lofty and divine intentions of the creator than is made by contemplating the solid and the seed; and it is by plowing, planting, and various other tasks rather than contemplation and prayer by which food is at last produced.
Along these lines, Malthus reasons that "it has been ordained" that population should increase much faster than food by design, that we should face ever increasing challenges in meeting this basic need, and that developed societies experience significant setbacks. The divine purpose in all of this is to constantly spur mankind to action rather than enabling him to solve this paradox easily.
The difficulty of life, the constant pressure of distress upon man, causes man to progress: to develop ideas and learn talents to overcome difficulties, not merely once, but constantly through the span of his life. And given that this seems to be the very nature of things, it seems reasonable to conclude that it is by divine providence that the situation of man on earth should ever be thus.