Mankind is prone to many errors. When, for instance, one mistake has been discovered and the error removed, many men fancy they have rid themselves of all wrong notions. Those people who, because they have abandoned certain religious superstitions are fond of calling themselves Freethinkers, often imagine they have banished superstition from their minds altogether. Vain delusion. The bulk of the so called Freethinkers, including their leading propagandists (such as C. Bradlaugh, G. W. Foote, and J. M. Robertson) still accept and repeat the wholly unsupported assertion of the parson Malthus, that the cause of poverty is over-population. In spite of the example of Ireland, which, under their very eyes, has had its population steadily decreasing during the last 50 years, yet the misery of its working-class continuing, they reiterate the same old superstition like the parsons they so often condemn.
From the Socialist Standard, February, 1910.
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