Malthus: Essay on Population

may be stated to consist in all those customs, and all those diseases, which seem to be generated by a scarcity of the means of subsistence; and all those causes, independent of this scarcity, which tend prematurely to weaken and destroy the human frame."

"The immediate check

to population are extremely various, and include every cause, whether arising from vice or misery, which in any degree contributes to shorten the natural duration of human life. Under this head, therefore, may be enumerated all unwholesome occupations, severe labor and exposure to the seasons, extreme poverty, bad nursing of children, great towns, excesses of all kinds, the whole train of common diseases and epidemics, wars, plague, and famine."

"The positive checks

as far as it is voluntary, is peculiar to man, and arises from that distinctive superiority in his reasoning faculties which enables him to calculate distant consequences. Man cannot look around him and see the distress which frequently presses upon those who have large families; he cannot contemplate his present possessions or earnings which he now nearly consumes himself, and calculate the amount of each share, when with a little addition they must be divided, perhaps, among seven or eight, without feeling a doubt whether, if he follow the bent of his inclinations, he may be able to support the offspring which he will probably bring into the world...The conditions are calculated to prevent, and certainly do prevent, a great number of persons in all civilized nations from pursuing the dictate of nature in an early attachment to one woman."

"The preventive check,

the preventive and the positive checks

"These checks to population, which are constantly operating with more or less force in every society, and keep down the number to the level of the means of subsistence, may be classed under two general heads--

a want of food, arising necessarily from the different ratios according to which population and food increase. But this ultimate check is never the immediate check, except in cases of actual famine."

According to Thomas Robert Malthus, "the ultimate check to population appears then to be

other thinkers advanced the science of political economy, among them Thomas Robert Malthus

After Adam Smith,

believed in sexual abstinence as the means of limiting population growth

As a clergyman, Thomas Robert Malthus

"...the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man."

For Malthus, how did the power of population growth compare with that of the means to increase food?

"First, That food is necessary to the existence of man. Secondly, That the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in its present state

The difficulties that stand in the way of perfecting society are:

two books to the science of political economy. The first, An Essay on the Principle of Population, as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, was published in 1798. It was followed in 1803 by An Essay on the Principle of Population, or, a View of Its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness, which discussed the checks on population.

Thomas Malthus contributed

the balance between population and its life-sustaining resources was elementally maintained by famine, war, and other fatal calamities.

Thomas Robert Malthus argued

that population tended forever to outgrow the resources needed to sustain it

Thomas Robert Malthus assumed

"that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man".

Thomas Robert Malthus claimed

"bears a nearer resemblance to the science of morals and politics than to that of mathematics"

Thomas Robert Malthus felt that the science of political economy

not only a moral but also a pessimistic twist, which contrasted with the optimistic outlook of Adam Smith and other Enlightenment thinkers

Thomas Robert Malthus gave the study of political economy

to better the condition of the poor, whom he considered the most licentious part of the population, because he believed that they would then breed faster and, by upsetting the population/resource balance, bring misery to all

Thomas Robert Malthus saw little need

Malthusianism

Thomas Robert Malthus' principal conclusions became collectively known as

that poverty was an iron law of nature buttressed supporters of strict laissez-faire who opposed government action to aid the poor

Thomas Robert Malthus' view

a clergyman in the Church of England and a professor of history and political economy at a small college run by the East India Company

Thomas Robert Malthus:

"First, That food is necessary to the existence of man. Secondly, That the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in its present state."

What are the "fixed laws" of human nature according to Thomas Malthus?

Preventive checks prevent the birth of human life, while positive checks "shorten the natural duration of human life."

What distinction did Malthus draw between preventive and positive checks to population growth?

Thomas Robert Malthus believed that it was impossible to perfect society and "the mass of mankind." Specifically, he assumed that population tended forever to outgrow the resources needed to sustain it, argued that the balance between population and its life-sustaining resources was elementally maintained by famine, war, and other fatal calamities, saw little need to better the condition of the poor, and believed that poverty was an iron law of nature.

Why is Malthus considered to have been a pessimist?

promiscuous and unprincipled in sexual matters

licentious: