An Essay on the Principle of Population, by Thomas Malthus
- Question stated — Little prospect of a determination of it, from the enmity of the
opposing parties — The principal argument against the perfectibility of man and of society has never been fairly
answered — Nature of the difficulty arising from population — Outline of the principal argument of the Essay
- The different ratio in which population and food increase — The necessary effects
of these different ratios of increase — Oscillation produced by them in the condition of the lower classes of society —
Reasons why this oscillation has not been so much observed as might be expected — Three propositions on which the
general argument of the Essay depends — The different states in which mankind have been known to exist proposed to be
examined with reference to these three propositions.
- The savage or hunter state shortly reviewed — The shepherd state, or the tribes of
barbarians that overran the Roman Empire — The superiority of the power of population to the means of subsistence — the
cause of the great tide of Northern Emigration.
- State of civilized nations — Probability that Europe is much more populous now
than in the time of Julius Caesar — Best criterion of population — Probable error of Hume in one the criterions that he
proposes as assisting in an estimate of population — Slow increase of population at present in most of the states of
Europe — The two principal checks to population — The first, or preventive check examined with regard to England.
- The second, or positive check to population examined, in England — The true cause
why the immense sum collected in England for the poor does not better their condition — The powerful tendency of the
poor laws to defeat their own purpose — Palliative of the distresses of the poor proposed — The absolute impossibility,
from the fixed laws of our nature, that the pressure of want can ever be completely removed from the lower classes of
society — All the checks to population may be resolved into misery or vice.
- New colonies — Reasons for their rapid increase — North American Colonies —
Extraordinary instance of increase in the back settlements — Rapidity with which even old states recover the ravages of
war, pestilence, famine, or the convulsions of nature.
- A probable cause of epidemics — Extracts from Mr Suessmilch’s tables — Periodical
returns of sickly seasons to be expected in certain cases — Proportion of births to burials for short periods in any
country an inadequate criterion of the real average increase of population — Best criterion of a permanent increase of
population — Great frugality of living one of the causes of the famines of China and Indostan — Evil tendency of one of
the clauses in Mr Pitt’s Poor Bill — Only one proper way of encouraging population — Causes of the Happiness of nations
— Famine, the last and most dreadful mode by which nature represses a redundant population — The three propositions
considered as established.
- Mr Wallace — Error of supposing that the difficulty arising from population is at
a great distance — Mr Condorcet’s sketch of the progress of the human mind — Period when the oscillation, mentioned by
Mr Condorcet, ought to be applied to the human race.
- Mr Condorcet’s conjecture concerning the organic perfectibility of man, and the
indefinite prolongation of human life — Fallacy of the argument, which infers an unlimited progress from a partial
improvement, the limit of which cannot be ascertained, illustrated in the breeding of animals, and the cultivation of
plants.
- Mr Godwin’s system of equality — Error of attributing all the vices of mankind
to human institutions — Mr Godwin’s first answer to the difficulty arising from population totally insufficient — Mr
Godwin’s beautiful system of equality supposed to be realized — Its utter destruction simply from the principle of
population in so short a time as thirty years.
- Mr Godwin’s conjecture concerning the future extinction of the passion between
the sexes — Little apparent grounds for such a conjecture — Passion of love not inconsistent either with reason or
virtue.
- Mr Godwin’s conjecture concerning the indefinite prolongation of human life —
Improper inference drawn from the effects of mental stimulants on the human frame, illustrated in various instances —
Conjectures not founded on any indications in the past not to be considered as philosophical conjectures — Mr Godwin’s
and Mr Condorcet’s conjecture respecting the approach of man towards immortality on earth, a curious instance of the
inconsistency of scepticism.
- Error of Mr Godwin is considering man too much in the light of a being merely
rational — In the compound being, man, the passions will always act as disturbing forces in the decisions of the
understanding — Reasonings of Mr Godwin on the subject of coercion — Some truths of a nature not to be communicated
from one man to another.
- Mr Godwin’s five propositions respecting political truth, on which his whole
work hinges, not established — Reasons we have for supposing, from the distress occasioned by the principle of
population, that the vices and moral weakness of man can never be wholly eradicated — Perfectibility, in the sense in
which Mr Godwin uses the term, not applicable to man — Nature of the real perfectibility of man illustrated.
- Models too perfect may sometimes rather impede than promote improvement — Mr
Godwin’s essay on ‘Avarice and Profusion’ — Impossibility of dividing the necessary labour of a society amicably among
all — Invectives against labour may produce present evil, with little or no chance of producing future good — An
accession to the mass of agricultural labour must always be an advantage to the labourer.
- Probable error of Dr Adam Smith in representing every increase of the revenue or
stock of a society as an increase in the funds for the maintenance of labour — Instances where an increase of wealth
can have no tendency to better the condition of the labouring poor — England has increased in riches without a
proportional increase in the funds for the maintenance of labour — The state of the poor in China would not be improved
by an increase of wealth from manufactures.
- Question of the proper definition of the wealth of a state — Reason given by the
French economists for considering all manufacturers as unproductive labourers, not the true reason — The labour of
artificers and manufacturers sufficiently productive to individuals, though not to the state — A remarkable passage in
Dr Price’s two volumes of Observations — Error of Dr Price in attributing the happiness and rapid population of
America, chiefly, to its peculiar state of civilization — No advantage can be expected from shutting our eyes to the
difficulties in the way to the improvement of society.
- The constant pressure of distress on man, from the principle of population,
seems to direct our hopes to the future — State of trial inconsistent with our ideas of the foreknowledge of God — The
world, probably, a mighty process for awakening matter into mind — Theory of the formation of mind — Excitements from
the wants of the body — Excitements from the operation of general laws — Excitements from the difficulties of life
arising from the principle of population.
- The sorrows of life necessary to soften and humanize the heart — The excitement
of social sympathy often produce characters of a higher order than the mere possessors of talents — Moral evil probably
necessary to the production of moral excellence — Excitements from intellectual wants continually kept up by the
infinite variety of nature, and the obscurity that involves metaphysical subjects — The difficulties in revelation to
be accounted for upon this principle — The degree of evidence which the scriptures contain, probably, best suited to
the improvements of the human faculties, and the moral amerlioration of mankind — The idea that mind is created by
excitements seems to account for the existence of natural and moral evil.