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An Essay on the Principle of Population

Thomas Malthus

1798

AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION, AS IT AFFECTS THE FUTURE IMPROVEMENT OF SOCIETY WITH REMARKS ON THE SPECULATIONS OF MR. GODWIN, M. CONDORCET, AND OTHER WRITERS.

LONDON, PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, IN ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD, 1798.

Preface

The following Essay owes its origin to a conversation with a friend, on the subject of Mr Godwin's essay on avarice and profusion, in his Enquirer. The discussion started the general question of the future improvement of society, and the Author at first sat down with an intention of merely stating his thoughts to his friend, upon paper, in a clearer manner than he thought he could do in conversation. But as the subject opened upon him, some ideas occurred, which he did not recollect to have met with before; and as he conceived that every least light, on a topic so generally interesting, might be received with candour, he determined to put his thoughts in a form for publication.

The Essay might, undoubtedly, have been rendered much more complete by a collection of a greater number of facts in elucidation of the general argument. But a long and almost total interruption from very particular business, joined to a desire (perhaps imprudent) of not delaying the publication much beyond the time that he originally proposed, prevented the Author from giving to the subject an undivided attention. He presumes, however, that the facts which he has adduced will be found to form no inconsiderable evidence for the truth of his opinion respecting the future improvement of mankind. As the Author contemplates this opinion at present, little more appears to him to be necessary than a plain statement, in addition to the most cursory view of society, to establish it.

It is an obvious truth, which has been taken notice of by many writers, that population must always be kept down to the level of the means of subsistence; but no writer that the Author recollects has inquired particularly into the means by which this level is effected: and it is a view of these means which forms, to his mind, the strongest obstacle in the way to any very great future improvement of society. He hopes it will appear that, in the discussion of this interesting subject, he is actuated solely by a love of truth, and not by any prejudices against any particular set of men, or of opinions. He professes to have read some of the speculations on the future improvement of society in a temper very different from a wish to find them visionary, but he has not acquired that command over his understanding which would enable him to believe what he wishes, without evidence, or to refuse his assent to what might be unpleasing, when accompanied with evidence.

The view which he has given of human life has a melancholy hue, but he feels conscious that he has drawn these dark tints from a conviction that they are really in the picture, and not from a jaundiced eye or an inherent spleen of disposition. The theory of mind which he has sketched in the two last chapters accounts to his own understanding in a satisfactory manner for the existence of most of the evils of life, but whether it will have the same effect upon others must be left to the judgement of his readers.

Table of contents (by pages)

• 1: An Essay on the Principle of Population by Malthus
• 2: And hitherto unconceived improvement
• 3: Though not with its proper weight
• 4: No progress whatever has hitherto been made
• 5: Increases in a geometrical ratio
• 6: Increased in a geometrical ratio
• 7: Yet this ratio of increase is evidently arithmetical
• 8: Even those that are most vicious
• 9: Perhaps till a year of scarcity
• 10: And its effects kept equal to the means of subsistence
• 11: And all the fairest countries in the world
• 12: Perished by hardship and famine
• 13: The means of subsistence were increased
• 14: I infer with certainty that population was at a stand
• 15: To her tastes and inclinations
• 16: Or positive check to population examined
• 17: To two or three shillings in the pound
• 18: If I retrench the quantity of food consumed in my house
• 19: And every general attempt to weaken this stimulus
• 20: Upon the failure of any great manufactory
• 21: Were I to propose a palliative
• 22: From hard labour and unwholesome habitations
• 23: In the Portuguese colony of Brazil
• 24: The faster population increases
• 25: Such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes
• 26: That the greatest proportion of births to burials
• 27: Are really increasing their population
• 28: Only in the proportion of 111 to 100
• 29: Were there no other depopulating causes
• 30: Without increasing the produce
• 31: Upon its being thinly or fully inhabited
• 32: Population would be increasing much faster
• 33: And their means of subsistence
• 34: Of this Mr Condorcet seems to be fully aware himself
• 35: From wholesome or unwholesome food
• 36: And be properly termed indefinite or unlimited
• 37: Long before it reached the size of a cabbage
• 38: A certain degree of improvement
• 39: The system of equality which Mr Godwin proposes is
• 40: And free to expatiate in the field of thought
• 41: Mr Godwin considers marriage as a fraud and a monopoly
• 42: Makes some faint expiring struggles
• 43: It is a perfectly just observation of Mr Godwin
• 44: Had occasioned some flagrant violations of justice
• 45: And the greater degree of inconvenience or labour
• 46: When it was great in proportion to the number of claimants
• 47: I am utterly at a loss to conjecture
• 48: Whether sensual or intellectual
• 49: But leaving this difficulty to Mr Godwin
• 50: Than by really and truly counteracting it
• 51: Between a philosophical conjecture
• 52: The original improvers of telescopes would probably think
• 53: And probably Mr Godwin and Mr Condorcet among the rest
• 54: Will be wafted into happier situations
• 55: Or potatoes indefinitely large
• 56: Though he reprobates solitary imprisonment
• 57: Of a nature to produce real conviction
• 58: The corollaries respecting political truth
• 59: Whereas the coming up of sixes upon the dice once
• 60: Has burst the calyx of humanity
• 61: Mr Godwin in the preface to his Enquirer
• 62: From the frugal man of Dr Adam Smith
• 63: Of diminishing the produce of land
• 64: Some bountiful provision which
• 65: ' But Mr Godwin says that the miser really locks up nothing
• 66: The labour created by luxuries
• 67: The demand for manufacturing labourers might
• 68: Import and distribute an effectual quantity of provisions
• 69: In preparing cattle for the market
• 70: That processes for abridging labour
• 71: According to the French economists
• 72: It would be still as unproductive as ever
• 73: Are undoubtedly a part of the revenue of the society
• 74: And population of these states
• 75: But the best directed exertions
• 76: And foreknowledge of the Deity
• 77: And awakening his sluggish existence
• 78: Which otherwise would sink into listless inactivity
• 79: The constancy of the laws of nature
• 80: But all cannot be temperate zones
• 81: A soul awakened and vivified by these delightful sympathies
• 82: The infinite variety of the forms and operations of nature
• 83: The constant effort to dispel this darkness
• 84: And worthy of the great Creator
• 85: That is inflicted by the supreme Creator