Volume 1

An essay on the principle of population, or, A view of its past and present effects on human happiness : with an inquiry into our prospects respecting the future removal or mitigation of the evils which it occasions / by T.R. Malthus.

  • Thomas Robert Malthus
Date:
1807
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the principle of population, or, A view of its past and present effects on human happiness : with an inquiry into our prospects respecting the future removal or mitigation of the evils which it occasions / by T.R. Malthus. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    Tf n I 'J £T «f <£ in this point of view, the more importance it feemed to acquire; and this confideration, join- ed to the degree of public attention which the EfTay excited, determined me to turn my leifure reading towards an hiftorical examination of the effects of the principle of population on the pall: and prefent {late of fociety ; that, by illuftrating the fubjecl: more generally, and drawing thofe inferences from it, in application to the actual ftate of things, which experience feemed to warrant, I might give it a more practical and permanent interelt. In the courfe of this inquiry, I found, that much more had been done than I had been aware of, when I firft publifhed the Effay. The poverty and mifery arifing from a too rapid in- creafe of population, had been diftinctly feen, and the moll: violent remedies propofed, fo long ago as the times of Plato and Ariltotle. And of late years, the fubjecl: has been treated in fuch a manner by fome of the French Economics, occafionally by Montefquieu, and, among our own writers, by Dr. Franklin, Sir James Steuart, Mr. Arthur Young, and Mr. Townfend, as to create a natural furprife, that it had not excited more of the public attention. Much,
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