Volume 2

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.

  • Malthus, T. R. (Thomas Robert), 1766-1834.
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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    congenial to her. Each would aflfift the in- qulries of all.,* This would indeed be a happy ftate. But that it is merely an imaginary picture with fcarcely a feature near the truth, the reader, I am afraid, is already too well convinced. Man cannot live in the midft of plenty. All cannot fhare alike the bounties of nature. Were there no eftablifhed adminiftration of property, every man would be obliged to guard with force his little {tore. Selfifhnefs would be triumph- ant. The fubjects of contention would be per- petual. Every individual would be under a conftant anxiety about corporal fupport, and not a fingle intellect would be left free to'expatiate in the field of thought. How little Mr. Godwin has turned his atten- tion to the real ftate of human fociety will fuf- ficiently appear, from the manner in which he endeavours to remove the difficulty of an over- charged population. He fays, The obvious anfwer to this objection is, that to reafon thus is to forefee difficulties at a great dif- (< tance. Three fourths of the habitable globe f are now uncultivated. The parts already culti- a Political Juftice, b. viii, c. iii, p. 458. vated