First essay on population, 1798 / Thomas Robert Malthus, with notes by James Bonar; reprinted for the Royal Economic Society.

  • Malthus, T. R. (Thomas Robert), 1766-1834.
Date:
1926
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First essay on population, 1798 / Thomas Robert Malthus, with notes by James Bonar; reprinted for the Royal Economic Society. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of, when I first published the essay. The poverty and misery arising from a too rapid increase of population, had been distinctly seen, and the most violent remedies proposed, so long ago as the times of Plato and Aristotle. And of late years, the subject had been treated in such a manner, by some of the French Economists, occasionally by Montesquieu, and, among our own writers, by Dr. Franklin, Sir James Steuart, Mr. Arthur Young, and Mr. Townsend, as to create a natural surprise, that it had not excited more of the publick attention. ‘ Much, however, remained yet to be done. Independently of the comparison between the increase of population and food, which had not perhaps been stated with sufficient force and pre¬ cision ; some of the most curious and interesting parts of the subject had been either wholly omitted or treated very slightly. Though it had been stated distinctly, that population must always be kept down to the level of the means of subsistence ; yet few inquiries had been made into the various modes by which this level is effected ; and the principle had never been sufficiently pursued to its consequences, and those practical inferences drawn from it, which a strict examination of its effects on society appears to suggest. ‘ These are therefore the points which I have treated most in detail in the following essay. In its present shape, it may be considered as a new work, and I should probably have published it as such, omitting the few parts of the former which