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MALTHUS, THOMAS ROBERT (1766-1834)
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See also:MALTHUS, See also: In all his private relations he was not only without reproach, but distinguished for the beauty of his See also:character. He See also:bore popular abuse and misrepresentation without the slightest murmur or sourness of See also:temper. The aim of his inquiries was to promote the happiness of mankind, which could be better accomplished by pointing out the real possibilities of progress than by indulging in vague dreams of perfectibility apart from the actual facts which See also:condition human See also:life. Malthus's Essay on Population See also:grew out of some discussions which he had with his father respecting the perfectibility of society. His father shared the theories on that subject of Condorcet and Godwin; and his son combated them on the ground that the realization of a happy society will always be hindered by the miseries consequent on the tendency of population to increase faster than the means of subsistence. His father wasstruck by the See also:weight and originality of his views, asked him to put them in See also:writing, and then recommended the publication of the See also:manuscript. It was in this way the Essay saw the See also:light. Thus it will be seen that both historically and philosophically the See also:doctrine of Malthus was a corrective reaction against the superficial optimism diffused by the school of Rousseau. It was the same optimisin,with its easy methods of regenerating society and its fatal See also:blindness to the real conditions that circumscribe human life, that was responsible for the See also:wild theories of the See also:French Revolution and many of its consequent excesses. The project of a formal and detailed See also:treatise on population was an afterthought of Malthus. The essay in which he had studied a hypothetic future led him to examine the effects of the principle he had put forward on the past and See also:present See also:state of society; and he undertook an See also:historical examination of these effects, and sought to draw such inferences in relation to the actual state of things as experience seemed to See also:warrant. In its See also:original See also:form he had spoken of no checks to population but those which came under the See also:head either of See also:vice or of misery. In the 1803 edition he introduced the new See also:element of the preventive check supplied by what he calls " moral See also:restraint," and is thus enabled to " soften some of the harshest conclusions " at which he had before arrived. The treatise passed through six See also:editions in his lifetime, and in all of them he introduced various additions and corrections. That of 1816 is the last he revised, and supplies the final See also:text from which it has since been reprinted.
Notwithstanding the great development which he gave to his work and the almost unprecedented amount of discussion to which it gave rise, it remains a See also:matter of some difficulty to discover what solid contribution he has made to our knowledge, nor is it easy to ascertain precisely what See also:practical precepts, not already See also:familiar, he founded on his theoretic principles. This twofold vagueness is well brought out in his celebrated See also:correspondence with See also:Nassau See also:Senior, in the course of which it seems to be made apparent that his doctrine is new not so much in its essence as in the phraseology in which it is couched. He himself tells us that when, after the publication of the original essay, the See also:main See also:argument of which he had deduced from See also:David See also:Hume, Robert See also:Wallace, See also:Adam See also: In fact, the way in which abundance, increase of See also:numbers, want, increase of deaths, succeed each other in the natural economy, when See also:reason does not intervene, had been fully explained by See also:Joseph Townsend in his Dissertation on the Poor See also:Laws (1786) which was known to Malthus. Again, it is surely See also:plain enough that the See also:apprehension by individuals of the evils of poverty, or a sense of See also:duty to their possible offspring, may retard the increase of population, and has in all civilized communities operated to a certain extent in that way. It is only when such obvious truths are clothed in the technical terminology of " See also:positive" and " preventive checks " that they appear novel and profound; and yet they appear to contain the whole See also:message of Malthus to mankind. The laborious apparatus of historical and statistical facts respecting the several countries of the globe, adduced in the altered form of the essay, though it contains a good deal that is curious and interesting, establishes no See also:general result which was not previously well known. It would seem, then, that what has been ambitiously called Malthus's theory of population, instead of being a great See also:discovery as some have represented it, or a poisonous novelty, as others have considered it, is no more than a formal enunciation of obvious, though sometimes neglected, facts. The pretentious See also:language often applied to it by economists is objectionable, as being See also:apt to make us forget that the whole subject with which it deals is as yet very imperfectly understood—the causes which modify the force of the sexual See also:instinct, and those which See also:lead to See also:variations in fecundity, still awaiting a See also:complete investigation. It is the law of diminishing returns from See also:land, involving as it does—though only hypothetically—the prospect of a continuously increasing difficulty in obtaining the necessary sustenance for all the members of a society, that gives the See also:principal importance to population as an economic See also:factor. It is, in fact, the confluence of the Malthusian ideas with the theories of See also:Ricardo, especially with the corollaries which the latter deduced from the doctrine of See also:rent (though these were not accepted by Malthus), that has led to the introduction of population as an element in the discussion of so many economic questions in modern times. Malthus had undoubtedly the great merit of having called public attention in a striking and impressive way to a subject which had neither theoretically nor practically been sufficiently considered. But he and his followers appear to have greatly exaggerated both the magnitude and the urgency of the dangers to which they pointed.l In their conceptions a single social imperfection assumed such portentous dimensions that it seemed to overcloud the whole See also:heaven and threaten the See also:world with ruin. This doubtless arose from his having at first omitted altogether from his view of the question the great counteracting agency of moral restraint. Because a force exists, capable, if unchecked, of producing certain results, it does not follow that those results are imminent or even possible in the See also:sphere of experience. A See also:body thrown from the See also:hand would, under the single impulse of See also:projection, move for ever in a straight See also:line; but it would not be reasonable to take See also:special See also:action for the prevention of this result, ignoring the fact that it will be sufficiently counteracted by the other forces which will come into See also:play. And such other .forces exist in the See also:case we are considering. If the inherent See also:energy of -the principle of population (supposed every-where the same) is measured by the See also:rate at which numbers in-crease under the most favourable circumstances, surely the force of less favourable circumstances, acting through prudential or altruistic motives, is measured by the great difference between this maximum rate and those which are observed to prevail in most See also:European countries. Under a rational See also:system of institutions, the See also:adaptation of numbers to the means available for their support is effected by the See also:felt or anticipated pressure of circumstances and the fear of social degradation, within a tolerable degree of approximation to what is desirable. To bring the result nearer to the just See also:standard, a higher measure of popular 1 Malthus himself said, " It is probable that, having found the See also:bow See also:bent too much one way, I was induced to See also:bend it too much the other in See also:order to make it straight."enlightenment and more serious habits of moral reflection ought indeed to be encouraged. But it is the duty of the individual to his possible offspring, and not any vague notions as to the pressure of the See also:national population on subsistence, that will be adequate to See also:influence conduct. It can scarcely be doubted that the favour which was at once accorded to the views of Malthus in certain circles was due in See also:part to an impression, very welcome to the higher ranks of society, that they tended to relieve the See also:rich and powerful of responsibility for the condition of the working classes, by showing that the latter had chiefly themselves to blame, and not either the See also:negligence of their superiors or the institutions of the See also:country. The application of his doctrines, too, made by some of his successors had the effect of discouraging all active effort for social improvement. Thus See also:Chalmers " reviews seriatim and gravely sets aside all the schemes usually proposed for the amelioration of the economic condition of the See also:people " on the ground that an increase of comfort will lead to an increase of numbers, and so the last state of things will be worse than the first. Malthus has in more modern times derived a certain degree of reflected lustre from the rise and wide See also:acceptance of the Darwinian See also:hypothesis. Its author himself, in tracing its filiation, points to the phrase " struggle for existence " used by Malthus in relation to the social competition. See also:Darwin believed that man advanced to his present high condition through such a struggle, consequent on his rapid multiplication. He regarded, it is true, the agency of this cause for the improvement of the See also:race as largely superseded by moral influences in the more advanced social stages. Yet he considered it, even in these stages, of so much importance towards that end that, notwithstanding the individual suffering arising from the struggle for life, he deprecated any great reduction in the natural, by which he seems to mean the See also:ordinary, rate of increase. Besides his great work, Malthus wrote Observations on the Effect of the See also:Corn Laws; An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent; Principles of Political Economy; and See also:Definitions in Political Economy. His views on rent were of real importance. For his life see Memoir by his friend Dr See also:Otter, See also:bishop of See also:Chichester (prefixed to and ed., 1836, of the Principles of Political Economy), and Malthus and his Work, by J. See also:Bonar (See also:London, 1885). Practically every treatise on See also:economics deals with Malthus and his essay, but the following special See also:works may be referred to: Soetbeer, See also:Die Stellung der Sozialisten zur Malthusschen Bevolkerungslehre (See also:Berlin, 1886); G. de Molinari, Malthus, essai sur le Principe de population See also:Paris, 1889); See also:Cossa, Il Principio di popolazione di T. R. Malthus See also:Milan, 1895) ; and Ricardo, Letters to Malthus, ed. J. Bonar (1887). 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