Table Of ContentFIRST ESSAY ON POPULATION
First Essay on
POPULATION
8
179
THOMAS ROBERT MALTHUS
Palgrave Macmillan
1966
ISBN 978-1-349-81731-3 ISBN 978-1-349-81729-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-81729-0
First publishtd I798
This tdition first publishtd I926
Rtissutd I966
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1926 978-0-333-05316-4
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FOREWORD (1966)
I T IS weB known by aB who are interested in Malthus that his
great Essay on Population went through two stages. He first
published in 1798 what is best described as a theoretical essay.
In it he set out to ask whether the optimistic speculations of
Godwin and others on the "perfectibility of man and society"
were likely to be frustrated by the increased demands for food
that might result from the growth of population. Malthus
argued that any nation either had institutions and customs
that were able to save it from the pressures of population, or
would find itself forced into declining standards of li fe and a
balance between food and population achieved by pestilence,
war and misery.
Malthus, the shy young Fellow of Jesus College, Cam
bridge, with the hare-lip, the impediment of speech and the
diffident manner, living quietly in his father's horne and ser
ving as cu rate of a small chapel near Dorking, thought inevit
ably in terms of all the factors that postponed marriage and led
to small families, rather than of the methods of limiting popu
lation that would occur to areader to-day or of the changes of
the attitudes of nations and churches which are relevant to
our own times. His purpose was to stress the advantages of
preserving or strengthening these institutions of his own time.
The Essay of 1798 provoked widespread argument and
brought Malthus a notoriety for which he was ill-prepared.
His own response was to wish to push his studies further and
to inquire whether the validity of his theories could be tested
and proved by actual evidence. Tothat task he devoted the
next four years of work. A second, and very much enlarged,
edition of the Essay appeared in 1803. In that, with great
skill, he mustered an immense body of supporting evidence.
It is natural that this second edition, representing Malthus'
more complete thinking, should have been printed and
FOREWORD (1966)
reprinted throughout the subsequent century and a half. But
the first, and shorter, Essay has a vigour of thought and a
c1arity and sharpncss of argument that is somewhat lost in the
larger work. Thus anyolle interested in Malthus, or con
cerned with the issues rather than the full supporting evidence,
will enjoy reading it and feeling the freshness of the attack of
the young Malthus' first thinking.
For many years the first edition of the Essay was hard to
come by. In 1925, Professor James Bonar, Malthus' admirer,
interpreter and biographer, persuaded the Royal Economic
Society to re-print it. With the aid of the Oxford U niversity
Press as printers and Macmillans as publishers this very hand
so me facsimile volume was put on the market in the next
year. It went out of print during the war and had itself become
something of a rarity.
The Royal Economic Society is very grateful to Messrs.
Macmillan for making it available once again to a new gener
ation of readers. It is most appropriate that this should happen
in the year 1966. For this year is the bi-centenary of the birth
of Malthus, on February 13th, 1766. It is also in the middle
of the Development Decade-a time when we again are
striving, with all the new instruments of the modern world,
to promote growth and achieve "the perfectibility of man and
society". And once again we are asking ourselves wh ether the
world will be held back from the progress that we believe it
might otherwise achieve by the forces of population. And we
are asking whether we, in our own generation, can create the
institutions and customs that will restrain population and per
mit progress. If Malthus wrote a tract for the times in 1798, it
still remains a tract for the times in 1966.
AUSTIN ROBINSON
Seeretary, Royal Eeonomie Soeiety
AN
ESSAY
ON THE
PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION,
AS IT APPEeTS
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.
T
following Essay owes its ongm
HE
to a conversation with a friend, on the
subject of Mr. Godwin's Essay, on ava
rice 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
mann er than he thought he could do, in
conversation. Hut as the subject opened
upon hirn, some ideas occurred, which
he did not recollect to have met with
before; and as he conceived, that every,
the least light, on a topic so generall y
interesting, might be received with can
dour, he determined to put his thoughts
in a form for publication.
The
A*
PREFACE.
11
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 interrup
tion, from very particular business, joined
to adesire (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 im
provement of mankind. As the Author
contemplates this opinion at present,
little more appears to hirn to be neces
sary than a plain statement, in addition
to the most cursory view of society, to
establish it.
It
PREFACE. 111
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 ob
stacle in the way to any very great fu
ture 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
