Malthus: Man Or Monster?

Thomas Robert Malthus was born on February 17,1766, in Surrey, England (“Malthus, T. R. SOURCE #3 np). His father was a “well-to-do gentleman (“Malthus, T.R.” Grolier 186),” and his godfather was Jean Jacques Rousseau, the philosopher (Rickard np). Malthus grew up during the Age of Reasoning, a time when many believed that humanity was approaching perfection (“Malthus, T.R.” Science Bios), but because he had been schooled in England after the French Revolution, Malthus became an “ultra-conservative pessimist (“Malthus, T.R.” 186).” He was eventually ordained as an Anglican priest (Nicholls 321) and began to study population and economy. Malthus attended the University of Cambridge and graduated in 1786. He was made a Fellow of the Jesus College at Cambridge, and became the East India College’s first profes

acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second (Malthus np).

Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetic ratio. A slight

Malthus states that these laws are unchangeable, and have been so inherently. Without “an immediate act of power in that Being who first arranged the system of the universe,” they will remain so indefinitely (Malthus np). The core of Malthus’ theory is that

This basically meant that the patterns for the increase in population and food was 1,2,4,8… and 1,2,3,4… respectively, so the population would eventually overcome the amount of food. Malthus made the point that the amount of food that barely supported the inhabitants of the earth then, would, at some point in time, be spread out among millions or billions more people. He also claimed that the population, if unchecked, would inevitably be subjected to widespread vice and misery. Malthus’ solution to this puzzle was the initiation of a series of checks to limit population. Rather than the harsh “positive checks” of misery and vice, Malthus advocated “preventative checks” that would restrict the birthrate (“Relation… E of S np). Later, Malthus introduced a third check known as “moral restraint.” By this, Malthus meant the “postponement or renunciation of marriage with complete and total abstinence from all extramarital relationships (Nichols 321).” According to Samuel Golden, Malthus suggested “possible deliberate annihilation of the world’s least productive and most defenseless citizens” in order to prevent catastrophe (np). Malthus’ main concern was not, as commonly believed, to limit population, because Malthus believed that humans were religiously bound to

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