https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/ Recent content in Essay on the Principle of Population on Superphysics Hugo en Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-01/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-01/ <!-- Question stated—Little prospect of a determination of it, from the enmity of the opposing parties—The principal argument against the perfectibility of man and of society has never been fairly answered—Nature of the difficulty arising from population—Outline of the principal argument of the Essay --> <p>The question on the future of mankind arose from:</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/preface/ Thu, 20 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/preface/ <!-- Thomas Malthus 1798 AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION, AS IT AFFECTS 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. --> <p>This Essay arose from a conversation with a friend about Mr Godwin&rsquo;s essay on avarice and profusion, in his Enquirer.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-02/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-02/ <!-- The different ratio in which population and food increase—The necessary effects of these different ratios of increase—Oscillation produced by them in the condition of the lower classes of society—Reasons why this oscillation has not been so much observed as might be expected—Three propositions on which the general argument of the Essay depends—The different states in which mankind have been known to exist proposed to be examined with reference to these three propositions. --> <p>Population, when unchecked, increased in a geometrical ratio.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-03/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-03/ <!-- The savage or hunter state shortly reviewed—The shepherd state, or the tribes of barbarians that overran the Roman Empire—The superiority of the power of population to the means of subsistence—the cause of the great tide of Northern Emigration. --> <p>In the rudest state of mankind, hunting is the principal occupation and the only mode of acquiring food.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-04/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-04/ <!-- State of civilized nations—Probability that Europe is much more populous now than in the time of Julius Caesar—Best criterion of population—Probable error of Hume in one the criterions that he proposes as assisting in an estimate of population—Slow increase of population at present in most of the states of Europe—The two principal checks to population—The first, or preventive check examined with regard to England. --> <p>In examining the next state of mankind with relation to the question before us, the state of mixed pasture and tillage, in which with some variation in the proportions the most civilized nations must always remain, we shall be assisted in our review by what we daily see around us, by actual experience, by facts that come within the scope of every man&rsquo;s observation.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-05/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-05/ <!-- The second, or positive check to population examined, in England—The true cause why the immense sum collected in England for the poor does not better their condition—The powerful tendency of the poor laws to defeat their own purpose—Palliative of the distresses of the poor proposed—The absolute impossibility, from the fixed laws of our nature, that the pressure of want can ever be completely removed from the lower classes of society—All the checks to population may be resolved into misery or vice. --> <p>The positive check to population, by which I mean the check that represses an increase which is already begun, is confined chiefly, though not perhaps solely, to the lowest orders of society.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-06/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-06/ <!-- New colonies—Reasons for their rapid increase—North American Colonies—Extraordinary instance of increase in the back settlements—Rapidity with which even old states recover the ravages of war, pestilence, famine, or the convulsions of nature. --> <p>All new colonies settled in healthy countries, where there was plenty of room and food, have constantly increased with astonishing rapidity in their population.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-07/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-07/ <!-- A probable cause of epidemics—Extracts from Mr Suessmilch's tables—Periodical returns of sickly seasons to be expected in certain cases—Proportion of births to burials for short periods in any country an inadequate criterion of the real average increase of population—Best criterion of a permanent increase of population—Great frugality of living one of the causes of the famines of China and Indostan—Evil tendency of one of the clauses in Mr Pitt's Poor Bill—Only one proper way of encouraging population—Causes of the Happiness of nations—Famine, the last and most dreadful mode by which nature represses a redundant population—The three propositions considered as established. --> <p>By great attention to cleanliness, the plague was completely expelled from London.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-08/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-08/ <!-- Mr Wallace—Error of supposing that the difficulty arising from population is at a great distance—Mr Condorcet's sketch of the progress of the human mind—Period when the oscillation, mentioned by Mr Condorcet, ought to be applied to the human race. --> <p>To a person who draws the preceding obvious inferences, from a view of the past and present state of mankind, it cannot but be a matter of astonishment that all the writers on the perfectibility of man and of society who have noticed the argument of an overcharged population, treat it always very slightly and invariably represent the difficulties arising from it as at a great and almost immeasurable distance.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-09/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-09/ <p>Mr Condorcet&rsquo;s conjecture concerning the organic perfectibility of man, and the indefinite prolongation of human life—Fallacy of the argument, which infers an unlimited progress from a partial improvement, the limit of which cannot be ascertained, illustrated in the breeding of animals, and the cultivation of plants.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-10/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-10/ <!-- Mr Godwin's system of equality—Error of attributing all the vices of mankind to human institutions—Mr Godwin's first answer to the difficulty arising from population totally insufficient—Mr Godwin's beautiful system of equality supposed to be realized—Its utter destruction simply from the principle of population in so short a time as thirty years. --> <p>Mr Godwin has an ingenious and able work on political justice.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-11/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-11/ <!-- Mr Godwin's conjecture concerning the future extinction of the passion between the sexes—Little apparent grounds for such a conjecture—Passion of love not inconsistent either with reason or virtue. --> <p>I have supported Mr Godwin&rsquo;s system of society once completely established.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-12/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-12/ <!-- Mr Godwin's conjecture concerning the indefinite prolongation of human life—Improper inference drawn from the effects of mental stimulants on the human frame, illustrated in various instances—Conjectures not founded on any indications in the past not to be considered as philosophical conjectures—Mr Godwin's and Mr Condorcet's conjecture respecting the approach of man towards immortality on earth, a curious instance of the inconsistency of scepticism. --> <p>Mr Godwin&rsquo;s conjecture respecting the future approach of man towards immortality on earth seems to be rather oddly placed in a chapter which professes to remove the objection to his system of equality from the principle of population. Unless he supposes the passion between the sexes to decrease faster than the duration of life increases, the earth would be more encumbered than ever. But leaving this difficulty to Mr Godwin, let us examine a few of the appearances from which the probable immortality of man is inferred.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-13/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-13/ <!-- Error of Mr Godwin is considering man too much in the light of a being merely rational—In the compound being, man, the passions will always act as disturbing forces in the decisions of the understanding—Reasonings of Mr Godwin on the subject of coercion—Some truths of a nature not to be communicated from one man to another. --> <p>In the chapter which I have been examining, Mr Godwin professes to consider the objection to his system of equality from the principle of population. It has appeared, I think clearly, that he is greatly erroneous in his statement of the distance of this difficulty, and that instead of myriads of centuries, it is really not thirty years, or even thirty days, distant from us. The supposition of the approach of man to immortality on earth is certainly not of a kind to soften the difficulty. The only argument, therefore, in the chapter which has any tendency to remove the objection is the conjecture concerning the extinction of the passion between the sexes, but as this is a mere conjecture, unsupported by the smallest shadow of proof, the force of the objection may be fairly said to remain unimpaired, and it is undoubtedly of sufficient weight of itself completely to overturn Mr Godwin&rsquo;s whole system of equality. I will, however, make one or two observations on a few of the prominent parts of Mr Godwin&rsquo;s reasonings which will contribute to place in a still clearer point of view the little hope that we can reasonably entertain of those vast improvements in the nature of man and of society which he holds up to our admiring gaze in his Political Justice.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-14/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-14/ <!-- Mr Godwin's five propositions respecting political truth, on which his whole work hinges, not established—Reasons we have for supposing, from the distress occasioned by the principle of population, that the vices and moral weakness of man can never be wholly eradicated—Perfectibility, in the sense in which Mr Godwin uses the term, not applicable to man—Nature of the real perfectibility of man illustrated. --> <p>If the reasonings of the preceding chapter are just, the corollaries respecting political truth, which Mr Godwin draws from the proposition, that the voluntary actions of men originate in their opinions, will not appear to be clearly established.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-15/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-15/ <!-- Models too perfect may sometimes rather impede than promote improvement—Mr Godwin's essay on 'Avarice and Profusion'—Impossibility of dividing the necessary labour of a society amicably among all—Invectives against labour may produce present evil, with little or no chance of producing future good—An accession to the mass of agricultural labour must always be an advantage to the labourer. --> <p>Mr Godwin in the preface to his Enquirer, drops a few expressions which seem to hint at some change in his opinions since he wrote the Political Justice; and as this is a work now of some years standing, I should certainly think that I had been arguing against opinions which the author had himself seen reason to alter, but that in some of the essays of the Enquirer, Mr Godwin&rsquo;s peculiar mode of thinking appears in as striking a light as ever.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-16/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-16/ <!-- Probable error of Dr Adam Smith in representing every increase of the revenue or stock of a society as an increase in the funds for the maintenance of labour—Instances where an increase of wealth can have no tendency to better the condition of the labouring poor—England has increased in riches without a proportional increase in the funds for the maintenance of labour—The state of the poor in China would not be improved by an increase of wealth from manufactures. --> <p>In the Wealth of Nations, Smith inquires into the causes which affect the happiness of nations or the happiness and comfort of the lower orders of society, which is the most numerous class in every nation.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-17/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-17/ <!-- Question of the proper definition of the wealth of a state—Reason given by the French economists for considering all manufacturers as unproductive labourers, not the true reason—The labour of artificers and manufacturers sufficiently productive to individuals, though not to the state—A remarkable passage in Dr Price's two volumes of Observations—Error of Dr Price in attributing the happiness and rapid population of America, chiefly, to its peculiar state of civilization—No advantage can be expected from shutting our eyes to the difficulties in the way to the improvement of society. --> <p>A question seems naturally to arise here whether the exchangeable value of the annual produce of the land and labour be the proper definition of the wealth of a country, or whether the gross produce of the land, according to the French economists, may not be a more accurate definition.</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-19/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-19/ <!-- The sorrows of life necessary to soften and humanize the heart—The excitement of social sympathy often produce characters of a higher order than the mere possessors of talents—Moral evil probably necessary to the production of moral excellence—Excitements from intellectual wants continually kept up by the infinite variety of nature, and the obscurity that involves metaphysical subjects—The difficulties in revelation to be accounted for upon this principle—The degree of evidence which the scriptures contain, probably, best suited to the improvements of the human faculties, and the moral amelioration of mankind—The idea that mind is created by excitements seems to account for the existence of natural and moral evil. --> <p>The sorrows and distresses of life form another class of excitements that are necessary to:</p> https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-18/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.superphysics.org/research/malthus/population/chapter-18/ <!-- The constant pressure of distress on man, from the principle of population, seems to direct our hopes to the future—State of trial inconsistent with our ideas of the foreknowledge of God—The world, probably, a mighty process for awakening matter into mind—Theory of the formation of mind—Excitements from the wants of the body—Excitements from the operation of general laws—Excitements from the difficulties of life arising from the principle of population. --> <p>The view of human life which results from the contemplation of the constant pressure of distress on man from the difficulty of subsistence, by shewing the little expectation that he can reasonably entertain of perfectibility on earth, seems strongly to point his hopes to the future.</p>