An Essay on the Principle of Population

by MALTHUS, THOMAS ROBERT

• ISBN13: 9781573922555
• ISBN10: 1573922552
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 1999-03-01
• Publisher: Prometheus Books

Summary

As the world's population continues to grow at a frighteningly rapid rate, Malthus's classic warning against overpopulation gains increasing importance. An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) examines the tendency of human numbers to outstrip their resources, and argues that checks inthe form of poverty, disease, and starvation are necessary to keep societies from moving beyond their means of subsistence. Malthus's simple but powerful argument was controversial in his time; today his name has become a byword for active concern about humankind's demographic and ecologicalprospects.

Table of Contents

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	1	(17)
The different ratios 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	18	(21)
The savage or hunter state shortly reviewed---The shepheard 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	39	(14)
State of civilized nations---Probability that Europe is much more populous now than in the time of Fulius Caesar Best criterion of population Probable error of Hume in one of 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	53	(18)
The second, or positive check to poulation 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	71	(30)
New colonies---Reasons of 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	101	(12)
A probable cause of epidemics---Extracts from Mr. Susmilch'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	113	(29)
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	142	(13)
Mr. Condorcet'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	155