Thomas Malthus
Thomas Malthus
The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus FRS was an English cleric and scholar, influential in the fields of political economy and demography. Malthus himself used only his middle name Robert...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth14 February 1766
asks beings bring cannot career means provide reason whether whom
Reason interrupts man's career and asks him whether he may not bring beings into the world for whom he cannot provide the means of subsistence.
mean numbers people
The constant effort towards population, which is found even in the most vicious societies, increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased.
mean evil balance
The employment of the poor in roads and public works, and a tendency among landlords and persons of property to build, to improve and beautify their grounds, and to employ workmen and menial servants, are the means most within our power and most directly calculated to remedy the evils arising from that disturbance in the balance of produce and consumption.
depressing believe mean
It may at first appear strange, but I believe it is true, that I cannot by means of money raise a poor man and enable him to live much better than he did before, without proportionably depressing others in the same class.
country mean progress
THERE is scarcely any inquiry more curious, or, from its importance, more worthy of attention, than that which traces the causes which practically check the progress of wealth in different countries, and stop it, or make it proceed very slowly, while the power of production remains comparatively undiminished, or at least would furnish the means of a great and abundant increase of produce and population.
food mean science
[P]opulation, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio. ... [T]he means of subsistence, under circumstances the most favorable to human industry, could not possibly be made to increase faster than in an arithmetical ratio.
mean men race
The perpetual tendency of the race of man to increase beyond the means of subsistence is one of the general laws of animated nature, which we can have no reason to expect to change.
mean men animal
The main peculiarity which distinguishes man from other animals is the means of his support-the power which he possesses of very greatly increasing these means.
afterwards effects increase power repressed room wherever
Wherever there is liberty, the power of increase is exerted, and the superabundant effects are repressed afterwards by want of room and nourishment.
found foundation invariably source true
I think it will be found that experience, the true source and foundation of all knowledge, invariably confirms its truth.
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
higher histories mankind possess
The histories of mankind that we possess are histories only of the higher classes.
evil mind earth
The greatest talents have been frequently misapplied and have produced evil proportionate to the extent of their powers. Both reason and revelation seem to assure us that such minds will be condemned to eternal death, but while on earth, these vicious instruments performed their part in the great mass of impressions, by the disgust and abhorrence which they excited.
men able earth
I do not know that any writer has supposed that on this earth man will ultimately be able to live without food.