Historical Figure
Thomas Malthus
b. 1766
British political economist (1766–1834)
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Biography
Thomas Robert Malthus was an English economist, cleric, and scholar influential in the fields of political economy and demography.
In Their Own Words (5)
It is an acknowledged truth in philosophy that a just theory will always be confirmed by experiment.
Chapter I, paragraph 9, lines 1-2 , 1798
It has been said, and perhaps with truth, that the conclusions of Political Economy partake more of the certainty of the stricter sciences than those of most of the other branches of human knowledge.
Book I, Introduction, p. 1 , 1836
The lower classes of people in Europe may at some future period be much better instructed then they are at present; they may be taught to employ the little spare time they have in many better ways than at the ale-house; they may live under better and more equal laws than they have hitherto done, perhaps, in any country; and I even conceive it possible, though not probable, that they may have more leisure; but it is not in the nature of things, that they can be awarded such a quantity of money or substance, as will allow them all to marry early, in the full confidence that they shall be able to provide with ease for a numerous family.
Chapter XIV, paragraph 9 , 1798
The love of independence is a sentiment that surely none would wish to see erased from the breast of man, though the parish law of England, it must be confessed, is a system of all others the most calculated gradually to weaken this sentiment, and in the end may eradicate it completely.
Chapter IV, paragraph 13, lines 11-15 , 1798
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio, Subsistence, increases only in an arithmetical ratio.
Chapter I, paragraph 18, lines 1-2 , 1798
Timeline
The story of Thomas Malthus, told in moments.
The "Malthusian trap" became shorthand for the fear that humanity can't outgrow its appetites. Critics called him heartless. The Green Revolution proved him wrong on food production. Population growth proved him right about pressure.
Born near Guildford, Surrey. His father Daniel was a personal friend of David Hume and a fan of Rousseau. Educated at home, then Cambridge, where he studied mathematics and won prizes in Latin and English declamation.
Published An Essay on the Principle of Population, arguing that population growth would always outstrip food supply. The math was brutal: people multiply geometrically, food arithmetically. Famine, war, and disease were nature's check.
Became Britain's first professor of political economy, at the East India Company College in Haileybury. An Anglican cleric, he saw poverty not as solvable but as divinely ordained discipline.
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