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Introduction:-

What many know, at least those with an elementary knowledge of economics or politics, is that Malthus is the surname of a man, who, a couple of hundred years back, said that man, sooner or later, universally, will run up against himself; that the population of mankind will eventually outstrip man's ability to supply himself with the necessities of life. The Malthusian doctrine, as stated in "Essay on the Principle of Population," was expressed as follows: "population increases in a geometric ratio, while the means of subsistence increases in an arithmetic ratio."1 Well, that seems plain enough, and perfectly understandable -- if there is too many people and not enough food, then, certainly, there is going to be problems. Malthus developed his theory, at least to this extent: that left alone, no matter all the problems short of world wide catastrophe, humankind will survive, as, nature has a natural way to cut population levels: "crime, disease, war, and vice," being, the necessary checks on population." This proposition, as was made by Malthus in 1798, was to cause quite a public stir, then, and yet today.

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Malthus' Life:-

Thomas Robert2 Malthus was born in 1766, at Dorking, a place just south of London. He was the second son of eight children, six of whom were girls. His father, Daniel Malthus, was an ardent Jacobin and had corresponded with Voltaire, Rousseau and Hume; indeed, when Malthus was but a child, Hume brought Rousseau to the Malthus home, known then as "The Rookery."3 As a boy, Robert was educated privately, partly by his father and partly by tutors.4 At the age of eighteen, in 1784, Malthus went up to Cambridge5 (Jesus College). In spite of a "marked impediment of speech," Malthus was to do well.6

While at College, Malthus "took orders" thus becoming a curate of the Church of England.7 At about 1796, he took up parochial duties "at Albury, Surrey, and lived with his father Daniel ..."8 At the age of 38, he married, an event which led him, in that year, 1804, to leave the safe haven of his "fellowship" at Cambridge. His marriage turned out to be a happy one; he had three children. In 1805, he was appointed professor of Political Economy at the college at Haileybury, a college run by and for the general education of civil servants of the East India Company. He lived the balance of his life placidly existing as a scholar and teacher at Haileybury.9 His students called him "Pop." He was described in his obituary as a "tall and elegantly formed ... his appearance, no less than his conduct, was that of a perfect gentleman." "An amiable and benevolent man." Despite this eloquent description, Malthus was to suffer "much misrepresentation and abuse at the hands of both revolutionaries and conservatives."10

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Malthus' Essay On Population:-

Twenty-two years before the appearance of Malthus' essay, Adam Smith had inquired into the nature and causes of wealth with his book, The Wealth of Nations. One might well conclude that Malthus' essay is an analysis of the nature and causes of poverty.11 Malthus' work, however, was more of a response to the writers who were then expressing optimism and faith in the nature of man, viz., that man might perfect himself through the application of reason and will power. Two of the writers which Malthus had in mind, indeed, were named in the full title of his work, "An Essay on the Principle of Population as it affects the Future Improvement on Society, with Remarks on the Speculation of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet and other Writers." Published five years after Godwin's work, Political Justice, Malthus had his essay published, anonymously. The first edition (a very rare book these days and therefore, likely that few were brought out) consisted of about 50,000 words.12 He spent the next few years revising and enlarging it, and, in 1803, he brought out the second edition, much expanded, -- really, another work. By the fifth edition it "had swollen to some 250,000 words in three volumes." Keynes thought that for posterity, the first edition is the "superior book." As for Malthus, he thought the work contained in his first edition was done "on the impulse of the occasion, and from materials which were in ready reach in a country situation."

The basis of the Malthusian doctrine has already been stated, viz., "population increases in a geometric ratio, while the means of subsistence increases in an arithmetic ratio." This observation Malthus connects to another: there are two principal hungers that nature has instilled in man, that for food and that for sex. Malthus was of the view that neither of these hungers could ever be quelled or controlled. That, in time, because of an ever increasing population rate, man will come up against a ceiling, one created by the fact that the world's resources needed for life, are, limited. Once these resources are exhausted, or spoiled, life as we know it will come to an end.13 The essence of the doctrine is that the population level cannot keep increasing without, at some point, pressing on the limits of the means of subsistence, and that a check of some kind or other must, sooner or later, be opposed to it.

"Through the animal and vegetable kingdoms, nature has scattered the seeds of life abroad with the most profuse and liberal hand. She has been comparatively sparing in the room, and the nourishment necessary to rear them... The race of plants, and race of animals shrink under this great restrictive law. And the race of man cannot, by any efforts of reason, escape from it. Among plants and animals its effects are waste of seed, sickness, and premature death. Among mankind, misery and vice. ...
For let the principles of Mr. Godwin's Enquiry14 and of other similar works be carried literally and completely into effect; let every corruption and abuse of power be entirely got rid of; let virtue, knowledge and civilization be advanced to the greatest height that these visionary reformers would suppose; let the passions and appetites be subjected to the utmost control of reason and influence of public opinion: grant them, in a word, all that they ask, and the more completely their views are realized, the sooner will they be overthrown again, and the more inevitable and fatal will be the catastrophe. For the principle of population will still prevail, and from the comfort, ease and plenty that will abound, will receive an increasing force and impetus. The number of mouths to be fed will have no limit; but the food that is to supply them cannot keep pace with the demand for it; we must come to a stop somewhere, even though each square yard, by extreme improvements in cultivation, could maintain its man. In this state of things there will be no remedy; the wholesome checks of vice and misery (which have hitherto kept this principle within bounds) will have been done away; the voice of reason will be unheard; the passions only will bear sway; famine, distress, havoc and dismay will spread around; hatred, violence, war and bloodshed will be the infallible consequence; and from the pinnacle of happiness, peace, refinement and social advantage we shall be hurled once more into a profounder abyss of misery, want, and barbarism that ever by the sole operation of the principle of population!"

The most grating conclusion of the several which Malthus comes to in his Essay is not that eventually population left unchecked will outstrip man's ability to live on this planet (as true a proposition to-day as it was in 1798); or that war, pestilence, and alike were natural checks against population (they are); but rather that we are all left with a Hobson's choice, with nature being the stable keeper. Or, if one likes, two choices with no difference in the result; either leave the old checks in place (as if we could remove them) or suffer the consequences of overpopulation. It is clear from a reading of his writings that Malthus thought there is nothing we might do to help ourselves; indeed, any laws aimed at the betterment of society, to alleviate want and misery, was likely only to aggravate the evils it sought to cure. The only thing for us, is to have faith that the same forces which brought man to his modern state, might be allowed to continue to preserve him.

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The Critics:-

Malthus was a realist who was picked upon by the idealists. It is always easy for an idealist to pick on a realist, for the story of the idealist, to the unknowing, is usually sweet to the ear; though endlessly fascinating, reality has its tough spots which, it is human nature, we try to avoid. With the publication of his Essay on Population, a storm ran through the country. I quote Malthus' biographer, James Bonar:

"For thirty years it rained refutations. Malthus was the most abused man of the age, put down as a man who defended smallpox, slavery and child murder, who denounced soup kitchens, early marriage and parish allowances; who had the impudence to marry after preaching against the evils of a family; who thought the world so badly governed that the best actions do the most harm; who, in short, took all romance out of life."17

"The storm aroused by the essay is still a familiar tradition. A score of forgotten 'replies' intervened between the first edition and the second. Tories, theologians, democrats and poets, for the most part denounced it; but the Whig lawyers and economists rallied with surprising alacrity to its defence. Mackintosh and Brougham gave in their adhesion, Dr. Parr, in his famous Spital Sermon, 1800, used it with damaging effect against Godwin, and Pitt himself dropped his proposed additions to the Poor-law in deference to Malthus's criticism; - a foretaste of the day, a generation later, when the entire Poor-law system was to be recast under Malthus's influence."

What Malthus had to say about the poor, was this:

"The poor-laws of England tend to depress the general condition of the poor in these two ways. This first obvious tendency is to increase population without increasing the food for its support. A poor man may marry with little or no prospect of being able to support a family in independence. They may be said therefore in some measure to create the poor which they maintain; and as the provisions of the country must, in consequence of the increased population, be distributed to every man in smaller proportions, it is evident that the labour of those who are not supported by parish assistance will purchase a smaller quantity of provisions than before, and consequently, more of them must be driven to ask for support. Secondly, the quantity of provisions consumed in workhouses upon a part of the society, that cannot in general be considered the most valuable part, diminishes the shares that would otherwise belong to more worthy members; and thus in the same manner forces more to become dependent. ...
Other circumstances being the same, it may be affirmed that countries are populous according to the quantity of human food which they produce or can acquire, and happy according to the liberality with which this food is divided, or the quantity which a day's labour will purchase. Corn countries are more populous than pasture countries, and rice countries more populous than corn countries. But their happiness does not depend upon their being thinly or fully inhabited, upon their poverty or their richness, their youth or their age, but on the proportion which the population and the good bear to each other."

Hazlitt was much at odds with the theories as expressed by Malthus. To Hazlitt, Malthus had proceeded, a priori, in accepting his opponent's (Godwin's) position, viz., "a state of perfectibility" was achievable; but once achieved, so Malthus argued, would come apart, in time, due to over population. How, Hazlitt wondered, being perfect, could such a society come apart. Hazlitt seem to think that once one imagined a perfect society then one imagined a society with a population that was fully in control. How could "enlightened, quick-sighted and public spirited [men] ... show themselves utterly blind to the consequences of their actions, utterly blind to the consequences of their well-being ..." Hazlitt did not deal with the question, as to how a state, as it progressed to its perfect state, will curb its population growth (I shutter to think). Hazlitt did not deal with the question because he did not accept the premise, viz., that man was perfectible.

"Several philosophers and speculatists had supposed that a certain state of society very different from any that has hitherto existed was in itself practicable; and that if it were realised, it would be productive of a far greater degree of human happiness than is compatible with the present institutions of society."21 Malthus' argument, as stated by Hazlitt, is that if man were to give up his existing social institutions then there would be as much bad as good come of it. "For, says Mr Malthus, though this improved state of society were actually realized, it could not possibly continue, but must soon terminate in a state of things pregnant with evils far more insupportable than any we at present endure..." Hazlitt, to put it simply, had difficulty with Malthus' logic: "It is absurd to object to a system on account of the consequences which would follow if we once suppose men to be actuated by entirely different motives and principles from what they are at present, and then to say, that those consequences would necessarily follow, because men would never be what we suppose them. ... Mr Malthus has written nonsense..." Hazlitt was of the view that Malthus confounded cause with effect. "The wide spreading tyranny, dependence, indolence, and unhappiness, of which Mr. Malthus is so sensible, are not occasioned by the increase of the poor-rates, but these are the natural consequence of that increasing tyranny, dependence, indolence, and happiness occasioned by other causes. ... he shall have my perfect leave to disclaim the right of the poor to subsistence, and to tie them down by severe penalties to their good behaviour, on the same profound principles. But why does Mr Malthus practise his demonstrations on the poor only?"22

One, in pursuing their study of Malthus, should read the essays that Hazlitt has written on Malthus and his theories. There is not that many and they are online here at www.blupete.com. I now list them, next following together with a short synoptic excerpt from each.

§ From Reply to Malthus, 1807:
"Malthus And The Liberties Of The Poor": "It is a fearful shame and calamity ... The greater part of a community ought not to be paupers or starving. When the interests of the many are thus regularly and outrageously sacrificed to those of the few, the social order needs repairing. A street lined with coaches and with beggars dying at the Steps of the doors, gives a strong lesson to common thought and political foresight, if not to humanity."
§ From Political Essays, 1819:
"An Examination of Mr Malthus's Doctrines": "This doctrine is false in fact and theory. ... the population confessedly never can or does exceed the means of subsistence in a literal sense ... the disciples of Mr Malthus ... have but this one idea in their heads; it comes in at every turn, and nothing can drive it out. ... Mr Malthus's arithmetical and geometrical ratios ... [to the exclusion and] the prevention of all timely reforms!"
"On the Originality of Mr Malthus's Essay": "... Wallace [an earlier writer from whom Hazlitt claims Malthus took his notions] has here stated the argument against the progressive and ultimate amelioration of human society, from the sole principle of population. ... The argument is a solecism; but if Wallace showed his ingenuity in inventing it, Mr Malthus has not shown his judgment in adopting it."
"Affect on the Schemes of Utopian Improvement": "He [Malthus] contradicts the opinion of Mr Godwin that vice and misery are not the only checks to population, and ... after flatly denying that moral restraint has any effect at all, he modestly concludes by saying that it has had some, no doubt, but promises that it will never have a great deal. Yet in ... [his intended sequel], 'I shall lay considerable stress.' This kind of reasoning is enough to give one the headache. .. I cannot agree with Mr Malthus that they [Utopian schemes; though "false, sophistical, unfounded in the extreme"] would be bad, in proportion as they were good; that their excellence would be their ruin ...."
"On the Application of Mr Malthus's Principle": "I shall not myself be so uncandid as not to confess, that I think the poor laws bad things; and that it would be well, if they could be got rid of, consistently with humanity and justice. ... The reason why I object to Mr Malthus's plan is, that it does not go to the root of the evil, or attack it in its principle, but its effects. He confounds the cause with the effect. ... why does Mr Malthus practise his demonstrations on the poor only? Why are they to have a perfect system of rights and duties prescribed to them? I do not see ... why it should be meat and drink to them, more than to others, to do the will of God. Mr Malthus's gospel is preached only to the poor!"
"Queries Relating to the Essay on Population": Hazlitt's sets forth his eighteen indictments of Malthus' work: for example, No. 6: "... the most extravagant conclusions, [that leads to the] throwing a suspicion and a stigma on all subordinate improvements or plans of reform ... Whether the stumbling-block thus thrown in the way of those who aimed at any amendment in social institutions does not obviously account for the alarm and opposition which Mr Malthus' work excited on the one hand, and for the cordiality and triumph with which it was hailed on the other?"
§ From The Spirit of the Age, 1825:
"Mr Malthus": "Mr. Malthus ... assumes, a state of perfectibility such as his opponents imagine, in which the general good is to obtain the entire mastery of individual interests, and reason of gross appetites and passions: and then he argues that such a perfect structure of society will fall by its own weight, or rather be undermined by the principle of population ...."

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Conclusion:-

Two hundred years have now passed since the prophetic Malthus set forth his proposition, essentially, that the human population would grow to a point so as to outstrip the world's resources needed to support it. So far, while problematic in parts of the world, we are yet OK. Malthus did not foresee the scientific advances that effected both of the two parts of his proposition. World population had grown slowly until the industrial revolution, when, advances in sanitation, technology, and food distribution brought declining death rates. Mechanized farmers are now getting more food out of an acre of arable land than ever Malthus could have imagined. It is true, however, unlike its industrialized parts, non-industrialized parts of our world today are experiencing high birth rates and decreasing death rates. Birth control, with absolutely no thanks to the Catholic church, has, particularly in the world's industrialized parts, contributed to a decrease in the rate of growth of the total world population. The population problem may yet be beaten. The goal has to be zero population growth; and, many demographers foresee that this goal might be achieved within the next 100 years. While the predictions of the experts vary widely as to if and when we will be able to get our population levels under control, most agree that unforeseeable events make forecasts based on current trends highly suspect.

The storm that started over the theory expressed by Malthus in 1798 has yet to subside. It is not so much over the increasing difficulties which an increasing population will bring about. The storm of argument is over what if anything is to be done about it. Mostly, those who railed and raged at the Malthusian doctrine failed, and continue to fail -- and, thus, I put in my two cents worth -- to appreciate that the nature of man cannot be changed in less time then it took to evolve. Not only can it not be changed, but great harm comes in a compulsory effort to try to change it. So it is, that argumentation about Malthus brings one beyond the dire effects of an increasing population to the dire effects of a bad philosophy.

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[TOC]
Dates:-

1766
§ Malthus is born.

1769
§ At around this time, Blackstone brings out his Commentaries on the Law of England.

1770
§ The members of the "Long Parliament" take their seats, it sat for 15 years, until 1785.

1774
§ American Taxation.

1781
§ October 19th, British troops under Cornwallis surrender at Yorktown.

1783
§ December 13th, penal laws against Roman Catholics repealed.
§ British evacuate New York.

1784
§ Pitt defeats Fox and North at the polls.
§ At age 18, Malthus comes up to Cambridge (Jesus College).

1785
§ The Big Bang of the Industrial Revolution occurs in England when, for first time, steam engines are used to power spinning machinery.

1788
§ Impeachment of Warren Hastings.

1790
§ Burke writes Reflections on the French Revolution.

1792
§ Paine's reply, The Rights of Man.
§ September massacres in Paris.

1793
§ In January Louis XVI is beheaded.
§ Godwin's Political Justice appears.
§ The trials of the "Reform-martyrs," Muir and Palmer who were subsequently transported to Botany Bay; this was part of the larger government effort to prosecute editors, nonconformists and radicals who were arguing for Parliamentary reform.

1794
§ A simple device for separating cotton lint from seeds is patented by Whitney.
§ Thomas Holcroft, Horne Tooke, Thomas Hardy, John Thelwall and others are brought to trial on the charge of high treason, and acquitted amid excitement.

1796
§ Malthus writes his first essay, it was one against Pitt's administration.
§ Jenner discovers vaccination.

1797
§ Burke dies.
§ In January, with Bonaparte having successfully invaded Italy and Spain, Britain withdrew her ships from the Mediterranean which became a "French Lake" from January 1797 to May 1798.
§ By a parliamentary statute of Britain the torture of suspects and criminals was abolished.
§ Navel mutinies between April and June, at Spithead and the Nore.

1798
§ Malthus brings out his Essay on the Principle of Population.
§ Nelson re-enters the Mediterranean in May, 1798, and destroys Napoleon's fleet; in August he destroys the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile.

1801
§ Great Britain and Ireland come together under one legislative body.

1802
§ The Treaty of Amiens is signed and the war between France and England is ended leaving France supreme in Western Europe, and England supreme on the oceans of the world.

1803
§ Malthus brings out the second edition of his Essay.
§ War continues: the peace of Amiens comes to an end.
§ Brunel and his production line for turning out rigging blocks.
§ Louisiana Purchase.

1804
§ Malthus marries.
§ War between Britain and Bonaparte-dominated Spain breaks out on December 12th, 1804.
§ Napoleon becomes emperor of France.

1805
§ Malthus appointed professor of Political Economy in the East India College at Haileybury.
§ In 1805, Trevithick adapts the Watt engine to a vehicle, and the locomotive comes into being. By the middle of the century a network of railways had spread all over Europe.
§ At Austerlitz Napoleon lays low the combined armies of Russia and Austria and the "Third Coalition" is no more.
§ Nelson's victory at Trafalgar (21st October, 1805).

1806
§ Pitt dies; Fox takes over.
§ In 1806 England abolishes the slave-trade (in 1833 slavery itself).

1807
§ Hazlitt brings out his Reply to Malthus.
§ British Orders-in-Council prohibit trade.
§ Fulton's first steam boat.

1808
§ In support of a Spanish rising, in July, Arthur Wellesley (later to become known as the Duke of Wellington) leads the first small British force of 9000 men into the Peninsula of Spain; a gate into the hostile fortress of Napoleonic Europe.

1810
§ George III ill; his son, the Duke of Wales (1762-1830) takes over as the Prince Regent; in 1820 on his father's death, he becomes George IV.

1811
§ Malthus makes the acquaintance of David Ricardo.
§ Austen's Sense and Sensibility.
§ The English Parliament passes an anti-slave trade bill and the 1811 Felony Act becomes law, bringing slave trade to an end.

1812
§ May, Prime Minister Perceval, assassinated.
§ Liverpool becomes the English Prime Minister.
§ On 18 June, 1812, President Madison and the American Congress declares war on Britain.
§ Byron Donkin builds (tin plate having been invented in 1810) the first canning factory in England, his principle orders coming form the Royal Navy for canned soups and meats used in the war against America.

1813
§ It was during the winter that the news came of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow and his struggle to retain hold of central Europe.
§ In England 13 "Luddites" are hung at the York Assizes.

1814
§ April, Paris is captured and Bonaparte abdicates; the Bourbons are restored.

1815
§ Ricardo's An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent.
§ June 18th, 1815, the Battle of Waterloo.
§ In a further chapter in the history of the "Corn Laws" (they had been around in one form or another since the Middle Ages) the British parliament passed the Act of 1815 which imposed, - much to the satisfaction of British farmland owners - a ban on all corn imports, this with a view to getting the home prices up.

1817
§ Civil wars (Simon Bolivar and the Latin American revolution) sweep over the Spanish New World in waves from 1812 to the early 1820s; driven by both the political theories of Rousseau and the disruptions of civil order in Spain on account of Bonaparte and the resulting peninsular wars.
§ Ricardo's, Principles of Political Economy & Taxation, wherein Ricardo was to give his systematic theory of rent, property, wages, and money.
§ Habeas Corpus is suspended as the war against the Radical Press in England heats up; Cobbett flees to America.

1818
§ Unrest in England, with the Northern and Midland radicals causing sporadic violence and attacks on mills.
§ Queen Charlotte dies on 17 November.

1819
§ May 24th, 1819, Queen Victoria is born.
§ "Peterloo:" On August 16th, 1819, "an orderly and unarmed crowd of about 60,000 men, women and children" assemble in support of universal suffrage, in St. Peter's Fields, Manchester. They were there to hear the speaker, Radical Hunt. The magistrates, in a move to arrest the speaker, ordered the cavalry in: "eleven persons, including two women, were killed or died of their injuries; over a hundred were wounded by sabres and several hundred more injured by horse-hoofs or crushed in the stampede."
§ Keats, "Hyperion"; Shelley, "Promethus Unbound."

1820
§ Thistlewood's planned insurrection in February of 1820; hung May 1st.
§ George III dies, George IV (1762-1830) takes the throne, due to his father's derangement he had been the Prince Regent since 1810.
§ A Factory Bill prohibiting children under the age of nine to work in cotton mills is passed in 1819; this is the first of a series of parliamentary bills which were to be passed over the next forty years in a process of law reform which was first prompted by the writings of the legal philosopher, Jeremy Bentham.
§ In June, Caroline (George IV's estranged wife) returns to England and the Caroline Crisis ensues; it "swallowed up every other topic from June to November."
§ During February of 1820, England issues gold ingots ("Ricardos"), freely exchangeable with its paper money. By the following year (1821) England was fully on the gold exchange: "The effect of this move was to increase immensely worldwide confidence in the British economy and the expansion of international trade;" the price of gold rose, new and intensive interest in surveying and in mining followed.
§ Epidemics of cholera and yellow fever break out in such places as New York City.

1821
§ Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction.

1822
§ Shelley dies.
§ Castlereagh, the British Foreign Secretary, the pressures of government being apparently too much for him, in August of 1822 committed suicide by slitting his throat. Castlereagh had done more than any other diplomat to bring about Napoleon's fall and to establish peace in Europe, but unfortunately he "had identified himself in his last years with the anti-Jacobin domestic policy in its final stage of decay." His death "was hailed by most of his poor fellow-countrymen with revengeful glee, which found voice in the horrible cheers that greeted his coffin as it passed into Westminster Abbey."

1824
§ Byron dies.
§ New industries were envisioned: railway, gas, steamship, iron, and coal; companies were being organized for them all, most legitimate,- not all. London was now experiencing a bull market which ran from summer 1824 to autumn 1825. Speculators elbowed in with dreams for sale; a credit crunch and, in turn, an economic disaster followed.

1825
§ The first railway opens in the northern part of England, between Stockton and Darlinton; Stephenson's "Rocket," with a thirteen ton train, gets up a speed of 44 miles per hour.

1827
§ On 27th March, 1827, Darwin gives a short talk to the Plinian Society, and communicates two discoveries which he has made: First, "that the ova of the Flustra posses organs of motion; and the second, that the small black globular body hitherto mistaken for the young Fucus Lorius [a seaweed], is in reality the ovum of the pontobdella muricata [a leech that infests skates]. At the request of the society he promised to draw up an account of the facts and to lay it, together with specimens, before the Society next evening."
§ April, 1827, Liverpool has a stroke and Canning becomes Prime Minister, who in turn died in August of 1827; after which Wellington took over.
§ The first allied peace keeping mission, with Admiral Sir Edward Codrington in charge, sailed into Navrino Bay, Turkey, and, on the 20th of October 1827 the Battle of Navrino insued, which, while lasting only four hours, took the lives of 8,000 Turks and Egyptians; the allies lost only 178 men; this was to be the last of the great sea battles between the square sailed fighting ships.

1828
§ In London an exhibition specifically devoted to machinery is held.
§ After a new style election campaign, General Jackson becomes the President of the United States; his clear popular mandate ends "the old indirect, oligarchical system forever."

1829
§ Sir Robert Peel's police make their appearance in London; before this time public tranquillity was maintained by the military forces. With "Peelers" there now existed an efficient civilian force, of non-partisan character, and armed only with staves.

1830
§ George IV dies and William IV, the popular sailor king takes the throne.
§ General election in Britain; the Duke's government is swept way and Earl Charles Grey (1764-1845) comes in; it was his task to frighten, persuade and cajole the King, the Lords and the borough-owners into giving up their power; he had only to point to the European continent.
§ Wm. Cobbett and Richard Carlile put on trial for articles in the Press. Cobbett at his trial in July is acquitted.

1832
§ Darwin sails on the Beagle.
§ The Great Reform Bill.

1834
§ Slavery was finally made unlawful throughout all of the British territories. "Twenty millions sterling were paid in compensation to the slave-owners ... On the First of August, 1834, all slaves in the British Empire were to become free."
§ Malthus dies at a place just outside of Bath.

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[TOC]
NOTES:

¹ All the quotes from Malthus, "Essay on the Principle of Population."

² Malthus was called "Bob" by his father.

³ Malthus' father, Daniel, in 1759, purchased a "small elegant mansion" and called it "The Rookery." Within two years of our hero's birth (1766), in 1768, "The Rookery" was sold "and the family moved to a less extensive establishment at Albury, not far from Guildford." [Keynes, Essays in Biography (Toronto: MacMillan, 1933) at p. 103.]

⁴ One of the tutors was Richard Graves (1715-1804), a writer, who in 1772 wrote The Spiritual Quixote, a satire on the Methodists; another was Gilbert Wakefield (1756-1801). Wakefield was another admirer of Rousseau, and, in 1799, Wakefield "was imprisoned in a Dorchester gaol for expressing a wish that the French revolutionaries would invade and conquer England."

⁵ These were new times for Cambridge: "Aeschyus and Plato and Thucydides were pushed aside ... to discuss the pamphlets of the day." One example, of such a pamphlet was Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution (1790) wherein Burke attacked the principles of the French Revolution, and the violence and excesses of its leaders. Then there was Paine's work: Common Sense (1776), The American Crisis (1776-83) and the Rights of Man (1792) ("Paine's effigy was burnt by the mob on the market Hill at Cambridge"). In the late 18th century, the times were intellectually alive and views were building up on different ends. Incidentally, Malthus, having become a fellow of the College in 1793, was to act at one point as a judge and sentencer of a junior student who had been absent without leave from the College; the young student was Coleridge, having entered the College in 1791. With this background, one might better appreciate Coleridge's comment on Malthus' second edition: "Verbiage and senseless repetition..." What is certain is that Coleridge was no friend of Malthus. (See Keynes, op. cit. at pp. 109-17.)

⁶ Keynes, p. 108. And see Wagner's work, Social Reformers (New York: MacMillan, 1935) at p. 59. "... he finished the university course with credit in 1788 and took orders two years later. He then seems to have continued his studies at home and at Cambridge. These covered a broad range, and in 1793 he was elected to a fellowship at Cambridge. It was not until 1797 that he began active duties as a parish priest in his native Surrey."

⁷ To become a churchman was not an unusual thing for a young man to do in those days, especially one without too many property prospects, viz., a son other then the first born son; being a churchman gave him social respectability, which, in turn, might open up political opportunities.

⁸ See James Bonar's observations, Malthus' biographer, and in particular, his notes appended to the reprint of the original essay which the Royal Economic Society brought out in 1926 (London: MacMillan & Co., 1926).

⁹ Malthus was to write and publish other works for which he is not as well known, as for example, in 1815, there came out, "An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent," and, in 1820, "Principles of Political Economy." Walter Bagehot was not too much impressed, overall, with Malthus as an economist. Thinking him to be "a sensible man educated in the midst of illusions ..." Malthus' celebrity status, to Bagehot, is to be "explained by the circumstances of the time and is due singularly to his, Essay on the Principle of Population. He, again according to Bagehot, contributed little to the study of "Political Economy." "He ... believed that the supply of all commodities might exceed the demand, which is as much as to say that there is too much of everything. The truth is, that Mr. Malthus had not the practical sagacity necessary for the treatment of Political Economy in a concrete way, or the mastery of abstract ideas necessary to deal with it in what we should now [1867] call a scientific way. He tried a bad mixture of both. There is a mist of speculation over his facts, and a vapour of fact over his ideas." [Economic Studies (London: Longmans, Green, 2nd ed., 1888) at p. 148.]

¹⁰ Chambers Biographical Dictionary (Edinburgh, 1990), often referred to in these pages simply as, Chambers.

¹¹ While Malthus' theory dealt more with the lack of wealth and the poor. He expressed his view of the future, generally borne out, that the "wealth of the civilized world will be more equably diffused."

¹² Malthus' Essay came about as a result of Godwin's Political Justice. Godwin's work had provoked much discussion among the intelligentsia; and, Malthus and his father had such discussions, frequently: "the father defended, and the son attacked ..." Daniel Malthus encouraged his son to put his thoughts into writing and in turn to publish; and, thus, the world was presented, in 1798, with Malthus' Essay which at first was but a small work.

¹³ The Malthusian doctrine is based on food: "Want of food the most efficient cause of the three immediate checks to population." The argument, however, can easily be extended to take in, what have, since the times of Malthus, become the more pressing problems of polluted air and polluted water.

¹⁴ Malthus writes of Godwin's scheme: "A melioration of society [which Mr. Godwin proposes] to be produced merely by reason and conviction gives more promise of permanence than any change effected and maintained by force. ... The substitution of benevolence, as the master-spring and moving principle of society, instead of self-love appears at first sight to be a consummation devoutly to be wished. In short, it is impossible to contemplate the whole of this fair picture without emotions of delight and admiration, accompanied with an ardent longing for the period of its accomplishment. But alas! that moment can never arrive ..."

¹⁵ Malthus writes further: "Wars, plagues or that greater depopulator than either, a tyrannical government." Indeed, Malthus was of the general view that "human institutions appear to be, and often are, the obvious and obtrusive causes of much mischief to society."

¹⁶ By the adding of this further check, "moral restraint," Malthus was to spoil the argument that he made in his essay as first brought out in 1798. Walter Bagehot was to observe: "In its first form the 'Essay on Population' was conclusive as an argument, only it was based on untrue facts; in its second form it was based on true facts, but it was inconclusive as an argument." [Economic Studies (1867) (London: Longmans, Green, 2nd ed., 1888) at p. 137.]

¹⁷ Malthus and his Work written in 1885.

¹⁸ Herford was at the University of Manchester as a professor of English language and literature. The quote comes from his work, The Age of Wordsworth (London: Bell, 1916) at pp. 18-9.

¹⁹ One such disciple was Samuel Whitbread (1758-1815); his father, also Samuel, was the founder of the famous brewing firm. Whitbread introduced into parliament, in 1807, a bill which was intended to regulate the poor. While Whitbread's poor bill included free education, it also provided for a badge system whereby one might distinguish between the deserving and the undeserving poor. The bill did not pass. Whether Malthus was ready to go as far as Whitbread, I do not know. Malthus did believe in charity. "Much may be done by discriminate charity." However, "Hard as it may appear in individual instances, dependent poverty ought to be held disgraceful." And, "A man who is born into a world already possessed, if he cannot get subsistence from his parents, on whom he has a just demand, and if the society do not want his labour, has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where he is." Further, Malthus believed, "That labour will not be performed without the goad of necessity."

²⁰ Herford, p. 20. "Godwin after a long silence, assailed it once more, quite ineffectively, in 1820, and Cobbett remained a scoffer to the end." It was Cobbett, incidentally, who nicknamed Malthus, "Parson Malthus." Keynes quotes Cobbett (p. 117): "Are we now to have a quarto to teach us that great misery and great vice arise from poverty, and that there must be poverty in its worst shape wherever there are more mouths than loaves and more Heads than Brains?"

²¹ From Hazlitt's essay, "Affect on the Schemes of Utopian Improvement."

²² From Hazlitt's essay, "On the Application of Mr Malthus's Principle."