Life and Writings of Thomas R. Malthus

by Charles R. Drysdale

The information given by Mrs. Pringle, and referred to in the above letter to Mr. Robert Porter, is as follows. After referring to Mr. Ellis’ teachings in the Friend of the People, written about the year 1860, she speaks of the personal appearance of her father as follows: “The likeness (photograph sent) is excellent, and to enable you to form a complete idea of his personal appearance, I must tell you that his complexion was fair, with light and curling hair, red whiskers, and bright darkish blue eyes. His height was five feet eleven inches, and a very well-formed figure.” Another granddaughter of Mrs. Malthus, the mother of Thomas Robert, says that Daniel Malthus, the father, although refined, was a selfish man. His wife was devoted to him, and although not a talented woman, was accomplished, and educated her own daughter without a governess. All her children were devoted to her, especially her eldest son. Thomas Robert was, perhaps, more attached to his father; but his mother’s amiability descended to him, for he was never known to say a harsh word of anyone, although more attacked than any writer has perhaps ever been. It appears that Malthus died, not of heart disease, but of bronchitis. His mother’s maiden name was Graham, and she was of an old Scotch family. Here is one sentence to depict her character:—“In short, I imagine her gentle, unobtrusive, loving, romantic, and perfectly unselfish; but not the sort of person to form her sons’ characters, though to attract their affections.”

CHAPTER II.
AN ANALYSIS OF THE “ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION.”

Comparatively few students of Political Economy at the present day appear to read Malthus’ celebrated Essay in the original. This, in our opinion, is a great mistake. That work is as readable now as it was when it attracted such well-merited attention at the commencement of this century; and the statistics given by the learned author become even more valuable than ever, owing to the important additions made to them of recent years by the various modern writers on Social Economy.

The third edition of Malthus’ essay, which appeared in 1806, is now before us: and consists of two volumes of about one thousand pages in all, of large type, full of the most interesting accounts ever given of the manners and customs of the different nations of ancient and modern times. The first volume is divided into two books. In Book I. there are fourteen chapters, the first of which states the Law of Population, or the tendency which population has to increase more rapidly than the means of subsistence. The second chapter treats of the general checks to population, and the way in which these operate. Then come three most interesting chapters on the checks to population among savage nations, followed by one on those obtaining among the ancient inhabitants of Northern Europe. Chapter seven gives an account of the checks existing among modern pastoral nations; and this is followed by an account of the checks in Africa, and Northern and Southern Siberia. Then follows a most interesting account of the brutal checks to population in Turkey, and the lamentable starvation checks of Hindostan and China. Book I. ends with chapters on the checks to population among the ancient Greeks and Romans.

In Book II. there is a most important account given by Mr. Malthus of the results of his extensive travels in Europe, in 1799 and after years, with details of the checks to population existing in Norway, Sweden, Russia, Germany, Switzerland, France, England, Scotland, and Ireland.

If those persons who at present think that the Malthusian law of human increase has been found by subsequent investigation to be erroneous, could only be induced to read Mr. Malthus’ essay in the original, they would soon find that all these objections have been anticipated in that celebrated work, and perhaps acknowledge, with Mr. J. S. Mill and other economists, that the truth is “axiomatic,” or no longer requiring discussion. In the last pamphlet, indeed, which we have seen, dedicated to one of the most deservedly popular of modern British authors, Thomas Carlyle, the writer, like Mr. Carlyle himself, speaks as if the law of Malthus had been refuted; but, as usual in such cases, it is clear that the writer has not the least idea of what the celebrated Essay on Population was written to prove.

In his first chapter, Malthus observes that Euler, a great mathematician, had calculated that, on the supposition of such a moderate amount of mortality as one in 36 (which is considerably higher than our present mortality of one in 42 in England), and with the further supposition of the births being to the deaths as three to one (a ratio which seems nearly to hold good, at present, in New Zealand), the period of doubling a population would be only 12⅘ years; and Sir William Petty, in his work on Political Arithmetic, supposed a doubling to be possible in some ten years.

Malthus compares this tendency with the actual increase of man in such countries as China and Japan. He observes that it may fairly be doubted whether the best directed efforts of human industry could double the agricultural produce of China even once, in any number of years. The difference between the time of doubling, which has taken place of late in some twenty or thirty years, in North America, and in our Australian colonies, when compared with the slow increase of the Chinese population, gives the most complete view of the case that can be obtained.

In countries which are naturally healthy, and where the preventive check is found to prevail, too, with considerable force, the positive check, as Malthus observes, will prevail very little, and the mortality will be small; but in every country some of the checks are and will always continue to be, in constant operation: so that mankind has only a choice of evils, for we cannot possibly escape from some of the population checks, which are inevitable.