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Thomas Robert Malthus
(13 Feb 1766 - 23 Dec 1834)
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Thomas Robert Malthus
“Population…increases in a geometrical ratio”
Illustrated Quote - Medium (500 x 250 px)
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When Thomas Malthus first published his famous essay in 1798, the book carried the title An Essay on the Principle of Population: As it Affect the Future Improvement of Society with Remarks On the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers. It had nineteen chapters.
Chapter I began with Malthus stating the question he wanted address in his essay. The quote above is found toward the end of the chapter. The quote gives his most well-known point: that a matching increase in necessary food supply will at some point not be able to keep up with continuing population growth.
After stating that as a mathematical certainty, Malthus expands its implications, as follows:
“Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second.
By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.
This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere; and must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind.”
- Science Quotes by Thomas Robert Malthus.
- 13 Feb - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Malthus's birth.
- Thomas Robert Malthus - context of quote “Famine … the most dreadful resource of nature.” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Thomas Robert Malthus - context of quote “Famine … the most dreadful resource of nature.” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Thomas Robert Malthus - context of quote “Food is necessary to…existence ” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Thomas Robert Malthus - context of quote “Food is necessary to…existence ” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Thomas Robert Malthus - context of quote “Population…increases in a geometrical ratio” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Thomas Robert Malthus - context of quote “Nature has scattered the seeds of life” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Thomas Robert Malthus - context of quote “Nature has scattered the seeds of life” - Large image (800 x 400 px)
- Thomas Robert Malthus - context of quote “The prodigious waste of human life” - Medium image (500 x 250 px)
- Thomas Robert Malthus - context of quote “The prodigious waste of human life” - Large image (800 x 400 px)