United States or Rwanda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
West, like Malthus, says that he has to announce a principle overlooked by Adam Smith. This is briefly that 'each equal additional quantity of work bestowed on agriculture yields an actually diminished return. He holds that profits fall as wealth increases, but he denies Adam Smith's view that this is a simple result of increased competition.
For brief reading: MAYO-SMITH, Statistics and Sociology, Chaps. IV-VIII. BAILEY, Modern Social Conditions, Chaps. For more extended reading: BONAR, Malthus and his Work. BOWLEY, Elements of Statistics. MALTHUS, Essay on the Principle of Population. NEWSHOLME, Vital Statistics. In new countries population may increase by immigration as well as by the surplus of births over deaths.
'In a short time, says the benevolent founder, 'there will result from hence an addition of 15,000,000 of inhabitants to the kingdom, and its consumption will be doubled for which service I hope the economists will think themselves obliged to me. Malthus had not then published his principles of population. We must draw breath as we approach the destination of the fifth and last instalment.
Darwin's great achievement was to formulate this law; though it is only fair to add that it was discovered by A.R. Wallace at the same moment. Both of them get the first hint of it from Malthus.
"Was that unfortunate gentleman one of the " He was about to say "victims"; but bethinking himself in time, he substituted "members of the club?" In the same flash of thought, it occurred to him that Mr. Malthus himself had not at all spoken in the tone of one who is in love with death; and he added hurriedly: "But I perceive I am still in the dark.
In many classes of readers the name of Malthus came to be associated for a while with the idea of some strange and cruel doctrine which taught that wars and pestilences and other calamities that have the effect of sweeping redundant populations off the world are really good things in themselves, to be encouraged by beneficent legislation.
Equality might be the goal of both; and both might admit the necessity of change in character as well as in the political framework; only that Malthus would lay more stress upon the evil of legislative changes outrunning or independent of moral change. Here, however, arose the real offence. Malthus had insisted upon the necessity of self-help.
He would 'extinguish every spark of humanity ... towards the children of others' on pretence of preserving the 'ties of parental affection. Malthus tries to argue that the 'iniquity of government' is not the cause of poverty. That belief, he says, has generated discontent and revolution.
He became an idealist and used the idealistic teachings of the German metaphysicians to combat the utilitarian and sense-bound philosophy of Bentham, Malthus, and Mill. We pass by Coleridge's Aids to Reflection , the weightiest of his metaphysical productions, to consider those works which possess a more vital interest for the student of literature.
Later Malthus saw how crude this statement of his theory was and abandoned any attempt at mathematical statement, presenting substantially the following theory: Population is necessarily limited by food; Population always increases where food increases and tends to increase faster than food; The checks that keep population down to food supply may be classified as positive and preventive.
Word Of The Day