"Malthus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to Harvey is none the less because many before his time had worked on the problem of the heart and vessels, and because some of them, notably Cesalpinus, came within a very little of the discovery of the circulation; the achievements of Darwin are not to be belittled because Lamarck, Malthus or Monboddo had notions in accordance with the tenor of his great generalization of evolution among living beings. Certainly Jenner had precursors; but it was his genius and his genius alone which, putting together the various fragments of knowledge already possessed, gave us the grand but simple ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... of economic science? Within certain limits, it is apparently true: Ricardo used mathematical formulae, though he kept to arithmetic, instead of algebra. When Malthus spoke of arithmetical and geometrical ratios, the statement, true or false, was, of course, capable of precise numerical expression, so soon as the ratios were assigned. So there was the famous formula proving a relation between the number ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... (high and low, rich and poor, we counted seventy-three of them in Troy) seemed to like him none the less because he lost no occasion, public or private, of commending wedlock. For the doctrine of Mr. Malthus (recently promoted to a Professorship at the East India College) he had a robust contempt. He openly regretted that, owing to the negligence of our forefathers, the outbreak of war found Great Britain with but fifteen million inhabitants to match against twenty-five million Frenchmen. They ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... now devoted his time were chiefly of the kind ordinarily rated as job work. He prepared an abridgement of Abraham Tucker's Light of Nature, compiled the Eloquence of the British Senate, wrote a reply to Malthus's Essay on Population, and even composed an elementary English Grammar. It would be a mistake to suppose that these labors were performed according to a system of mechanical routine. Hazlitt impressed something of his personality on whatever ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... expounded by Condorcet and Godwin, encountered a drastic criticism from Malthus, whose Essay on the Principle of Population appeared in its first form anonymously in 1798. Condorcet had foreseen an objection which might be raised as fatal to the realisation of his future state. ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... existence? Is it not, economically viewed, the principle of Dr. Franklin's smoke-consuming pipe applied to the infinitely more important sphere of human existence? The festive table, to which, according to the great Malthus, Nature declines inviting a large portion of every well-peopled country, will never be known by the happy Fijian Say or Senior, so long as wise conservatism shall not change its old and sacred laws, and shall allow Nature to invite one happy portion as guests, and another happy portion as savory ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... because the shafts had been taken out), of the good nature of the peasants that had treated him to vodka, of the dogs who lay at the feet of their respective masters, Oblonsky began telling them of a delightful shooting party at Malthus's, where he had stayed the ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... throws aside for ever, were here treasured to be the guides of a lifetime. Certain writers of the last century, long ago become only historically interesting, were for Richard an armoury whence he girded himself for the battles of the day; cheap reprints or translations of Malthus, of Robert Owen, of Volney's 'Ruins,' of Thomas Paine, of sundry works of Voltaire, ranked upon his shelves. Moreover, there was a large collection of pamphlets, titled wonderfully and of yet more remarkable contents, the authoritative utterances ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... addition to these works G. brought out an elaborate Life of Chaucer in 2 vols. (1803), An Essay on Sepulchres (1808), containing much fine thought finely expressed, A History of the Commonwealth, an Essay against the theories of Malthus (q.v.), and his last work, Lives of the Necromancers. For some time he engaged in the publishing business, in which, however, he ultimately proved unsuccessful. In his later years he had the office of Yeoman Usher of the Exchequer conferred upon him. G. entered ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... us to pay this tax; sometimes those who themselves have no claim on us. But, be it one class or the other, how little they may consider what they demand! Upon what a neglect or misappreciation of values the proceed! Verily we need a new Political Economy written, deeper than that of Malthus or Smith, to inform them. Our precious time, our cordial regards, the diversion of our mind from our regular duties, the neglect of already engrossing relations in our business or profession, the surrender of body and soul, they require for the prey of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines. Malthus believed in artificially limiting population, but found that it could not be done by talking. One of the most practical exponents of the Malthusian idea was Herod of Judea, though all the famous soldiers have been of the ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... of a family always has been, is, and must ever be, attended with cares and troubles, which must infallibly produce, at times, feelings to be combated and overcome by nothing short of that ardent affection which first brought the parties together. So that, talk as long as Parson MALTHUS likes about 'moral restraint;' and report as long as the Committees of Parliament please about preventing 'premature and improvident marriages' amongst the labouring classes, the passion that they would restrain, while it is necessary ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... name typifies the New England need, and Tyler, whose witty yet sympathetic estimate of the early Puritans is yet to be surpassed, writes: "It hardly needs to be mentioned after this, that the conditions of life there were not at all those for which Malthus subsequently invented his theory of inhospitality to infants. Population was sparce; work was plentiful; food was plentiful; and the arrival in the household of a new child was not the arrival of a new appetite among a brood of children already half-fed—it was rather the arrival ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... are represented by Dugald Stewart and Sir James Mackintosh; mathematical and physical science by Sir David Brewster, Sir John Leslie, Playfair, and Robinson; political economy by Ricardo, M'Culloch, and Malthus; natural history by James Wilson and Dr. Fleming; Hazlitt and Haydon discourse on painting and the fine arts; Jeffrey on the beautiful; Sir Walter Scott on chivalry, the drama, and romance; the classical pen of Dr. Irvine has illustrated what ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... Malthus does not, so far as I can ascertain, face the question. James Mill alone, among the earlier nineteenth century economists, definitely excludes labourers' consumptive goods from capital. (Principles of Political Economy, chap. ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on, from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... incredible, but if true, they are susceptible of easy verification. Yet the thoughtful mind will hesitate about accepting them without the fullest proof, for they spring upon the world a social problem of stupendous importance. The dangers apprehended by Mr. Malthus and his followers become remote and commonplace by the side of ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... happened to regard the opinions of Malthus on Population as equally contrary to religion and nature, and not at all founded in truth. "It is evident, that the reproductive principle in the earth and vegetables, and all things and animals which constitute the means of subsistence, is much more vigorous than in man. It may ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... dawned, and in its early days began a struggle which, ending in victory all along the line, brought with it pain and anguish that I scarcely care to recall. An American physician, Dr. Charles Knowlton, convinced of the truth of the teaching of the Rev. Mr. Malthus, and seeing that that teaching had either no practical value or tended to the great increase of prostitution, unless married people were taught to limit their families within their means of livelihood—wrote a pamphlet on the voluntary limitation of the family. It was published somewhere ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... not of a man who has killed people, but of a man who sits down and conscientiously tries to imagine what it is like to kill people. It is essentially the same kind of ferocity in imaginative fiction as the ferocity of Nietzsche in lyrical philosophy or of Malthus in speculative politics. When Mr Kipling talks of men carved in battle to the nasty noise of beef-cutting upon the block, or of men falling over like the rattle of fire-irons in the fender and the ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... Bentham, no writer of this period influenced educated opinion so powerfully as Malthus, whose Essay on Population, first published anonymously in 1798, attracted comparatively little attention until 1803, when it was republished in a maturer form. No work has ever been more persistently misrepresented. While he shows that population, if unchecked, will surely increase ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... unparalleled achievements of Sir Henry Morgan ... very much corrected from the errors of the original, by the relations of some English gentlemen, that then resided in those parts. Den Engelseman is een Duyvil voor een Mensch. London, printed for Thomas Malthus at the Sun in ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... thing which is hardly conceivable—it seems hardly imaginable—yet it is so. It is indeed simply the law of Malthus exemplified. Mr. Malthus was a clergyman, who worked out this subject most minutely and truthfully some years ago; he showed quite clearly,—and although he was much abused for his conclusions at the time, they have never yet been disproved and never ...
— The Conditions Of Existence As Affecting The Perpetuation Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley
... &c.; and essays by Mr. Phillips, Horace Greeley, and other Protectionists, will probably constitute another. The Collection now embraces Quesnay, Turgot, Dupont Nemours, Le Tronne, the Says, Galliani, de Montyon, Condillac, Lavoisier, Adam Smith, Hume, Ricardo, Malthus, Bentham, and a dozen more. The only American name in the list is that of Franklin quoted in the first volume of the Melanges, edited by ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... Clarkson, Moore, Hallam, Landor, Scott, Roscoe, Wellington,[1] Wordsworth, Malthus, Robert Hall, Rogers, Ricardo, Taylor, Campbell, Mill, Romilly, Joanna Baillie, Chalmers, Edgeworth, Southey, Coleridge, Hannah More, Gifford, Heber, Dalton, Jeffrey, Bentham, Davy, Sydney Smith, Brown, Wollaston, Brougham, Mackintosh, The Herschels, ...
— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey
... population was not sufficient, and recourse was had to the purchase of slaves, which was made even in the provinces of the East subject to the Romans. It is, moreover, known that slavery is a state little favorable to population. (See Hume's Essay, and Malthus on population, i. 334.—G.) The testimony of Appian (B.C. l. i. c. 7) is decisive in favor of the rapid multiplication of the agricultural slaves; it is confirmed by the numbers engaged in the servile wars. Compare also Blair, p. 119; likewise ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... is value? Monsieur Say, the most sparkling of them all, assures us that the English writers are obscure, by their confounding, like Smith, the denomination of labour. The vivacious Gaul cries out to the grave Briton, Mr. Malthus, "If I consent to employ your word labour, you must understand me," so and so! Mr. Malthus says, "Commodities are not exchanged for commodities only; they are also exchanged for labour;" and when the hypochondriac Englishman, with dismay, foresees "the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... angrily, "have been known to do that on a derelict ship. There was a man named Malthus who said we humans would some day do the same thing. But we haven't. We've take over a galaxy. If we ever crowd this, there are more galaxies for us to colonize, forever! But there have been cases of rats and rabbits multiplying past endurance. Here ...
— The Hate Disease • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... lost sight of a view of the world which filled with deep-seated melancholy the founders of our Political Economy. Before the eighteenth century mankind entertained no false hopes. To lay the illusions which grew popular at that age's latter end, Malthus disclosed a Devil. For half a century all serious economical writings held that Devil in clear prospect. For the next half century he was chained up and out of sight. Now perhaps we ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... the attack to rally the escort, and to show a front to the enemy, whereby the possibility of aiding those who had failed to make good their retreat might have been ascertained.—Signed by General MARSHALL; Colonel MALTHUS, 94th Regiment; Major ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... that this man is either trying to deceive you, or has the most pitiable ignorance in the science of political economy; for, as I said, there is not a single economist of the Liberal school worthy of mention who denies it—Adam Smith as well as Say, Ricardo as well as Malthus, Bastiat as well as John Stuart Mill, are unanimous in recognizing it. There is an agreement on this point among all men of science. And if he who talks to you about the condition of workingmen has recognized this law, then ask further: How does ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... the breeding of plants. The longer he worked the more confident he became of the reality of the change; but for a long time no glimmer of the cause by which it could be brought about came to his mind. In 1838 he came across a book by Malthus called "An Essay on Population," in which the author shows that, whereas man increases by a geometric ratio, he cannot hope to increase his food supply in more than an arithmetic ratio. That is, ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... by screaming himself hoarse in trying to convince his audience that the abundant supply of wheat was an irrefutable proof that the problem of over-population did not exist; that the doctrine of Malthus was not only false, but criminal, socially as well ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... weeks' sojourn in New York City, but it brought forth a real surprise yesterday in the person of Prof. Joseph French Johnson of New York University, who disclosed himself as a disciple of the late Thomas Robert Malthus, proponent of the theory that there can never be a happy society because population tends to increase at a much faster rate than the old earth, working overtime, can provide food, raiment, ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... all civilization was about to go down with a crash, that we were all about to share the fall of third-and fourth-century Rome—a respectable, but painfully overworked, comparison. The fears once expressed by the followers of Malthus as to the future of the world have proved groundless as regards the civilized portion of the world; it is strange indeed to look back at Carlyle's prophecies of some seventy years ago, and then think of the teeming life of achievement, the life of ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... the doctrine of Malthus, which, as will be remembered, so much impressed Charles Darwin, and led him in part to work out his ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... Hall, Stafford House, etc., but merely that the founder of the family lived under the shadow of greatness. In compounds -house is generally treated as in "workus," e.g. Bacchus (Chapter VIII), Bellows, Brewis, Duffus (dove), Kirkus, Loftus, Malthus, Windus (wynd, Chapter XIII). In connection with Woodhouse it must be remembered that this name was given to the man who played the part of a "wild man of the woods" in processions and festivities. William Power, skinner, called "Wodehous," ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... can be accepted as feasible, we must examine whether the physical conditions of production impose an unalterable veto, or whether they are capable of being sufficiently modified by science and organization. Two connected doctrines must be considered in examining this question: First, Malthus' doctrine of population; and second, the vaguer, but very prevalent, view that any surplus above the bare necessaries of life can only be produced if most men work long hours at monotonous or painful tasks, leaving little leisure for a civilized existence or rational enjoyment. ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... that farm-rent has its source in the power possessed by land of producing more than is necessary to supply the wants of the men who cultivate it. I would ask Malthus why successful labor should entitle the idle to ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... as another illustration Malthus's doctrine of population. This illustration is all the better for the fact that his actual doctrine is now known to be largely erroneous. It is not his conclusions that are valuable, but the temper and method of his inquiry. As everyone ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... commerce. In the opinion, however, of an old sub-matron of the Enfans Trouvees (who looked over my shoulder while sketching, and whom, by way of something to say, I ignorantly complimented on her fine family of grandchildren), there is nothing, or, according to Malthus, much to complain of in the former respect. "Ah, Monsieur, que voulez vous? ce sont les militaires, ils vont par ci, ils vont par la, et puis—voila des enfans, et ou ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... continued Lebedeff, not deigning to notice the interruption. "Malthus was a friend of humanity, but, with ill-founded moral principles, the friend of humanity is the devourer of humanity, without mentioning his pride; for, touch the vanity of one of these numberless philanthropists, and to avenge his self-esteem, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... is cursed? Look behind the phenomenon, and you will find the cause; and the finding will make you shudder. And if only those shudder who are free from stain, the shuddering will be scarcely audible. Onan and Malthus as household gods are worse ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... another writer, who signs himself T. S., undertook to complete Bunyan's Allegory for him, in a book in size and type closely resembling it, and entitled The Second Part of the Pilgrim's Progress . . . exactly Described under the Similitude of a Dream. It was printed for Jho. Malthus at the Sun in the Poultry, and published in 1683. So far as is known, only one copy of this book is now in existence, the copy which was formerly in the library of the poet Southey and now in that ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... is sometimes convenient to use the term "Neo-Malthusianism" to indicate the voluntary limitation of the family, but it must always be remembered that Malthus would not have approved of Neo-Malthusianism, and that Neo-Malthusian practices have nothing to do with the theory of Malthus. They would not be affected could that theory be ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... falling off in the neighbouring provinces of France. The worthy intendant thought the people sadly wanting in 'intelligence, activity, and practical sense,' and seems indeed, like a Malthusian before Malthus, half-inclined to attribute the phenomena of increase and multiplication in Artois to these defects. It would surprise him, I fancy, to look on the people and the land of Artois to-day. The land has become one of the most fertile and prosperous regions of France; the people, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... then, accept for Russia the Malthus doctrine that population increases more rapidly than the means of subsistence, and that starvation can be avoided only by plague, pestilence, war, and other destructive forces? I think not. It is quite true that, if ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Gerardin, De la Composition des Paysages, 12mo. 1783, to which he prefixed a preface, being, chiefly, remarks on what the gardens of the Greeks and Romans were; a view of Rosseau's tomb is prefixed. Mr. Malthus justly observes, that this Essay "is full of the most insinuating eloquence, that it is wrote by the friend of Rousseau, and from scenes which realize some of its most beautiful descriptions." He further observes, that "trifling as this enquiry will appear in itself, it may ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... need for appearing happier than I really was, I developed a knack for saying things in an amusing, sometimes an epigrammatic, way. I recall one remark made long before I could possibly have heard of Malthus or have understood his theory regarding birth rate and food supply. Ours being a large family of limited means and, among the five boys of the family, unlimited appetites, we often used the cheaper, though equally nutritious, cuts of meat. On one occasion when the steak was tougher than usual, I ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... to admire than even the world has seen since, he will win a true heart if he contrive to keep her affections. Those who have accidentally risen are, in general, the least inclined to stoop; and if she do not number suitors with Miss Burdett Coutts or Queen Victoria herself, Malthus or Martineau, one, or both of them, must answer for it. Meanwhile with Grace Darling we have no quarrel; and if her modesty only outlive the honours heaped upon her, we shall be the first to acknowledge that her courage has ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... great and peculiar obstacles, only to be removed by a better general education extended to the mass of the people. It is desirable that the community should be indoctrinated with sound views of property, and with the dependence of wealth, upon the true principle of population, discovered by Malthus, all which ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... ushered into the world for combining ancient prejudices with modern time-serving, it is by a Member of the University. Thus we get at a stated supply of the annual Defences of the Sinking Fund, Thoughts on the Evils of Education, Treatises on Predestination, and Eulogies on Mr. Malthus, all from the same source, and through the same vent. If they came from any other quarter nobody would look at them; but they have an Imprimatur from dulness and authority: we know that there is no offence in them; and they are stuck ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... and appreciation of the master's genius has ever been written. In his philosophical work Coleridge introduced the idealistic philosophy of Germany into England. He set himself in line with Berkeley, and squarely against Bentham, Malthus, Mill, and all the materialistic tendencies which were and still are the bane of English philosophy. The Aids to Reflection is Coleridge's most profound work, but is more interesting to the student of religion and philosophy than to ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... is grounded upon the doctrine of Malthus and the doctrine of Hobbes. The elder DeCandolle had conceived the idea of the struggle for existence, and, in a passage which would have delighted the cynical philosopher of Malmesbury, had declared that ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... pupils James Mill is the ablest, Cobbett, a vigorous and idiomatic writer of English, in the course of his long life advocated all varieties of political principle. In political science we have the accurate McCulloch; Malthus, known through his Theory of Population; and Ricardo, the most original thinker in science since ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... my life and the crown with my brothers? Is not that the destiny, almost of all the sons of Hindustan?'[6] Now that they have become pensioners of the British Government, the members increase like white ants; and, as Malthus has it, 'press so hard against their means of subsistence' that a great many of them are absolutely starving, in spite of the enormous pension the head of the family receives ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... cousin or stray relative happened to be ill— or about to move into a new house, or be married, or increase the population in defiance of Malthus, or depart from the pomps and vanities of this wicked world—as sure as possible would Miss Pimpernell be sent for post haste. She had, as a matter of course, to nurse the patient, assist the flitting, accelerate the wedding, welcome the little stranger, ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... on "The Increase of Population," Edmund Burke intimated his sympathy with Malthus, and among other interesting data made note that Susanna Wesley was the twenty-fourth child of her parents. Burke, however, neglected to state how many sisters and brothers Susanna had who were younger than herself, and also what would have been the result on church ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... the Beagle; he collected facts, 1837-42; drew up a sketch, 1842; enlarged it in 1844; previous speculations on the subject; views of Erasmus Darwin, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, and Lamarck; Darwin's opinion of Lamarck; influence of Lyell; influence of South American experience; reads Malthus on Population; "Vestiges of Creation "; Mr. Herbert Spencer and evolution; Lyell's letters; Sir Joseph Hooker on species; Mr. A. R. Wallace communicates his views to Darwin; Lyell and Hooker persuade Darwin to publish his views together with those of Wallace; introductory letter by Lyell ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany |
