Malthus, Thomas Robert

Malthus, Thomas Robert (1776–1834), became curate of Albury in Surrey in 1798. In that year, provoked by Godwin's Political Justice (1793), he published An Essay on the Principle of Population, in which he argued that population (growing geometrically) would soon increase beyond the means of subsistence (which grew only arithmetically), and that checks in the form of poverty, disease, and starvation were necessary. After collecting further information from northern Europe, he recast the Essay in a second edition of 1803; modifying his conclusions, Malthus suggested that the regulation of greed and sexual activity would act as more acceptable checks on population growth. His work was attacked by Godwin, Cobbett, and Hazlitt but it exerted a powerful influence on social thought in the 19th cent. C. Darwin declared in his Life that Malthus's Essay helped to point him towards his own theory of evolution.