Books

Fourth edition. Two volumes. 8vo. xvi, 580; vii, [1, blank], 484, [60, Index] pp. With the half titles. Contemporary sprinkled calf, spines with five single raised bands, second and fifth panels lettered in gilt on brown morocco labels, the rest with decorative gilt stamps, covers with double gilt fillet borders and gilt crest 'Vise a La Fin' with adder of Sir James Home-Spiers of Blackadder, Berwickshire, marbled edges, brown endpapers, silk place markers (tears to U5-6 of Vol. 2 with slight loss of text, faint residue from removal of old bookplates to front pastedowns of both volumes, otherwise generally internally clean; some light wear to extremities, spine label to Vol. 1 slightly chipped, neat contemporary manuscript classmark paper label at foot of spine, still a very pleasing copy). London, J. Johnson. An attractive copy of the fourth edition of this canonical text of classical economics and reference point for all serious discussion of population to this day, being a reprint of the third edition of 1806 with a new Appendix written in response to earlier objections to the author's conclusions. Originally published anonymously in 1798, followed by the extensively revised ?Great Quarto? edition of 1803 and the third edition presented here, being the first to appear in two octavo volumes, both so substantially enlarged, rewritten, and re-titled as to be entirely new works. Malthus's 'Essay was originally the product of a discussion with his father on the perfectibility of society. Malthus senior was a supporter of the utopian views of Godwin and others, but recognised the force of his son's refutation of these views, and urged him to publish. Thus, the first edition was essentially a fighting tract, but later editions were considerably altered and grew bulkier as Malthus defended his views against a host of critics. The Malthusian theory of population came at the right time to harden the existing feeling against the Poor Laws and Malthus was a leading spirit behind the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834' (Printing and the Mind of Man).

The book addresses the relationship between population growth and food supply. Malthus argued that population tends to grow exponentially, while food production increases only arithmetically, meaning that population growth would eventually outpace the ability to produce enough food. He suggested that without checks, such as famine, disease, or war, overpopulation would lead to widespread poverty and suffering. Malthus identified two types of checks on population growth: "positive checks," which raise the death rate (such as famine and disease), and "preventive checks," which reduce the birth rate (such as moral restraint, later marriage, or celibacy). He believed that without preventive measures, human misery was inevitable. Malthus’s work had a lasting influence on economic and demographic theories, and his ideas about population pressure also influenced Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Although some of his predictions were mitigated by technological advances in agriculture, his work remains important in discussions of overpopulation and resource sustainability.