ndertake the part of a deliverer; nor does this seem too hard a task
for you, the Magnificent Lorenzo of the illustrious house of Medici. The
cause is just; we have before us unexampled proofs of Divine favour.
Everything has concurred to promote your greatness. What remains to be
done must be done by you, for God will not do everything Himself.

T.R. MALTHUS

On the Principle of Population

Thomas Robert Malthus was born near Dorking, Surrey, England, Feb.
17, 1766, and after passing through the University of Cambridge was
ordained, and travelled on the Continent. His great work, "An Essay
on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement
of Society," was first published Anonymously in 1798, and five
years later it appeared, under the title of "An Essay on the
Principle of Population, or a View of its Past and Present Effect
on Human Happiness, with an Enquiry into our Prospects Respecting
the Future Removal or Mitigation of the Evils which it Occasions,"
under the author's name. Malthus is one of the most persistently
misrepresented of great thinkers, his central doctrine being
nothing less moral than that young men should postpone marriage
until they have the means of supporting a family. It is of the
first interest in the history of thought that the reading of this
great essay of Malthus should have independently suggested, first
to Charles Darwin, and later to Alfred Russel Wallace, the idea of
natural selection as a necessary consequence of that struggle for
life so splendidly demonstrated by Malthus in the case of mankind.
It is to be wondered that Malthus, having provided himself with the
key to the great problem of organic evolution, should have left its
use to others. One explanation is, doubtless, that his survey was
not comparative, covering the whole range of life, but was
practically confined to one living form. Malthus died on December
23, 1834.

_I.--General Survey of the Checks to Population_

Since population is capable of doubling itself at least once in every
twenty-five years, and since the supply of food can increase in only
arithmetical ratio, it follows that increase of population must always
be checked by lack of food. But, except in cases of famine, this check
is never operative, and the chief checks to increase of population are
moral restraint,