Malthus: The Origins of the Principle of Population?

Abstract

The Essay on the Principle of Population first published in 1798, was said by Malthus to have originated as a response to William Godwin’s essay on ‘Avarice and Profusion’ published in his Enquirer² in 1797. Previously, Godwin had produced his Enquiry Concerning Political Justice in 1793 and both his works predicted a future society in which social and economic inequalities would disappear. Such a utopian vision, achieved by a natural order of progress, was also promoted by Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet in his Esquisse d’un Tableau Historique des Progres de l’Esprit Humain, published in France in 1794 with an English edition appearing the following year, and it has been stated that the speculations in both these latter publications, along with the essay on ‘Avarice and Profusion’, provoked Malthus into writing the First Essay.³

This chapter is an amended and expanded version of that which was given at the International Conference on Historical Demography in Paris 27–29 May 1980, and subsequently published in J. Dupaquier (ed.), Malthus Past and Present (London, 1983) pp.45–59.