Vol. IV • 1981 http://www.creationism.org/csshs/v04n3p18.htm
Historical Sketch: Robert Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)
Ian Taylor
Historical Sketch: Robert Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)
Ian Taylor
During the last one hundred years an enormous number of books have been written about Darwin, and doubtless there will be another flood of publications this centennial year of his death. They all acknowledge that Darwin based his theory upon the combined ideas of men before him. Two names are invariably mentioned, Robert Thomas Malthus and Charles Lyell. A third, Alfred Russel Wallace, is cited as co-discoverer of the theory but then is quickly eclipsed and forgotten by the towering image of Darwin. There are other names of lesser importance. Each contributed part of an idea while succeeding names built upon them until the synergist Darwin brought it all together. The contributions of Lyell and Wallace are fairly well known among creationists, but interestingly that of Malthus is hardly ever mentioned. Nevertheless his one work, for which he finds a place in history, was highly influential to both Darwin and Wallace.
Robert Malthus was born the sixth child of seven in 1766 in England. His only distinguishing features would seem to be that he was born with a hare lip and cleft palate, although this was alleged not to have seriously impaired his speech or social life. After graduating with a degree in mathematics from Jesus College, Cambridge, he entered the Anglican church and became ordained a few years later. He was an academic by inclination and returned to Cambridge University for the next ten years When almost forty he was married then appointed professor of modern history and political economy at Haileybury College where he spent a quiet life lecturing and writing until he died in 1834.
Following the French revolution in 1789 a number of early socialists began to advocate the type of government they thought would lead to Utopia. Among them was Condorcet who said that the happy human state would result from all men being given equal opportunity. Malthus wrote a rebuttal in 1798 entitled "Essay on the principle of Population" in which he pointed out that a Utopia of this sort would be self-defeating since with the approach of ideal conditions the resulting idleness would lead to an unbridled birthrate such that the burden of population would soon outstrip the food supply. He expressed himself in the famous principle:
"Population. when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio."
Malthus suggested that the population was increasing every twenty-five years at the geometrical rate of 1, 2,4, 8,16, 32,64, 128, 256... while the food supply was increasing during the same time at the arithmetic rate of 1,2, 3,4,5,6, 7,8, 9.. The population in his example is seen to double every 25 years while the food supply, expressed in say, tons of wheat or acres of cultivated land, increases by only a uniform increment each generation. Malthus pointed out that in three centuries the ratio of population to food supply would be 4,096 to 13. The figures rivet the attention ano the spectre of starving humanity standing cheek by jowl on every available square foot of dry land becomes imminent.
It was evident to Malthus that there must be factors limiting population growth and he suggested in his first (1798) edition of the "Essay" that it was subsistence itself which limits the population by what he called "misery and vice." The picture he proposed was that the population level was always pressing against the food supply. Misery in the form of famine, plague, etc. was nature's way of providing the limitation. Vice, on the other hand, was man's contribution to limiting the population. As examples of human vice Maithus included contraception, infanticide, and warfare. One of the ironies of modern times is that the term "Malthusian" has become a euphemism among advocates of birth control and there is even a device on the British market named after Malthus. He would surely turn in his grave! Maithus himself rather loosely suggested abstinence by later marriage as the solution to the population problem.
The "Essay" was severely criticised for its depressing view and the fact that Malthus saw man as a bestial brute whose passions were only kept in check by misery. In short, he had not credited man with any measure of dignity. He collected more data and published a second expanded version of the "Essay" in 1803 in which he introduced two other factors: "preventive check" and "positive check." The former limited the birth rate and the latter enhanced the death rate by shortening or removing lives. By "preventive check" Malthus did not mean contraception but moral or self restraint. However, this factor had the effect of vitiating the very principle with which he first set out because it now stood as a buffer between men and misery. Man no longer seemed the brute beast that Malthus had earlier claimed. In spite of the contradiction, the brute image of man still remained steadfast in his mind. This is evident from some of his recommendations which appeared in subsequent editions of the "Essay":
"Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations. But above all, we should reprobate (strongly condemn) specific remedies for ravaging diseases; and those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders."
This somewhat bourgeois approach to social problems might be unexpected today coming from an ordained Anglican minister, but sadly in nineteenth century England it was not so unusual. There were a few objections from more orthodox Christians. However, the principal reason no action was taken upon Malthus' recommendations to limit population was simply that the factories needed a vast supply of cheap labour.
Charles Darwin read the "Essay" containing the recommendation in 1838 and comments in his notebook:
I happened to read for amusement Maithus on Population, and being prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence . . . it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones destroyed. The result would be the formation of a new species."
Alfred Russel Wallace also read the "Essay" and drew the same conclusion in 1858. Recent investigations raise the possibility that in fact it was Wallace's original revelation and upon receipt of a letter from Wallace in 1858, Darwin merely claimed to have thought of it earlier. In any event, it is seen that the "Essay" forms a vital part of the theory of evolution.
Malthus has been eulogized as "the father of social science" and has a great following. It has also been argued that his principle is "as sure as the multiplication table." Who then would find objection to it? The following objections have been pointed out by a number of authors, including Karl Marx. Because they touch at the very roots of Darwin's theory, however, it is somehow considered unethical, even heresy, to mention them. Frequent objections include the following:
The final irony in all this Malthusian pseudo-science is that Malthus intended to show that human society could never progress upward to perfection whereas Darwin took this same principle to show that by evolution not only human society but all living things have always progressed upward becoming more perfect. The lesson in all this is that Darwin and others who reject both God and the promise of his providence and intervention have found in the Malthus principle a terrifying spectre of tragedy and despair that has driven them into unspeakable ethical and absurd scientific propositions. This in spite of the obvious weaknesses and deficiencies in Malthus argument.
Barges unloading supplies at dock of medieval European town.
(15th century woodcut)
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