Thomas Robert Malthus, an English political economist, born at Albury, Surrey, in 1766, died in Bath, Dec. 29, 1834. I lis lather was a gentleman of fortune, interested in classical and philosophical studies, and so intimate a friend of Rousseau that he was appointed one of his executors; and David Hume was likewise among his friends. In 1784 he was admitted to Jesus college, Cambridge, and became one of the first classical scholars. He received his master's degree and a fellowship in 1767, entered holy orders, and divided his time between the care of a small parish in Surrey and his studies in Cambridge. In 1798 he put lished anonymously the first edition of his work on population, which was subsequently much enlarged and modified. The title of the sixth and last revision (1826) is: "An Essay on the Principle of Population, or a View of its past and present Effects on Human Happiness, with an Inquiry into our Prospects respecting the future Removal or Mitigation of the Evils which it casions." His object at first was to refute the theories of Condorcet and Godwin on human perfectibility and political optimism, by showing the necessary sufferings of the poor from the tendency of population to increase faster than the means of subsistence.

The condition of the poor became the prominent feature of the subsequent editions. In 1799 he visited Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia, collecting facts and documents in illustration of his subject; and during the interval of peace in 1802 he explored France and Switzerland. He married in 1805, and was appointed professor of history and political economy in the Hast India coll. at Ilailevhurv, which post he held till his death. His other principal writings are: "Otaenjr tionson the Effects of the Corn Laws (3d ed., 1815) " An Inquiry into the Nature and I roof Rent "(1815); " Principles of Political nomv" (1S20); and "Definitions in Polities Economy" (1827). - His reputation rests almost exclusively upon the views advanced in his work on population. He held that population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio, while fond can be made to increase at furthest only in an arithmetical ratio. Powerful checks on population must be constantly in action, which may be resolved into vice, misorv, and moral or prudential restraint.