Beschreibung:

MALTHUS, Thomas Robert (1766-1834)]. An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects the Future Improvement of Society . London: for J. Johnson 1798. 8 o (203 x 127 mm). Printed on blue tinted paper. (Some very minor foxing on title and minor marginal soiling.) Contemporary sprinkled calf, smooth spine with gilt bands and green morocco lettering piece (rebacked preserving original spine); cloth slipcase. Provenance : Sir Charles Aldis (ca. 1755-1863), surgeon who introduced vaccination in Hertford and founded Cancer hospital, Clifford Street, London (engraved armorial bookplate and his notations on front flyleaf, dated 24 August 1836, discussing the book). VERY RARE FIRST EDITION OF THIS INFLUENTIAL WORK ON POPULATION GROWTH. "The central idea of the essay--and the hub of Malthusian theory--was a simple one. The population of a community, Malthus suggested, increases geometrically, while food supplies increase only arithmetically. If the natural increase in population occurs the food supply becomes insufficient and the size of the population is checked by 'misery'--that is the poorest sections of the community suffer disease and famine. Malthus recognized two other possible checks to population expansion: first 'vice'--that is, homosexuality, prostitution and abortion (all totally unacceptable to Malthus); and second 'moral restraint'--the voluntary limitation of the production of children by the postponement of marriage" (PMM). Malthus's Essay , which began as the outcome of a discussion with his father on the perfectibility of society, was highly influential in the progress of thought in early 19th-century Europe. It exerted a great influence upon socio-economic theorists from Ricardo to Mill to Marx, and inspired Quetelet's and Verhulst's precise statistical studies of population growth. Both Darwin and Wallace acknowledged Malthus as a source of the idea of "the struggle for existence." Garrison-Morton 1693; Kress B.3693; PMM 251; Norman 1431.