Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
THE
Life and Writings
OF
THOMAS R. MALTHUS
CONTENTS
PREFACE.
Since 1877, when the Lord Chief Justice of England in his charge tothe jury pronounced the discovery of Malthus to be an irrefragabletruth, a vast amount of literature has appeared upon the populationquestion. The conclusion come to by many of the most recent writershas been in accord with that pithy expression of John Stuart Mill,where he says: “Every one has a right to live. We will suppose thisgranted. But no one has a right to bring children into life to be supportedby other people. Whoever means to stand upon the first ofthese rights must renounce all pretension to the last.” Mr. CotterMorison, a distinguished writer, says, in his work entitled The Serviceof Man: “The criminality of producing children whom one has noreasonable probability of being able to keep, must in time be seen in itstrue light, as one of the most unsocial and selfish proceedings of whicha man nowadays is capable. If only the devastating torrent of childrencould be arrested for a few years, it would bring untold relief.” SirWilliam Windeyer, of New South Wales, in a judgment delivered in1888, concerning a Malthusian work, says: “It is idle to preach to themasses the necessity of deferred marriage and of a celibate life duringthe heyday of passion.... To use and