73 



MALPIQHI, MARCELLUS. 



MALTHUS, REV. THOMAS ROBERT. 



without doubt the best of the commentators on Shakspere. He in, 

 compared with his predecessors, more trustworthy in his assertions, 

 more cautious in his opinions, and more careful to interpret what he 

 found in the text than to substitute his own conjectures. But he 

 belonged to an age when the merits of Shakspere were not properly 

 appreciated; and he is, like the rest of his brethren, cold and captious. 

 He was of a critical school which, to a great extent, is fortunately 

 extinct. 



MALPIGHI, MARCELLUS, was born near Bologna in 1628. He 

 studied medicine in that university, and in 1653 received his doctor's 

 degree. His chief instructor in anatomy was Massari, at whose house 

 he tells us that he and a few other select students were accustomed to 

 meet in private to dissect and discuss the important discoveries of the 

 day. In 1056 he was appointed professor of medicine at Bologna, hut 

 soon after resigned on being invited to a similar office in the University 

 of Pisa. Here he formed an intimate acquaintance with Borelli, the 

 professor of mathematics in the same institution, to whom he often 

 expresses his gratitude for the kindness and instruction which he 

 received from him, though he doubtless repaid no small part of his 

 obligations in the assistance which he gave to the valuable treatise 

 1 De Motu Anirnalium.' Declining health obliged Malpighi to return 

 to Bologna, but in 1666 he went to Messioa, where he held the pro- 

 fessorship of medicine for four years. He then again resided near 

 Bologna till 1691, when he was summoned to Rome, and appointed 

 chief physician and chamberlain to Innocent XII. In 1691 he died of 

 apoplexy. 



Malpighi is now chiefly remembered in connection with bis dis- 

 coveries in the anatomy of the skin and of the secreting glands. He 

 first described clearly the structure of the tongue, showing that it io 

 at once a muscular and a sensitive organ ; and he pointed out the fine 

 papillae on its surface as the seat of sensation. Imagining that he 

 could perceive a structure in the skin analogous to that of the 

 surface of the tongue, he examined the former tissue in several 

 animals, and at length succeeded in demonstrating that it is every- 

 where beset with delicate conical papilla;, the chief organ* of the 

 touch. In the coloured portion of the tongue of the ox he had first 

 discovered the rete mncosum, or, as it is often called in his honour, 

 rete Malpighii; and he afterwards showed a similar membrane on the 

 skin of the negro. He proved, as Riolan had before done, that the 

 colour of the skin depends on this substance, the cutis of white and 

 of coloured races being always of th same rosy hue. [SKIN, in 

 NATURAL HISTORY DIVISION, vol. iii. col. 832.] 



On the subject of the structure of secreting glands, Malpighi was 

 long engaged in a discussion with Ruysch, maintaining that all glands 

 consisted of ducts terminating in minute sacculi, on which blood- 

 vessels ramified without having any open communication with them ; 

 while Kuysch held that the blood-vessels were continued directly and 

 with open orifices into the ducts of the glands. The point was still 

 debated when M tiller's work, ' De Qlandularum Structural, ' proved that 

 Malpighi, though incorrect in some details, was perfectly correct in 

 the general view which he had taken of this structure. 



Malpighi was the first who examined the circulation with the micro- 

 scope. He published also some excellent observations on the chemical 

 and other characters of the blood ; and hb works on the process of 

 incubation, and on the structure and physiology of plants, though now 

 almost forgotten, must havo been very important additions to the 

 knowledge of his day. 



Several editions were published both of his separate treatises and 

 of his complete works. The titles of the most important are : 

 ' Anatomes Plantarum Idea ;' ' De Bombyce ;' ' De Formatione Pulli 

 inOvo;' 'De Cerebro;' ' De Lingua;' 'De exteruo Tactus Organo;' 

 ' De Omento ;' ' De Structura VUcerum ;' ' De Pulmonibus ;' ' De 

 Structura Glandularum Conglobatarum.' The 'Opera Posthuma' 

 were edited by Petrus Regis of Montpellier ; they consist chiffly of a 

 history of his discoveries and controversies, with which he has inter- 

 woven his own biography. Several of Malpighi's best works were 

 addressed to the Royal Society of London, of which he wag elected 

 an honorary member in 1683, and was afterwards a constant 

 correspondent. 



AIALTHUS, REV. THOMAS ROBERT, was born in 1766, at the 

 Kookery, a small but beautiful estate in the county of Surrey, in the 

 neighbourhood of Guildford and Dorking. His father, Daniel Malthus, 

 was a gentleman of good family and independent fortune, attached to 

 a country life, of retired habits, and devoted to literary and philosophic 

 pursuits. He was the author of several works, published anonymously, 

 which met with considerable success. Thomas Robert Malthus, who 

 was his second son, was never sent to any public school except to the 

 academy at Warrington, and that for a very short time. Besides the 

 instruction which he received from his father, he was for some time 

 under the private tuition of Robert Graves, author of the ' Spiritual 

 Quixote,' whose house however he left when young, and was afterwards 

 instructed by Gilbert Wakefield, with whom he remained till 1784, 

 when he was admitted of Jesus College, Cambridge. He took the 

 degree of B.A. in 1788, and that of M.A. in 1797, when he was made a 

 Fellow of hi college. Having taken orders about the same time, he 

 undertook the care of a small parish in Surrey, near his father's house, 

 but he occasionally resided at Cambridge, in order to pursue his 

 favourite course of study with more advantage. 



Mr. Malthus, about the year 1797, wrote a pamphlet called ' The 

 Crisis,' which however at the request of his father he did not publish. 

 It was directed against the government of Mr. Pitt in general as well as 

 against certain specific measures connected with the poor laws. In 1798 

 he published 'An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects the 

 future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of 

 Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and other Writers.' The book excited 

 considerable attention ; but finding that his facts and illustrations were 

 imperfect, in 1799 he went abroad in search of materials to establish 

 his theory more completely. He sailed for Hamburg in company with 

 three other members of his college, Dr. Edward Clarke, Mr. Cripps, 

 and Mr. Otter. In Sweden the party separated, when Dr. Clarke and 

 Mr. Cripps proceeded to the north, and Mr. Malthus and Mr. Otter 

 journeyed leisurely through Sweden, Norway, Finland, and part of 

 Russia, and then returned to England. During the short peace of 1802 

 Mr. Malthus travelled through France and Switzerland with some of 

 his relations, observing whatever was curious in nature or art, but 

 especially examining into the state of the people, and collecting mate- 

 rials for the improvement of hia work. In 1803 he published a new 

 edition of his 'Essay on the Principle of Population,' with the omission 

 of the controversial parti, but much enlarged in what related to the 

 general subject. A third and fourth edition appeared a few years 

 afterwards. The fifth edition, containing several additional chapters, 

 was published in 1817. The sixth, which contained few alterations, 

 was published in 1826. 



The title of the work as it at present stands is as follows : '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 occa- 

 sions.' The following is a brief summary of its leading principles : 

 Mr. Malthus's propositions are that population, when unchecked, goes 

 | on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geome- 

 trical ratio ; while the means of subsistence, under the most favourable 

 circumstances, could not be made to increase faster than in an arith- 

 j metical ratio. That is, the human species may increase as the numbers 

 ! 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32; while the increase of food would only proceed in the 

 I following ratio, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Thus if all the fertile land of a country 

 is occupied, the yearly increase of produce must depend upon improved 

 I means of cultivation ; and neither science nor capital applied to land 

 could create an increased amount of produce beyond a certain limit. 

 But the increase of population would ever go on with unabated vigour, 

 if food could be obtained, and a population of twenty millions would 

 possess as much the inherent power of doubling itself as a population 

 of twenty thousand. Population however cannot increase beyond the 

 lowest nourishment capable of supporting life; and therefore the diffi- 

 culty of obtaining food forms the primary check on the increase of 

 population, although it does not usually present itself as the immediate 

 check, but operates upon mankind in the various forms of misery or 

 the fear of misery. The immediate check may be either preventive or 

 positive ; the former being such as reason and reflection impose, and 

 the latter consisting of every form by which vice and misery shorten 

 human life. Thus a man may restrain the dictates of nature which 

 direct him to an early attachment for one woman, from the fear of 

 being unable to preserve his children from poverty, or of not having 

 it in hia power to bestow upon them the same advantages of education 

 which he had himself enjoyed. Such a restraint may be practised for 

 a temporary period or through life, and though it is a deduction from 

 the sum of human happiness, the evil is not to be compared in extent 

 with that which results from- the positive checks to population, 

 namely, unwholesome occupations, severe labour, and exposure to the 

 seasons, extreme poverty, bad nursing of children, excesses of all kinds, 

 the whole train of common diseases and epidemics, wars, plagues, and 

 famines. 



The preventive and the positive checks which form the obstacles to 

 the increase of population are resolved into, 1, moral restraint ; 2, vice; 

 and 3, misery. Moral restraint (considered as one of the checks to 

 population for the first time in the second edition, 1803) is the prudential 

 restraint from marriage, with a conduct strictly moral during the 

 period of this restraint. Promiscuous intercourse, unnatural passions, 

 violation of the marriage bed, and improper arts to conceal the conse- 

 quences of irregular connections, are included under the head of Vice, 

 Those positive checks which appear to arise unavoidably from the 

 laws of nature may be called exclusively Misery. Such are the checks 

 which repress the superior power of population, and keep it on a level 

 with the means of subsistence. 



Perhaps no author has been more exposed to vulgar abuse and 

 misconception than was Mr. Malthus on account of tliis work. He was 

 accused of hardness of heart, and represented as the enemy of the 

 poorer classes, whereas no man was more benevolent in his views; and 

 the earnestness with which he engaged in his work ' On Population ' 

 arose from his desire to diminish the evils of poverty to their lowest 

 possible amount. Hia mind was philosophic, practical, and sagacious ; 

 his habits, manners, and tastes, simple and unassuming; his whole 

 character gentle and placid. 



In 1805 Mr. Malthus married Harriet, eldest daughter of Mr. Eckersall, 

 and was soon afterwards appointed Professor of Modern History and 

 Political Economy at the East India College at Haileybury, in Hert- 

 fordshire, which situation he held till his death. He attended to his 



