CHAMBERS'S 



ENCYCLOPAEDIA 



A DICTIONARY OF UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE 



altcbrnn, KONRAD (properly 

 MALTHE CONRAD BRUUN), 

 geographer, bom 12tli August 

 1775, at Thisted, in Jutland, 

 studied in Copenhagen, hut was 

 banished in 1800 because of his 

 having openly shown his sym- 

 pathy with the French Revo- 

 lution. He nought refuge in 

 Paris, where he supported himself by teaching 

 and literary labours. With Mentelle and Herbin 

 he compiled a Gtographie Mnf/ifiiintique da Monde 

 (16 vols. 1803-7); and in 1808 he began Annales 

 de Voyages, de In Geof/raphie, ft de VHistoire (24 

 vols.), in 1818 \ounelles Annales. His principal 

 work is a Preci* de la Gtoyrapkie Universelle (8 

 vols. 1810-29; latest cd. 6 vols. 1872). He also 

 contributed to the /</< //-,;/ ///re de la Geographic 

 I iiii-eneUe (8 vols 1821 ), and took an active part 

 in bunding tin- < '> "graphical Society of Paris. 

 He died 14th December 1H-2<1. His son, VICTOR 

 AlxiM'iiK Mu.TKDiU'N (1816-89), was proff.-sur 

 of History and Geography at the college of Pamiers 

 and snlwequently at Paris (1848-60); and from 

 1860 onwards he was secretary of the Geographical 

 Soeii-ty of Paris. He was the author of numerous 

 Mffiaphie*] works, as La France fllustrt (new e,l. 

 l"<7!i Ht), L'Allemayne Illuntre (1884-86), Hisloire 

 '/'<//(/////'///. e,t Htstorique de I'Allemaqne (1866- 

 ),*, 



Maltese Cross. See CROSS. 



I>O!. a small kind of spaniel, with 

 i imu/le, and long, silky, generally white 

 hair. It is (it only for a lapdog. 



Yin I th us. THOMAS ROBERT, the expounder of 

 the theory of population, was born 17th February 

 1766, at the Rookery, near Dorking, in Surrey, 

 where his father owned a small estate. He wan 

 ninth wrangler at Cambridge in 1788, was elected 

 Fellow of bis college r.Iens). took orders, and 

 was appointed to a parish in his native county. 

 In 1798 lie brought out liis Exxmi rm the Principle 

 313 



. 



of Population, which attracted great attention 

 rind met with no little criticism. During the 

 following years Malthus extended his .knowledge 

 of the subject both by travel and by reading, and 

 in 1803 published a greatly enlarged edition of 

 his essay. In 1804 he married happily, and next 

 year was appointed professor of Political Economy 

 and Modern History in the East India Company 

 college at Haileybury, a post which he occupied 

 till his death at Bath on 2d December 1834. 



Personally Malthus was a kindly and accom- 

 plished man, who followed what he believed to be 

 the truth, and who endured without a complaint 

 the abuse and misunderstanding to which his 

 writings exposed him. The aim of the Essay was 

 to supply a reasoned corrective to the theories 

 regarding the perfectibility of society, which had 

 been diffused by Rousseau and his school, and 

 which had been advocated in England by Godwin. 

 Malthus maintained that such optimistic hopes 

 are rendered baseless by the natural tendency of 

 population to increase faster than the means of 

 sutisistence. He pointed out that both in the 

 animal and vegetable kingdoms life was so prolific 

 that if allowed free room to multiply it would fill 

 millions of worlds in the course of a few thousand 

 years. The only limit to its increase is the want 

 of room and food. With regard to man, the 

 question is complicated by the fact that the instinct 

 of propagation is controlled by reason ; 4>ut even in 

 his case the ultimate check to population is the 

 want of food, only it seldom operates directly, but 

 takes a variety of forms in accordance with the 

 complexity of human society. The more im- 

 mediate, checks are either preventive or positive. 

 The former appear as moral restraint or vice. The 

 positive checks are exceedingly various, including 

 'all unwholesome occupations, severe labour and 

 exposure to the seasons, extreme poverty, bad 

 nursing of children, large towns, excesses of all 

 kinds, the whole train of common diseases and 

 epidemics, w 

 goes 



ra c 



ojague, and famine.' Malthua 

 ~ f; n of his principle by 





