HISTOEICAL 27 



He calculated that the numbers of mankind must increase in 

 a geometrical ratio unless hindered by checks. Obviously it has 

 not done so chiefly because, owing to absence of sufficient food, 

 large numbers are always being removed by various agencies 

 which he enumerates as plagues, famines, wars, floods, and 

 inundations. 1 Sir William Petty deals with the geometrical ratio 

 at some length. He drew up an elaborate table which, assuming 

 four thousand years to have passed since the flood, shows how an 

 estimated world population of 320,000,000 could have been 

 arrived at. 2 The ratios, however, never played a very prominent 

 part in the discussion until after the publication of Malthus's 

 book. They reappear now and again, as for instance in a book by 

 Saxe. 3 



7._Majtlms_puM He was, born in 



1.766 at the ' Eookery ', a country house of some size near Dorking. 

 In 1784 he went up to Cambridge. In early days he had shown 

 signs of ability and at the university fulfilled this promise ; he 

 gained some prizes and was placed as ninth wrangler in the 

 mathematical tripos of 1788. In 1793 he was elected fellow of 

 his college, but only resided occasionally. In 1798 he was curate 

 at Albury, close to his birthplace ; in 1799 he travelled through 

 Sweden, Norway, and Eussia, to collect information for his 

 second edition ; in 1802, owing to the Peace of Amiens, he was 

 enabled to travel through Switzerland and France. The second 

 edition appeared in 1803. It was virtually a new book. The four 

 succeeding editions that were published in his lifetime were mainly 

 reprints of this edition with some new matter added. In 1804 he 

 married, and in 1805 became Professor oUHistory and Political 

 Economy at Haileybury College, which post he held until his 

 death in 1834. 4 " 



1 Hale, Primitive Origination of Mankind, ch. viii, section 2. 2 Petty, 



Essay concerning the Increase of Mankind, p. 21. 



3 See Stangeland, loc. cit., p. 230. There are two valuable and important 

 books which appeared in the eighteenth century dealing with population. They 

 do not lend themselves to quotation, but deserve mention here. Benjamin Franklin, 

 in his Observations concerning the. Increase of Mankind and the Peopling of Countries, 

 pointed out the differences in the marriage-rate as between Europe and the more 

 recently colonized countries and analysed the causes. It is interesting to note 

 that he was led to a more or less clear recognition of the presence of the struggle 

 for existence among all living organisms (p. 21). The second book referred to 

 above is Adam Ferguson's Essay on the History of Civil Society. The name of 

 Ortes should perhaps be mentioned. His book Riflessioni sulla Popolazione, 

 published in 1792, anticipated Malthus in almost every respect and yet aroused 

 practically no attention. 



4 According to Leslie Stephen's article in the Dictionary of National Biography, 



