Malthus
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Malthus. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
mal thus, Thomas Robert (1766-1834), a political economist of England. He was educated for the church, but led the life of a college professor. Malthus is known for his famous Essay on the Principles of Population, published in 1798. In this work he set forth what is known as the Malthusian Doctrine, to the effect that the population of the world has a tendency to increase much faster than the food supply, resulting in crowded centers of population and consequent misery. He took a very serious view of the situation and urged upon parents the propriety of raising small families, a doctrine directly opposite to that of President Roosevelt and others with greater confidence in the future of civilization. According to Malthus, population increases geometrically as 3, 9, 27, 81, 243, etc., while the means of support increase arithmetically as in the series 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, etc. This doctrine leaves out of account both the influence of scientific inventions upon the food supply and a probable tendency in dense populations to decrease the birth rate .
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
THOMAS ROBERT, an English political economist; born in Al- 14, 1766. He bury, Surrey, England, Feb. Professor of was appointed about 1805, Economy in the col- History and Political Company at lege of the East India to hold that Haileybury, and continued His best known situation till his death. work, the "Essay on the Principle of Population," first appeared in 1798. It passed was subsequently enlarged, and through many editions. The Malthusian system is founded on the hypothesis that population increases in a geometrical, in an while provisions on only increase ratio. He died in Bath arithmetical Dec. 29, 1834.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's Encyclopedia in 1910 already spotted the two things Malthus left out "scientific inventions upon the food supply" and the tendency of dense populations to have fewer children and both objections have since been vindicated on a scale neither writer imagined. World population has risen from roughly 1.7 billion in 1910 to about 8 billion, yet food output rose faster still, on the back of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser (the Haber-Bosch process, industrialised from 1913) and the high-yield wheat and rice of the Green Revolution associated with Norman Borlaug, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. Meanwhile birth rates have collapsed across most of the world, and the anxiety in rich countries today is more often about ageing and shrinking populations than about the "crowded centers" Malthus feared. Malthus himself is read more, not less: Darwin credited the Essay as a spur to natural selection, and "Malthusian" remains live shorthand in debates over climate, water and resource limits, revived by works such as Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb (1968).
Written for this edition, 2026.