An Index to Malthus's 'Essay on the Principle of Population', 1798

Abstract

The first edition (1798) of T. R. Malthus, 'An Essay on the Principle of Population', appears never to have received adequate indexation, either by Malthus himself or in re-publications. The index presented here attempts to rectify this omission, and in doing so to draw attention to aspects of the 1798 Essay that are sometimes overlooked in the secondary literature, or have not always received the attention they deserve. Fourteen topics have been selected from the index for comment, as a contribution to a more detailed analysis of the 1798 Essay, and in response to Malthus's complaint that many who express a horror of it have never read it. The fourteen selected topics are: the distribution of property; social classes; combinations amongst the rich and the poor; prudential and moral restraint; institutionalist or individualist; the doctrine of proportions; the role of manufactures; the theology of the Essay of 1798; an evolutionary theology; Malthus's world-view; sex, love and marriage; women; causation and causes; and metaphors.