The most of Thomas Malthus that many of us ever hear is in
connection with Charles Darwin’s formulation of his Evolutionary
Theory. Malthus believed that populations double over time,
while food and materials increase only arithmetically. This in
turn creates shortages in food and goods, leading to famine and
war, so the thinking went. Darwin picked up on this and
postulated that a Malthusian system created competition between
members of the species, and that only those with unique traits,
or differences, would be able to best compete for those
resources if the environment favored those traits; what would
come to be known as Survival of the Fittest. Less well known is
what Malthus postulated, using his calculus. In An Essay on the
Principle of Population, Malthus writes: “All children born,
beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a
desired level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for
them by the deaths of grown persons. . . . Therefore . . . we
should facilitate, instead of fooli