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Intro -- Thomas Robert Malthus -- Preface -- CONTENTS -- CHAPTER I -- Question stated 7 -- Little prospect of a determination of it 8 -- Principal argument against the perfectibility of man 9 -- Nature of the difficulty arising from population 10 -- Outline of the principal argument of the essay 11 -- CHAPTER II -- Different ratios in which population and food increase 13 -- Necessary effects of these different ratios 14 -- Oscillation produced by them in the lower classes 16 -- Reasons why oscillation not much observed 17 -- Three propositions 18 -- Different states in which mankind exists 19 -- CHAPTER III -- Savage or hunter state shortly reviewed 20 -- Shepherd state 21 -- Superiority of the power of population to the means of subsistence 22 -- Cause of the great tide of Northern Emigration 23 -- CHAPTER IV -- State of civilised nations 25 -- Probability that Europe is much more populous now 25 -- Probable error of Hume 26 -- Slow increase of population at present in Europe 27 -- Two principal checks to population 28 -- First, or preventive check examined with regard to England 28 -- CHAPTER V -- Second check to population examined, in England 31 -- Why the immense sum collected in England for the poor does not better their condition 32 -- Powerful tendency of the poor laws to defeat their own purpose 34 -- Palliative of the distresses of the poor proposed 38 -- Impossibility that the pressure of want can ever be completely removed 40 -- All the checks to population may be resolved into misery or vice 40 -- CHAPTER VI -- New colonies 41 -- Reasons of their rapid increase 41 -- North American Colonies 42 -- Extraordinary instance of increase in the back settlements 42 -- Rapidity with which even old states recover 44 -- CHAPTER VII -- Probable cause of epidemics 45 -- Extracts from Mr. Susmilch's tables 45.

Malthus is most famous as the inventor of a simple equation between population and food supply. In this treatise Malthus states the arguments for and against the protection of agriculture, holding the balance between the two opinions, but hinting that the political dependence caused by free trade was a serious evil, and that agriculture was more important than manufacture

'To proceed to the point: I am most strongly inclined to suspect, that the attempt in most parts of the kingdom to increase the parish allowances in proportion to the price of corn, combined with the riches of the country, which have enabled it to proceed as far as it has done in this attempt, is, comparatively speaking, the sole cause, which has occasioned the price of provisions in this country to rise so much higher than the degree of scarcity would seem to warrant, so much higher than it would do in any other country where this cause did not operate.'

Malthus published a variety of pamphlets and tracts on economics in which he approached the problem of what determines price. In this pamphlet, published in 1815, he states 'It may be laid down then as a general truth, that rents naturally rise as the difference between the price of produce and the cost of the instruments of production increases'