Quiz: An Essay on the Principle of Population

All 33 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. How much does Malthus say is collected annually for the poor in England?

   About half a million Nearly three millions Nearly ten millions Eighteen shillings for every labourer
2. 2. What is Malthus’s objection to Adam Smith’s treatment of the funds for the maintenance of labour?

   Not every rise of revenue or stock adds to them, only what can become provisions Smith wrongly followed the French economists in calling all manufacturing labour unproductive Smith underestimated how fast population grows where land is plentiful, as in America Smith ignored foreign trade, which alone can feed a growing manufacturing people
3. 3. What fanciful transformation does Malthus use to mock unsupported conjectures?

   Man growing wings like an angel Man learning to live without sleep Man living underwater like a fish Man becoming an ostrich
4. 4. Which truth does Malthus say cannot be communicated by argument to someone who has scarcely felt it?

   The benefits of free trade The immortality of the soul and the reality of a future state The geometrical rate at which unchecked population increases The superiority of intellectual pleasures to those of sense
5. 5. Whose tables of births, burials and marriages does Malthus extract in Chapter 7?

   Condorcet’s, from his Sketch Süssmilch’s, as given by Dr. Price Gregory King’s, as given by David Hume Adam Smith’s, from the Wealth of Nations
6. 6. What is the first palliative Malthus proposes for the distresses of the poor?

   A minimum wage of five shillings a day for labourers Total abolition of all the present parish laws A tax on the land of the rich Free emigration to the American colonies
7. 7. With whose assertions does Malthus compare a conjecture that has no foundation in past observation?

   Mr. Wallace Dr. Price Archdeacon Paley The Prophet Mr. Brothers
8. 8. What rate of increase does Malthus take as his rule for unchecked population?

   Doubling every fifteen years, as in China Doubling every twenty-five years, as in America Tripling every fifty years, as in ancient Greece Doubling every century, as in England
9. 9. What does Malthus predict if China opened itself to foreign trade and manufactures for export?

   Its poor would live in great plenty, as the new manufactures raised their wages It would import enough rice from abroad to put an end to scarcity among its poor It would grow richer while the condition of its poor stayed the same or worsened Its population would double within a generation, fed by the profits of export
10. 10. What is one principal reason, according to Malthus, why the oscillation has not been more noticed?

    Our histories are histories only of the higher classes The oscillation happens too quickly for historians to record it Governments conceal population figures It occurs only in countries without written records
11. 11. What does Malthus call “the great error” of Godwin’s whole work?

    Ascribing nearly all vice and misery to human institutions Defending the institution of marriage Overestimating how much more food the soil of England could yield Ignoring the role of foreign trade
12. 12. What does Malthus consider a greater evil than hard labour?

    Luxury Emigration Idleness Dependence on the rich
13. 13. How fast did the back settlements of North America double their population, according to Chapter 6?

    In 35 years In 50 years In 25 years In 15 years
14. 14. What clause of Pitt’s Poor Bill does Malthus criticise in Chapter 7?

    A tax on bachelors A shilling a week per child above three Fixed prices for bread in times of scarcity Compulsory emigration of paupers to Canada
15. 15. How does Malthus describe famine at the end of Chapter 7?

    As the last and most dreadful resource of nature As impossible in civilised countries As the first and mildest of the checks As a punishment sent only on idle nations
16. 16. In Malthus’s florist metaphor, what has “burst the calyx of humanity”?

    The rapid spread of manufactures and machinery in England The American War of Independence and its republican ideas The English poor laws The forcing manure used in the French Revolution
17. 17. What are Malthus’s two postulata?

    Land is limited, and labour is the source of value Population doubles every generation, while food never increases at all Food is necessary, and sexual passion will remain nearly as it is Men are equal by nature, and property is sacred
18. 18. How does Malthus propose to view the world and this life, instead of as a state of trial?

    As an illusion of the senses As a mighty process for creating and forming mind As a machine that runs on without any divine involvement As a punishment for original sin
19. 19. What illustration does Malthus use for the “real perfectibility” of man?

    A farmer breeding sheep A florist improving carnations A sculptor refining a statue A watchmaker perfecting a mechanism
20. 20. On what point does Malthus differ from Condorcet’s picture of the oscillation between good and evil?

    When it applies: it has always existed, not just in a remote future Whether emigration could remove it Whether it would affect the rich Whether such an oscillation could ever occur at all in a perfected society
21. 21. How long does Malthus think Godwin’s system of equality would survive if established in its utmost perfection?

    Myriads of centuries Not thirty years Until the earth’s waste lands were all cultivated About a century
22. 22. What example does Malthus use to show that improvement by breeding has a limit?

    Dogs will never be bred to speak Wheat, however richly manured, will never grow as tall as an oak Racehorses, however carefully bred, will never outrun the wind itself Bred sheep will never have a head and legs as small as a rat’s
23. 23. In Malthus’s illustration for Britain, how many people would be left unprovided for at the end of the first century?

    Thirty-five millions Seventy-seven millions One hundred and twelve millions Seven millions
24. 24. On what point does Malthus dissent from Hume in Chapter 4?

    Whether the plague had left London Whether the poor laws raise the price of provisions for the labourer Whether many unmarried servants show a thin or a full population Whether China is more populous than Europe
25. 25. Why, according to Malthus, is Godwin’s avaricious man different from Adam Smith’s frugal man?

    He invests only in land He locks up his wealth and sets no labour in motion He lends all his money abroad at high rates of interest He spends his whole income on luxuries and fine living
26. 26. What scientific analogy does Malthus use for the effect of bodily propensities on human decisions?

    Disturbing forces, like the sun’s pull on the moon’s orbit Chemical affinity, which draws one element to combine with another The expansion of steam in an engine The circulation of the blood
27. 27. Whose work does Malthus say turned his vague opinion about population and food into conviction?

    Godwin’s Enquiry Concerning Political Justice Adam Smith’s Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations Dr. Price’s two volumes of Observations Condorcet’s Sketch
28. 28. According to the Essay’s final paragraph, why does evil exist in the world?

    To keep the poor submissive To create activity, not despair To prove that God does not intervene in nature To punish the vicious eternally
29. 29. What does Malthus give as the true cause of the barbarian migrations against China, Persia, Italy and Egypt?

    The ambition and love of glory of chiefs such as Alaric and Attila The decline of Roman military discipline Religious zeal for conquest and conversion Population outgrowing its food
30. 30. What evidence does Malthus give against Godwin’s conjecture that the passion between the sexes will die out?

    Medical proof that intellect strengthens the passion Census data showing rising birth rates in Europe No move towards it has occurred in five or six thousand years The example of celibate religious orders
31. 31. Which two “fundamental laws of society” does Malthus’s imagined community re-establish under the pressure of want?

    A poor law and a national church Universal suffrage and a standing army to defend the community Free trade and the abolition of rent Property and marriage
32. 32. What personal experience does Malthus cite to argue that the mind only diverts attention from bodily pain rather than curing it?

    A toothache he had while writing A fever he suffered at Cambridge Seasickness on a voyage to Norway A broken arm from a riding accident
33. 33. According to the preface, how did the Essay begin?

    As a report on the poor rates for Parliament As a prize essay for Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1797 In a talk with a friend about an essay by Godwin As a sermon preached at Okewood chapel