Malthus and Population Control

Thomas Robert Malthus wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population, which argued for population control in 18th century Europe. He believed that the growing population would sooner or later be checked by famine or disease, which was in contrast to the popular view that Europe was a place that was very much improving. I find his theory very interesting because I do agree that when a population becomes too much for the land to handle, there will be some kind of natural event that will control it. If there too many people in one area then, I think, there is bound to be some kind of famine or disease that sweeps across the area. In addition to this, I think that if famine and disease started spreading in one area then some people would begin to move to other areas, and that would also be a form of population control. Although I agree with Malthus’ ideas of a population check, I do not agree that it was something that would have been happening in 18th century Europe, rather I am looking at it from a modern standpoint. The population of Europe in the 18th century is definitely not even close to the population that it is sustaining now, and I think that sooner or later there will have to be some kind of check to control said population. I do not think there was a problem with the population in the 18th century because, at that time, there was still hundreds of acres of land that was not being used up, unlike today where development is happening in almost every corner of the world.