The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

by Steven Pinker

Two hundred years ago the economist Thomas Malthus (1766–1834) called attention to two enduring features of human nature. One is that “food is necessary for the existence of man.” The other is that “the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in its present state.” He famously deduced: The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetic ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison with the second. Malthus depressingly concluded that an increasing proportion of humanity would starve, and that efforts to aid them would only lead to more misery because the poor would breed children doomed to hunger in their turn.