The First Essay, published in 1798, was framed as a response to essayist and utopian William Godwin, who often espoused man’s “perfectibility.” “I have read some of the speculations on the perfectibility of man and of society with great pleasure,” Malthus wrote. “I have been warmed and delighted with the enchanting picture which they hold forth.” But, he concluded, “The power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.”
