Refers to the theory of Thomas Malthus, an eighteenth century British clergyman and professor of political economy, whose Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) developed the theory that the world's population tended to grow faster than its food supply. If the population continued to increase, there would be mass starvation. Malthus thought that famine, poverty, and war were natural checks against population growth and should not be alleviated by misguided compassion. Malthus also advocated restraint on the size of families. Although Malthus was proved incorrect as far as Western industrial society is concerned, the dramatic world population growth in the twentieth century, and the fact that some Third World nations cannot feed their rising populations, has led to a renewed interest in Malthusian theories in some circles.