The population ideas of William Godwin (1756–1836) were the immediate stimuli which set Malthus at work. In 1793, Godwin’s _Enquiry Concerning Justice_ was published. Godwin elaborated several radical social ideas of the French Physiocratic philosophers. He declared that human misery is caused by coercive institutions. Government, he asserted, is an evil and should be abolished. He urged also the abolition of strict marriage relations, although he personally acquiesced in the custom and in his last days he commended marriage. He thought that no social group should be larger than a parish, and that there should be an equal distribution of property. Godwin thus carried the doctrine of natural rights to the verge of anarchy and licentiousness. His ideas furnished a basis for the nineteenth century experiments in communism. But what is more important, Godwin’s ideas regarding the reconstruction of society stimulated Thomas Malthus, who developed what is commonly known as the Malthusian doctrine of population. In 1798, under an assumed name, Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) offered to the world the first carefully collected and elaborated body of data, dealing with what he called _the_ social problem, namely: What is the underlying cause of human unhappiness? This study may be counted, in a sense, the beginning of modern sociological study. Early in life Malthus showed an interest in social questions. Godwin’s ideas had centered Malthus’ attention on population. Malthus’ well-known treatise entitled, _An Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society_, undertook two important tasks: (1) To investigate the causes that have impeded the progress of mankind toward happiness, and (2) to examine probabilities of a total or partial removal of these causes.[XII-3] Among both plants and animals there is a constant tendency to reproduce numerically beyond the subsistence level. Wherever there is liberty, this power of increase blindly asserts itself. Afterwards, a lack of nourishment and of room represses the superabundant numbers.[XII-4] It appears, therefore, that the ultimate check to population is lack of food, due to the fact that population increases faster than food supply. Nature, in other words, sets a harsher law over the increase of subsistence than she does over the birth rate. Man fails to take cognizance of this law and brings untold misery upon himself. The lower economic classes are the chief victims, and the giants of poverty and pauperism rule over whole sections of human population. Malthus considers the question of population the fundamental social problem.