ABSTRACT
Malthusianism has never really worked as a science. Nor does it amount to much as history. But it has always succeeded brilliantly as a prismatic compound of practices in which mathematics, economics, and Christian theology cannot be separated from metaphor, middle-class scare story, sacrifice ritual, and tragedy. It is partly through this inner breadth that Malthusianism has been able to organize so many productive scientific and bureaucratic enterprises and enter common sense through so many doors. Malthus's triumph, and the triumph of his successors, is that of conjoined poet, priest and rationalist. (Lohmann, 2005, p96)
