Why did Malthus believe that catastrophic events like famines and epidemics that cause mass deaths were inevitable?
Thomas Robert Malthus believed that catastrophic events like famines and epidemics were inevitable because of the fundamental imbalance between population growth and food production.
Malthus argued that human populations tend to grow at a much faster rate than the means of human subsistence. While population rises in geometric progression (i.e., like 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.), agricultural production can only grow in arithmetic progression (i.e., like 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, etc.). This means that population growth will always outstrip the growth in production of subsistence resources.
According to Malthus, humanity has only a limited ability to voluntarily reduce population growth through 'preventive checks' such as postponing marriage, practicing sexual abstinence, or celibacy. Since these measures are insufficient, nature must intervene to restore balance.
Therefore, Malthus believed that 'positive checks' in the form of famines and diseases were inevitable. As he described, when vices fail as "ministers of depopulation," then epidemics, pestilence, and plague sweep off thousands, and ultimately "gigantic inevitable famine" levels the population with the food supply. These catastrophic events were nature's way of dealing with the imbalance between food supply and increasing population.
Explanation
The answer draws directly from Malthus's theory as presented in the NCERT textbook. Key concepts include the geometric vs arithmetic progression argument, the inadequacy of preventive checks, and the inevitability of positive checks. The quote from Malthus's original work reinforces the idea that famines and epidemics follow a sequence of natural checks on population.