In his Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), the English theologian and economist Thomas Robert Malthus asserted that the human population naturally grew more quickly than did the production of the resources necessary for its sustenance. He therefore introduced a pessimistic turn in the debate on human progress (Humankind, human being), founding a paradigm shift in thinking on the theory and politics of population (see below, 2.) [10]; [11]. Malthus’ …