• History showed that population growth need not be negatively associated with development.

• There can be no natural law of population. All laws pertaining to human society depend on the socio-economic and cultural contexts.

Spengler attempted to make a modification in Malthus theory by suggesting that a growing population can continue to escape deterioration in its average choices if it can orient its tastes away from relatively non-augmentable goods toward highly augmentable goods (Spengler, 1962). He argued that this can solve the problem to some extent in the short run, the changing tastes will constitute an increasingly less effective means to improve a population's situation since substitutability is limited.

Peacock (1952) showed that the Malthusian theory of population as a theory of economic development is general and different patterns of assumptions about the relation between population growth and development can be considered within the Malthusian framework. It is not necessary to accept the Malthusian remedies along with the Malthusian analysis.

Undoubtedly, Malthus has had a very strong influence on thinking about the relationship between population and society for a long time. All family planning programmes in the developing countries are based on a Malthusian understanding of population.