191-'-] BALCH— SOME FORMER MEMBERS. 601 



are his identical words) among mankind.-*' Studying his subject 

 further, he found that Plato and Aristotle had grasped the same fact 

 that the human race tends to increase more rapidly than the means 

 of nourishment. Of such publicists, as Witherspoon, for example, 

 a number, as we have seen, were members of the American Philo- 

 sophical Society. 



Thus as we look at the roll of this truly historic society, the 

 oldest society of learning in the New World, we see that its member- 

 ship has been recruited year by year with original workers seeking 

 after truth in all branches of Knowledge, whether in the Republic of 

 Letters, the Exact Sciences or the Mechanical and the Fine Arts, so 

 as to keep the American Philosophical Society truly representative 

 of all learning. 



^ T. R. Malthus, " An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects 

 the future Improvement of Society, with remarks on the speculations of Mr. 

 Godwin, M. Condorcet, and other writers," London, 1798, page 48. 



