36 
Tuxrspay, May 18th. 
Dr. Tyson, V.P. took the chair, and the followmg fg was read 
by the Secretary on 
THE THEORY OF MALTHUS IN ITS RELATION 
TO DARWINISM. 
It is not my intention this evening to traverse again any of the 
ground over which on two former occasions “during the present 
session we have been taken in connection with the Darwinian ex- 
planation of development. Irather wish to bring before you one 
or two difficulties—they seem to me to be fallacies—in the reason- 
ing of some of the Darwinites, which have lately forced themselves 
on my notice. It may be that I shall provoke someone to respond, 
and perhaps to show that these said difficulties or fallacies exist only 
in my own imagination. If so I shall be glad. 
And let me say at starting that I accept and teach development 
and its Darwinian explanation as an excellent working hypothesis, 
whichprobably is (but still possibly not) a true one. I do so just as 
I accept and teach the existence of that stupendous marvel, the 
ether in connection with light and heat. I may do so in each case 
without being compelled to repeat a credo with respect to either. 
In the present condition of our knowledge we cannot do without 
both. In what I have to advance I shall by no means be alluding 
exclusively to the arguments of Mr. Darwin himself, but in the 
majority of instances to those who tread in his steps, and, lacking 
the trained powers of his mind, try to make his footprints deeper 
by unfair means. 
The title of my paper is “The Malthusian Theory in its relation 
to Darwinism.” It must be understood that Darwin had been led 
to take up development long before he had read the theory of 
Malthus, and that therefore his ideas do not absolutely depend upon 
it, and may be correct regardless of its truth or falsity. But he 
tells us himself that it threw a light upon some of his difficulties, 
and guided him on by a path which led him out of them. But 
most of his followers lay the foundations of the struggle for exist- 
ence and of natural selection, to a very great extent, if not wholly 
upon Malthusianism, Grant Allen, in his life of Darwin, goes so 
far as to say “it is quite conceivable that without the ‘Essay on 
the Principle of Population,’ we should never have had the ‘ Origin 
of Species,’ or the ‘‘ Descent of Man.’ Darwin himself, however, 
asserts—and this is important in reference to what I shall have to 
say presently—that the struggle for existence ‘‘is the doctrine of 
Malthus, applied with manifold force to the animal and vegetable 
kingdoms.” 
What then is the docuiing to which development owes so much ? 
