196 Eminent Living Geologists — G. Poulett Scrope. 



tersely summed tip than we find it in the concluding sentences of 

 the Eeview Article of 1835, of which we can only afford space for 

 one paragraph. " The idea of progressive development does not (as 

 Mr. Lyell seems to think) involve any doubt as to the pennanence 

 of the laws of nature. The theory, for example, of the gradual re- 

 frigeration of the globe does not suppose any deviation from the 

 existing laws of heat, light, or gravity. No one disputes the con- 

 stancy of these. Mr. Lyell's real theory is that there has been no 

 progressive variation in the intensity of the forces which operate on 

 the earth's crust, but that a cyclical succession of such changes, of 

 equal amount in equal periods, has been going on through all time, 

 so far as geology enables us to explore its abysses. The fact may be 

 so. We do not affirm the contrary in any positive spirit. But Mr. 

 Lyell must be content to join issue with his opponents on the point, 

 under the disadvantage of all analogy being against him; from 

 which, as we have shown, it is presumable, a priori, that the series 

 of geological mutations to which the earth is subject, is a pro- 

 gressive, not a stationary or recurring series — that our planet, like 

 every individual form within it, is subject to the law of integration 

 and disintegration ; has had a beginning, and will have an end." 



At this period (1830) Mr. Poulett Scrope had for some years 

 settled down in the ancient family seat of the Scropes of Wiltshire 

 (Castle Combe), and, acting as a magistrate, had been strongly 

 impressed by the pauperized condition of the agricultural labourer. 

 Hence he was led more and more to neglect Geology for the more 

 practical subjects of Political or Social Economy. In this line of 

 thought, a long series of pamphlets, reviews, and other contri- 

 butions to the periodical literature of the day, were published by 

 him — bearing especially upon the necessity of a Eevision of the 

 English Poor Law, and its extension in an improved form to Ireland 

 and Scotland; on Banking, the Currency, etc. His brother, Mr. 

 Poulett Thomson (afterwards created Lord Sydenham), had been for 

 some years in Parliament, and to Mr. Scrope, the passing of the 

 Eeform Bill in 1832, of which he had been long a zealous advocate, 

 afforded an opening for a similar position, which would enable him 

 to further his long entertained economical opinions in the Legislature. 

 In 1833 he was elected one of the members for the Borough of 

 Stroud, one of the newly formed Constituencies, lying at no great 

 distance from his Wiltshire residence, and for this Borough he con- 

 tinued to sit in Parliament up to his retirement in the year 1868, a 

 period of 35 years. We do not attempt to follow his public career, 

 but may mention that in 1835 he published a small volume on 

 Political Economy — the leading object of which was, in his own 

 words, to show that " so long as the cultivated portion of the earth's 

 surface bears as now but a fractional proportion to its cultivable 

 area, any permanent want of si;bsistence felt by man can arise only 

 through his own wilful neglect of the means placed at his disposal 

 by Providence — in opposition to the narrow Malthusian doctrine 

 which teaches the necessity of artificial restraint on the increase of 

 population within the limits of each state, as the only means of 



