36 



Tuesday, May 18th. 

 Dr. Tyson, V.P. took the chair, and the follownig paper 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. I rather 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 

 ethe7' 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 doctrine to which development owes so much ? 



