think, be taken as the counterpart of "living soul" in the other. I find it difficult to attach any clear meaning to the phrase, "the long geological period." On this point he will, I hope, pardon me for again referring to my previous paper, to which the present one is professedly supplementary. It is important not to overlook the fact, that the second of the two accounts of creation is but the first "Act" of the drama, which runs on from chapter ii, 4, to chapter iv, 24.* There is internal evidence of this. In all our studies of these old Scriptures we must learn to "think orientally," if we are to get away from the bondage of what the late Sir Gabriel Stokes, F.R.S. (a former President of the Victoria Institute), used to call " a slavish literalism." (See further on this point correspondence in the Guardian in the autumn of 1907, on "Genesis and Science.")

Colonel Turton refers to his book, The Truth of Christianity, which I procured and read with much pleasure on its appearance. Though the science of it is weak in places, the book as a whole is a valuable addition to the literature of Christian Apologetics. Unfortunately he, like some others, has not been at the pains to make a real study of my paper before criticizing it; and so he has misunderstood that part with which he deals in his quasicriticism, consisting of little more than quotations from his own book. If the Colonel would do me the favour of making a careful logical analysis of Section II (B) of my paper, he will see that the notion of the atmosphere constituting the "expanse" is one which is entirely ruled out by the argument adopted. That argument is based upon what the inspired writer actually says, and not in any way upon what others have read into it. The word " expanse means an indefinite portion of extended space, and cannot possibly mean a material substance, such as the atmosphere of this planet undoubtedly is. If the gallant Colonel doubts that, it must be because he has forgotten the laboratory-teaching of his Woolwich days, which must have familiarized him with the air-pump and its applications. My conception of the "expanse" is that of interplanetary space, on the assumption of the nucleate inception of the planets, as separate centres of condensation in the nebula; and it

* See further Driver, Op. cit., page 35 ff.
Mackinlay in his book, The Magi, etc.

was for the express object of demonstrating this, that the Greenwich photographs of the "spiral nebula " were thrown upon the screen. I regret that my enforced absence from the meeting on March 21st prevented me from emphasizing this at the time. The difficulty raised as to the winged creatures (v. 20) flying "above the earth in the open firmament of heaven" is more apparent than real; as we see at once if we follow the literal Hebrew (and we can hold the author responsible for naught else), which says "on the face of the expanse of the heaven" (margin), as they of course appear to do to a spectator on the surface of the earth.

As to the points 2 and 3 of Colonel Turton's criticism, I am unable to follow him, nor do I see that they have any very cogent bearing upon the point under discussion.

506TH ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING.

MONDAY, APRIL 4TH, 1910.

LIEUT.-COL. G. MACKINLAY IN THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the preceding Meeting were read and confirmed.

The following election was announced :

Associate Colonel H. G. MacGregor, C.B.

The following paper was then read by the Author :

A

DARWINISM AND MALTHUS.

By the Rev. JAMES WHITE, M.A.

MONG the many centenaries that marked the year 1909, none have equalled either in interest or importance that of Darwin. His discovery of the laws of evolution and survival of the fittest, explaining the origin of species and the development of life's various forms, has been the most important and wide reaching since Newton established the law of gravitation. And although we cannot be sure that the principles discovered and elaborated by Darwin and by Wallace, are as far-reaching throughout the material universe, as the law that matter attracts matter directly as the mass, and inversely as the square of the distance, yet the idea of evolution, development, and the struggle in life, have affected more fields of thought, and have more varied applications, than that great law which governs only the relations of inanimate matter. Our ideas on morals, religion, social relations, in almost everything that concerns human life, have been influenced, and frequently very largely modified by the principles for whose discovery and exposition we are indebted to Darwin and to Wallace; and their application to animal life have not only been illuminating but transforming.

These

No apology is needed for coupling the two names. two great men have acknowledged their obligations to each other with that noble chivalry which has so often distinguished men of science. The pursuit of knowledge, the love of truth for its own sake, have done more than make us acquainted with the material world. In them also are learned some of the highest moral qualities, pre-eminently justice and generosity. Other names have been mentioned as having in some degree anticipated the discoveries of Darwin and Wallace, but they have done so only to a very limited extent. No one has been more often mentioned and referred to in this connection, in the numerous lectures, magazine articles, and essays, that have been called forth by the centenary of Darwin than Lamarck and yet his contribution has been very insignificant. The only credit that can be claimed for Lamarck, is that he believed in the possibility of the transformation and progress of species: but he did nothing to explain how this was accomplished. The principal cause he suggested for such transformation and development was a "formative nisus," but of this no trace has been found in nature, nor has it in any way helped forward the theory of evolution. This explanation was derived not from observation but from imagination. It is true that the habit of the bottle-nosed whale, of laying his nose upon a rock when sunning himself, has been quoted as indicating an aspiration for terrestrial existence. This suggestion has at least the merit, rare in scientific work, of being amusing.

One name which has been very seldom mentioned, and would seem to be almost of purpose ignored, is that which stands at the head of this article, namely, that of Malthus. His "Essay on Population" was really the living seed from which all that is implied in the word Darwinism has sprung. Falling on the fertile minds of Darwin and of Wallace, there it germinated and produced a rich and noble harvest. It was Malthus's "Essay on Population" that gave them both the clue to unravel the difficulties of the Origin of Species. The now familiar ideas of the struggle for existence, survival of the fittest, natural selection, evolution and development, and all that they imply are engermed in the thought of the Pressure of Population on the means of Subsistence, of which Malthus's essay is an expansion though in a very different direction. To anyone acquainted with that book, and the writings of Darwin and Wallace, the connection is very obvious. It has been very fully acknowledged by these distinguished philosophers themselves. In his Origin of Species, Darwin states in the

introduction" the struggle for existence, is the doctrine of Malthus applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdom" (4th ed., p. 4). In the life of Charles Darwin, published in 1887, we have the following:

"I soon perceived that selection was the keynote of man's success in making useful races of animals and plants. But how selection could be applied to organisms living in a state of Nature remained for some time a mystery to me.

"In October, 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long continued observations of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of a new species. Here then at last I had got a theory by which to work."

From this it is obvious that the theory of Darwin with all its varied and far extending applications was the fruit in Darwin's mind of Malthus's principle. All that wide extending harvest, which is briefly summed up in the word Darwinism; a harvest yet far from fully reaped, has sprung from the living seed of this principle. Malthus observed the pressure of population on the means of subsistence. Darwin took up this observation and applied it in ways which its author never contemplated, and probably could never have applied it. Other causes no doubt contributed to the production of Darwin's Origin of Species: other influences brought their aid to fertilize that mind of almost unrivalled powers of observation and induction which has been the chief agent in this great development of thought, and for this is due to Darwin far beyond all others the gratitude of mankind. But the living seed is Malthus's observation of the pressure of population on the means of subsistence.

Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace in his very interesting and valuable autobiography, has most fully acknowledged his indebtedness to Malthus. Writing of his 21st year he records on p. 222, vol. i, as follows:

"But perhaps the most important book I read was Malthus's Principles of Population, which I greatly admired for its masterly summary of the facts and logical induction of its conclusions. It was the first work I had yet read treating of any of the problems of