This interest in Malthus and the obligations to him of Darwin and Wallace are more than academic. It is of the nature of a moral duty to do justice to a man who has been so ignored and misrepresented. Of all the essays and papers that the centenary of Darwin has drawn out the only one I have seen which refers to Malthus is that of Professor E. B. Poulton, F.R.S., of Oxford; and it is much to be regretted that in the Report of the Committee of Convocation on the diminishing birth-rate, it is implied that he is responsible for theories and practices which he abhorred and which he denounced. But further the teachings of Malthus are of the highest practical importance. When they entered, into the science of biology they produced greater fruits of thought than any or all other principles or discoveries have done. How much more fruitful might they be if applied to the subjects with which they are more directly connected, such as political economy and sociology. It is rather a strange suggestion that the title of the paper should be "How to prevent the increase of population." Except the reference to parental responsibility there is no mention or allusion to any means of checking population either in the paper or in the writings of Malthus himself. The question Malthus discusses is not whether any given country or the world itself could sustain a larger population, but this, that as population tends to increase in a geometrical progression and the supply of food in an arithmetical progression the former must overtake the latter, and a certain amount of misery and degradation must result. Malthus appears to have established the law that the right to live is not inherent, but is either imparted or acquired. The general and popular opinion is that the right to live is inherent, that is, if a man cannot or will not keep himself he has a right to make other people keep him. This is a right that could not be universally, or by a majority, or even by a large minority, exercised simultaneously. After the discussion on Mr. White's paper, the following paper was read by the Secretary in the regrettable absence of the author: THE ABNORMAL CONDITIONS OF WATER; AS EVIDENCE OF DESIGN IN NATURE. By Professor EDWARD HULL, LL.D., F.R.S. (Vice-President). E are every day brought face to face with phenomena of which we are unable to understand the origin and cause, and can only reason on their effects. An instructive and closely reasoned paper was read before the Society recently on the origin of species, but I fear it left us very much in the same position as did Darwin's celebrated essay, dealing with the same subject; in this case, however, the difficulty was to define what was meant by "a species," while Darwin, if I recollect right, assumes the existence of species. The phenomena of nature may be conveniently arranged under two heads; those which are normal, and those which are abnormal, or appear to be so. The former are accepted by us without question, and we have theories to account for them which appear satisfactory when tested by experience. Thus when the apple falls from the tree to the ground, we say it is merely the effect of the law of gravitation by which all movable bodies fall in the direction of the centre of the earth; this is supposed to have suggested to Newton the question which gave rise to the discovery of the great universal law: that all bodies attract each other in proportion to their mass, and inversely as the square of the distance. This seems very simple to us now that it has been demonstrated by the great mathema * By Rev. John Gerard on February 7th, 1910. tician; but those who have dipped, however slightly, into the Principia, will find that the demonstration was not a very simple matter. But it is the abnormal conditions of phenomena that more especially attract attention, and call for explanation, and I propose in the following paper to deal with two conditions of water which appear to be quite abnormal. These effects are of transcendent importance, and influence the harmonious working of the physical agencies around us; and yet have scarcely been recognized as being very different from what are regarded as the ordinary or normal results which we are acquainted with when we see that water flows down an inclined plane; or that when boiling it gives off steam. There are, indeed, many remarkable effects produced by water which I should like to have dealt with did time permit, such as its presence in the quartz of granite, and its solvent action on minerals when at high temperature and pressure, whereby these substances have been introduced into mineral veins. But I pass on to the subject more immediately before us, namely, the abnormal conditions under which waters occur; and by "abnormal" I mean differing from those which we should be led to expect by comparison with other natural objects; these conditions resolve themselves under two heads : (1) The temperature of water at its maximum density of 39-2° Fahr. (4° Cent.), and (2) Its incompressibility by which it probably differs from all other substances. The consequences of these abnormal conditions in the economy of nature are inestimable, and we shall consider them in the above order. (1) Maximum Density.-When water is at a temperature of 212° F. under normal pressure it passes into steam and has a minimum density. Cooling down from this point it contracts or becomes denser as it grows cooler, until it reaches a temperature of 39-2° Fahr. (4° Cent.) where the contraction is arrested; and from this point down to 32° F. (that of freezing) it expands, producing ice, which being lighter than water, floats on its surface. Here it is, therefore, that the abnormal conditions arise, for the condensation might have been supposed to have continued throughout the intermediate seven degrees (from 39-2° to 32° F.) resulting in the formation of ice heavier than water, and consequently sinking down to the bottom of the basin or reservoir. Such, however, we know not to be the case, as eleven |