I have
blogged earlier on how an essay by Benjamin Franklin may have motivated and influenced Matthew to put his original conception of macro evolution by natural slection into a book on naval timber.
My book "Nullius in Verba" explains how the intensely religious naturalist Selby (Wallace's Sarawak paper editor and friend of Darin's father and Darwin's great friend Jenyns) mentioned that he did not understand this when he cited Matthew's book in 1842. Later, the naturalist Jameson correspondent of (William Hooker, father of Darwin's best friend Joseph Hooker and mentor of Wallace) mentioned its implications as important when he cited Matthew's book in 1853 (s
ome details here) with regard to the fact that timber could in fact thrive better in areas other than those where it was naturally found where Christians believed . The reason being that some trees, with a greater power of occupancy, occupy the best soil areas - in nature - thereby successfully competing against other species.
What follows are text images form
Matthew's (1831) book On Naval Timber on the topic of power of occupancy.
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| Page 302 |
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| Page 303 |
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Page 357
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Page 384
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Page 387
Matthew's understanding of the power of occupancy of certain species in nature informed the philosophy of his second book 'Emigration Fields' Matthew (1839) in which he proposed the lower classes of the British take over the lands of others, since the aristocracy enjoyed an unnatural power of occupancy in British society. |
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