A Blemish in the Darling: On Lawrence and Matthew - Seeking a Purer form of the Truth

In 1819 William Lawrence    published his lecture series on human physiology. Lawrence's ideas were deemed blasphemous, which meant he was unable to stop others from pirating his book, The Lord Chancellor Eldon ruled that an illegal book could not have copyright protection   .

Larewnce's book was blasphemously illegal because the ideas in it refuted the religious doctrine of divine

William Lawrewnce

creation - by the Christian "God" - of different varieties and species.

In publishing his lectures in 1819, Lawrence went against the majority view of mere knowledge-belief doctrines of Hunter that some kind of mystical divine life force acted upon embryos. Instead, using the original ideas of Buffon, Lamark, some from Hunter - and others - Lawrence demonstrated how physiological structure could explain much more   .

In the opening of his book, Lawrence wrote a wonderful paragraph that touches me personally with regard to how new data I have discovered, and used to argue it more likely than not that Darwin and Wallace did not 'independently discover' but plagiarized Matthew's prior published discovery of natural selection, has been treated by the "majority" in the flock of the Darwinist establishment:

“When favourite speculations have been long indulged, and much pains have been bestowed on them, they are viewed with that parental partiality, which cannot bear to hear of faults in the object of its attachment. The mere doubt of an impartial observer is offensive ; and the discovery of anything like a blemish in the darling, is not only ascribed to an entire want of discrimination and judgment, but resented as an injury. The irritation rises higher in proportion to the coolness of the object which excites it..”

Although personally obliged to publish a retraction, and condemn his own work, to save his job, Lawrence's (1819) banned book Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man    was re-published by the Chartist publisher Benbow in 1822   . In all, Lawrence's book went through six illicit re-prints    (Desmond 1992   ) by established "pauper press" publishers who exploited it to promote radical atheism, anti-gagging, social reform politics.

Patrick Matthew    being an important Chartist regional representative and William Benbow    being an important Chartist publisher, and Matthew and Lawrence being radical atheist naturalists interested in species and "evidence-led truth", it seems reasonable, therefore, to conclude it far more likely than not that Patrick Matthew, had read Lawrence's book and was to some degree influenced by way of 'knowledge contamination' by a certain unique synthesis of ideas in it. This is the view of Darlington (1959):

'An indirect connection between the ideas of Lawrence and of Darwin is to be found in Patrick Mathew. It was Mathew who indignantly claimed the theory of natural selection as his own, and had his original statement of it from 1831 reprinted in the Gardener's Chronicle in 1860. This statement was made in an appendix to a work on the growth of timber for warships. Mathew, in a few brilliant pages irrelevant to his main theme, had expounded a complete theory of evolution. In the same book he had also introduced a few equally irrelevant but equally illuminating views on the evolution of race and class in man and the decay of aristocracies. These opinions as a whole are related to only one source, to the conclusions which Lawrence had recently derived by close reasoning from the evidence.

Evidently Mathew had read Lawrence. Evidently also in his statement of natural selection as a principle governing the origin of species he makes an advance on Lawrence. What is more remarkable is that he expresses himself more rigorously than Darwin was able to express himself in the Origin of Species twenty-eight years later. For he attributes evolution to natural selection without reservation. And, like Maupertuis, he adds that, as for Lamarckian adaptation, we may test the possibility of it by experiment. This suggestion again fell by the wayside until after Darwin's death. Mathew was certainly justified in claiming the theory but he in his turn failed to acknowledge his precursor, William Lawrence.'

Darlington (1959) gives us no page numbers or text in Lawrence to support his claims. It is even more a frustrating fact that Matthew was dreadfully remiss in not citing his influences (see Nullius in Verba 2014   ).

That said, however, Lawrence (1819) does not, so far as i can tell, contain the hypothesis of natural selection, although his book does contain evidence-led ideas that are essential to its formulation. On the other hand, Matthew (1831) did originate and then have published the full hypothesis of natural selection that Darwin and Wallace replicated without citing and then claimed - fallaciously it now turns out - that no naturalist known to them had read it before they replicated it (Sutton 2014: Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret   ). So Darlington (1959), arguably, makes a somewhat weak - and consequently rather useless - misleading analogy between Matthew, Lawrence and Darwin.

Elsewhere, I have amassed a wealth of evidence published by others that proves beyond doubt that, in current absence of diconfirming evidence, Matthew (1831) was first to publish the full hypothesis of natural selection (Sutton 2014   ).

However, Darlington (1959) is useful in that he points out Lawrence as one of Matthew's probable uncited influencers. For the historical interest purposes of this essay, therefore, it is useful to see what Darlington (1959)    sees as the most simple, non technical, explanation of what natural selection is:

' The argument is that all kinds of living things when bred vary in character. When man breeds them he selects those he will use as parents. He selects them for his own purposes. Thus he produces new races or even new species. Pigeons are the chosen example. Nature over a vast period of time has been doing the same with all animals and plants. Her selection depends in part on the removal of the unfit. But in part it acts in new directions.Species spread from one region to another, from one habitat to another. And as they move they are adapted to new and diverse conditions.

The consequences of this doctrine of transformation of species, of transformation during descent from common ancestors, were to explain the similarities of structure and development of groups of plants and animals which could now be supposed to be of common descent. The existence of lines of fossil forms changing through the long succession of stratified rocks or of world history could be understood. The differences in character of species in the Old and New Worlds could be explained by gradual spreading from countries of origin to new countries. The diversity of birds or molluscs in small islands as contrasted with their similarity over large continents acquired a meaning. The existence of useless vestiges of organs, the development of instincts, the habit of cross-breeding, the sterility of hybrids, and dozens of other problems could be discussed; usefully discussed in a way that was not possible so long as species were supposed to have been individually created by an inscrutable supernatural power.

Matthew's (1831) book contains everything that Darlington attributes to Darwin's 1859 'Origin of Species':

1. What Matthew coined the 'natural process of selection' to explain divergence from a common ancestor to explain new species.

2. The Artificial versus Natural Selection Analogy (See Mike Sutton versus Mike Weale 2015)    to explain variety and species extinction.

3.The fact species spread from one or more places to different geographical areas and then vary according to where they go where they can establish a power of occupancy.

Lawrence (1819) - who we can reasonably assume Matthew read - had published some of his blasphemous ideas that are essential components in the foundations of thought and ideas and conclusions that are all necessary for the hypothesis of natural selection to stand. Lawrence wrote about point 3 above.

On Shepherds with Crabs

Darlington (1959) claims that Matthew would have been influenced by what Lawrence (1819) wrote about the decay of aristocracies. I can find nothing in Lawrence on this topic other than reference to crab apples, ethnicity ("race"), shepherds and rich women and their dogs.

Lawrence (1819 p. 239) wrote:

'The mountain shepherd and his dog are equally hardy, and form an instructive contrast with a nervous and hysterical fine lady, and her lap dog;- the extreme point of degeneracy and imbecility of which each race is susceptible.'

Lawerence (1819 p. 304) wrote also comparing humans and crab apples:

‘The disposition to change is exhausted in one generation and the characters of the original stock return unless the variety is kept up by the precaution above mentioned of excluding from the breed all which have not the new characters Thus when African Albinos intermix with the common race the offspring generally is black The same circumstance is seen in vegetables the seeds of our fine cultivated apples almost always produce the common crab…’

Matthew (1831 p. 366) wrote on nobles, shepherds and crab apples:

‘It is an eastern proverb, that no king is many removes from a shepherd. Most conquerors and founders of dynasties have followed the plough or the flock. Nobility, to be in the highest perfection, like the finer varieties of fruits, independent of having its vigour excited by regular married alliance with wilder stocks, would require stated complete renovation, by selection anew from among the purest crab.’

If those two examples are what Darlington (1959) meant when he wrote that Matthew had evidently read Lawrence - and I can find no other examples - I do not think either of sufficient weight that we can condemn Matthew as a plagiarist for not citing Lawrence when it came to his own revolutionary use of crab apples, flock followers and nobility to explain his own unique ideas.

Does it seem more likely than not beyond mere coincidence that Matthew, a Chartist leader, interested in organic evolution, would be influenced by text on broad evolutionary principles, in a book published by a Chartist publisher, to replicate shepherds, nobility and crab apples as examples to explain natural selection? Yes! But that is a mere qualitative assessment on my part, because I have no scientific way to weigh such likelihood. It just seems more likely than not to me that, on the subjective balance of what seems reasonably probable to me, that Matthew did read Lawrence and was to some degree influenced by him.

If others reading this essay can assist knowledge progression by finding other examples of 'natural selection' principles, that I have missed, however, I will warmly embrace them (fear not stalwart scholars, I mean the examples). So if you find one or more in Lawrence's (1819) book please let us know in the comments section below and I will amend this essay with cited reference to you and your discovery.

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Nullius in Verba

Darwin (1858; 1859) and Wallace (1855; 1858), on the other hand, replicated Matthew's discovery of the process of natural selection, Darwin uniquely four-word shuffled Matthew's unique name for that process - 'natural process of selection - into 'process of natural selection', Darwin and Wallace replicated Matthew's unique analogy explanation of artificial selection to explain natural selection, and they replicated many other examples Matthew originated to explain it (See Sutton 2104    for all the complex details).

Conclusions and the way forward

I think it fair to conclude that Matthew more likely than not did read Lawrence (1819) and that he was to some degree influenced by what he wrote. Lawrence's unique synthesis of the prior-published literature may possibly have helped Matthew to construct his hypothesis of natural selection, but Lawrence's work did not contain anything approaching that bombshell hypothesis.

Perhaps the one thing of which we may be more confident, when all the evidence is weighed, subjectively, together, is that Lawrence's examples that used shepherds, noble ladies and crab apples probably inspired Matthew to use crabs and shepherds in one of several artificial selection versus natural selection analogies that he used to explain both artificial and natural selection (see my blog post an Matthew's multiple original use of thatanalogy here).

Darlington (1959) was right (at least on this precise topic, if not on his other outdated ideas about human ethnic groups, which are often called 'races'). In Lawrence (1819) we have probably found one of Mathew's minor influences.

That shepherds and crab apples would feature in Lawrence's comparative example of degenerate aristocratic humans and lap dogs is of great interest and perhaps deliberate irony in the case of the shepherds. The Christian Bible is full of analogies between humans and sheep and flocks of sheep and Jesus and God being shepherds and visiting shepherds at the birth of Christ etc. Today, bishops and the Pope continue to carry silver tipped shepherd crooks as part of their ceremonial dress. That was probably quite funny in 1819. Today, it is rather hilarious.

In the Christian Bible's Book of Genesis, the story is that humans fell from grace because they ate something from a forbidden tree:

'The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die'

Trumpet from the rooftopsPublic Domain

Darwin merely replicated Matthew's 'divergent ramification' explanation of how species change and branch to evolve from a common ancestor

Christians came to symbolize the apple as being fruit that was eaten from the forbidden tree.

Ironically, the fruit that led to the discovery of natural selection - which effectively handed "God" his redundancy notice in 1831 - would have been at the prehistoric time of the mythical garden of Eden, a crab apple. Crab apples are the only possible kind of apple that could have existed before human artificial selection breeding of apples into more palatable varieties.

Moreover, it is also ironic that it was the branches of a tree that Matthew referred to when he wrote of diverging ramifications of new species (to ramify means to branch) from a common ancestor. And it was the branches of a tree that Darwin subsequently used to draw out his diagram to explain to explain the exact same thing. Darwin wrote down his earliest private thoughts on natural selection (Darwin 1837   ) and crab apples trees. Darwin also conducted experiments with crab apple trees pre-1859..

Public Domain

Patrick Matthew (1831) was the first to fully explain natural selection as new species branching from a common ancestor by way of nature selecting varieties that were best circumstance suited. He even uniquely called it: 'the natural process of selection'. A term Darwin (1859) would uniquely four word shuffle into 'process of natural selection'.

In 'Nullius' I write in several places (e.g. here   ) why I believe the evidence suggests that crab apples were at the core (pun intended) of Mathew's discovery of the process of natural selection.

I think that it should come as no shock to us that a hybridizing fruit farmer should be the one to first discover the natural process of selection and also be first to use the analogy of artificial selection to explain natural selection; and to use crab apples as an example in that first 1831 explanatory analogy.

That Lawrence used crab apples in his 1819 analogous example of variation within the human species is most interesting. I wonder how many of his precursors writing on the subject of species and variation of "types" did likewise? Unsurprisingly, or not, as the case may be, we find Lawrence's fellow physician James Prtichard - another credited by some as being a writer on evolution who came close to the theory of natural selection - using the example of crab apples on page 205 of his book (Prtichard 1813   ).

I think its time for me to go crab apple hunting through the literature in order to find out.

Darwin alludes to crab apples- as the original species of all apples - on page in the first edition of the Origin of Species (Darwin 1859   ):

'Van Mons, in his treatise on pears and apples, shows how utterly he disbelieves that the several sorts, for instance a Ribston pippin or Codlin apple, could ever have proceeded from the seeds of the same tree.'

(c) Darwin Correspondence ProjectAttribution

From Darwin's Zoonomia notebook of 1837-1838

Darwin's Grandfather - Erasmus Darwin -who had earlier written poetry    on old ideas about the origin of life coming from simpler matter in the sea, wrote on the same topic of crab apples and pippin hybrids (indeed it seems likely that this might be the source of Darwin's reference to Golden Pippin Apples in his own private Zoonomia notebook of 1837). Hybridizing those very apples was an area in which Matthew had an international reputation and we know Darwin pre-1858 had read an article Matthew wrote on the topic pre-1831 (see Sutton 2014   ).

Darwin, E. (1800)    Phytologia, or the philosophy of agriculture and gardening; with the theory of draining morasses and with an improved construction of the drill plough

Google BooksAttribution

From page 120 of Erasmus Darwin's Phytologia (1800)

A major discovery about Patrick Matthew's influences

On page 381 of Erausmus Darwin's Phytologia (1800) we see his observations on what happens, regarding the appearence of crab apple tree spines (thorns) when fruit bearing grafts from an artificially selected apple variety are grafted onto wild crab apple root stock:

Google BooksAttribution

Page 381 of Erasmus Darwin's Phytologia (1800)

Now compare that with Patrick Matthew's (1831) On Naval Timber and Aboriculture, which contains the first known complete hypothesis of Natural Selection. Matthew also reports the same appearance of crab tree spines following the grating procedure, but he writes as though he believes these are his own unique observations made in the field:

Google BooksAttribution Share Alike

From Patrick Matthew (1831) On Naval Timber and Arboriculture. Page 283.

It seems that Matthew was influenced by what Erasmus Darwin's book of 1800 - which contained essays of great interest to agriculturalists in the USA    in 1810, as well as Britain. It is hard to believe, in light of the evidence, that Matthew had not read the prior literature synthesis work of Darwin's grandfather, been influenced by, but failed to cite it.

Of particular importance is the fact that in his text above Matthew (1831) apparently coined the term 'rectangular branching' to describe the characteristic growth of crab apple trees.Robert Mudie (1832   ), a co-author of Blyth - Darwin's most prolific informant - was apparently first to replicate Matthew's term   , which, according to the F2B2 hypothesis, suggests he more likely than not read Matthew's book pre-1858 and would have been contaminated with Matthewian knowledge (see 'knowledge contamination') and then gone on to influence Darwin with results of the effects of that knowledge upon his own highly influential work on varieties and species. Mudie, however, used the term to refer to the Chili Pine - a specimen of which he wrote was to be admired at Kew Gardens in 1831.

And there is yet another example of Matthew seemingly replicating Erasmus and passing his observations off as his own unique discovery made - once again - in the field. Consider the following text from Erasmus Darwin (1800)...

Google BooksAttribution

From Erasmus Darwin (1800) Phytologia page 387

..then compare that to what Patrick Matthew (1831) wrote on the same topic:

Google BooksAttribution

Patrick Matthew (1831) On Naval Timber, page 285

If Matthew (1831) had so perfectly reported those same two observations conveyed by Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, without having read and been influenced by Darwin's grandfather it would be something of a miracle given that Erasmus Darwin was famous and his work consider of great interest to all agriculturalists of the time.

Modern writers seem to think that the rules of citation were more relaxed than they are today and that I am wrong to call 19th century authors plagiarists for this sort of thing, I think the literature record proves they are doing no more than speculating erroneously. Replication of prior-published unique ideas, discoveries, botanical and agricultural observations and prose is measurable. I’m not at all sure that the “relaxed rules” excuse is as veracious as modern writers, with their unevidenced belief in conveniently self-serving and unmeasurable “cryptomnesia" are making out. The rules and conventions of citation were nothing like as relaxed as Darwinists argue in apology for their namesakes plagiarism of the ideas of others. For example, we know Baden Powell’s 1860 letter to Darwin is lost – but, by way of Darwin’s reply to it, we know that Baden Powell was outraged at Darwin’s failure to cite his work. And in Darwin's June 18th 1860    reply we see the embarrassing "I'm innocent on my word alone" but I can't prove it response: "If I have taken anything from you, I assure you it has been unconsciously..."

Moreover, Huxley tore Darwin "off a strip" for plagiarizing Buffon in his Pangenesis essay. Jim Dempster wrote that their friendship soured thereafter.

A reading of Erasmus Darwin’s 1800 book shows him very carefully naming his informants – though not citing their published work. He did a far better job of it than Matthew 31 years later. And the 1831 Scathing Edinburgh Literary Journal review of Matthews’ book   accused him of being a plagiarist by claiming never to have read the works of Evelyn and others. So the rules and conventions of citing ones influencers is somewhat shown to have been rather unrelaxed – at least it is in these two hard-evidenced and independently verifiable examples. Click on the images below to enlarge them for ease of reading.

Google BooksAttribution

The The Edinburgh Literary Journal (1831) reviewed Matthew's book and accused him of plagiarism.

Google BooksAttribution

Edinburgh Literary Journal review of Matthew's (1831) On Naval Timber. Accused him of plagiarism

In above the example from the Edinburgh Literary Journal review we can see Matthew was accused. by the anonymous author, of blatantly passing off another discovery as though it was his very own:

'It is singular that Mr Matthew, in his account of Mr Cruickshank's work, takes no notice of his important naval discovery of the method of making ship's knees on the root of larch. But in his own book he very simply details the method, and in such terms, as to make an uninformed reader believe that he is the discoverer himself!

In his book, Cruickshank (1830    p. 382-386) outlined how the wood from the root of a larch tree provided the best source of timber of the right shape and quality to make ships knees when boat building and goes into great detail, with diagrams, to explain how it is done. Matthew (1831)    provided a brief summary on pages 90-98. Most interestingly, Matthew provides a footnote on page 91 to the effect that his own plan to interfere in a specific and original way with larch roots to get them to produce the best size and shape to make ships knees was his idea and had been sent in a paper to the Highland Society, but they had kept it so long that he asked for it back and so presented his idea in his 1831 book instead. If this is true, and depending upon the dates, it seems that perhaps, in fact, Cruickshank (1830) might have plagiarized Matthew's unpublished paper. The point in question is not about the fact that larch roots are a good source of timber for ships knees, because that was known earlier - reported earlier in Ireland in 1811    and in Scotland in 1818    - but the actual careful method required to obtain the timber from the root.

If Matthew did not plagiarize the work of Erasmus Darwin to pass it off as his own discovery, the only other reasonable explanations for Matthew's replication of two highly specific crab apple grafting observations that are explained Erasmus Darwin's prior published book book, in my opinion, is that (a) Matthew never read the work of Erasmus Darwin but instead read the same ideas elsewhere; alternatively (b) Matthew independently made the exact same discoveries himself but failed to read any prior published accounts. Therefore, if those same observations about crab apple trees occurred earlier in the literature then we need to find them in order to come that bit closer to a purer form of the truth in the story of the discovery of natural selection. In the meantime, out of the 30+ million books in Google's library, I have failed to find them - despite my best efforts - except in the examples discussed below, which suggests Erasmus Darwin's synthesis is the most likely source of what Matthew wrote. Any who wish to argue otherwise should produce more than the possible existence, in their imagination, of something they have not actually found.

Erasmus Darwin's (1800) Phytologia is essentially a synthesis of earlier work by other authors. Darwinist apologists for Charles Darwin's notorious poor referencing of his sources should fake note that Erasmus, some 60 years earlier, made a good job of citing his own! Erasmus (1800) cites Thomas Knight in his book. It was Knight's experiments with grafting that explained why the diameter of wood above the union would be greater than that below(See Thompson 1822 p. 345)    . And by way of a letter Knight wrote to Joseph Banks of the Royal Society in 1795    about his experiments in crab apple tree and old ungrafted pear tree grafting, we find the same observation about grafting and thorny spines. Moreover, in that letter to Banks, Knight cites Evelyn's classic book on forest trees and timber, which was written at the request of several commissioners of the British navy.   Evelyn was a founder of the Royal Society, his book was the first in their collection and is considered one of the most important (see Anthony Tedeschi)   .

David Kohn    writes that Charles Darwin’s first botanical exposure was in his father’s ample garden at The Mount in Shrewsbury where young Charles played among apple trees bred by Thomas Andrew Knight, President of the Royal Horticultural Society.

Public Domain

John Loudon (1832) Reviewed Matthew's 1831 book, which contained the full theory of natural selection and wrote that he thought it might have something original to say on "the origin of species" no less!

Most interestingly, in a later 1801 edition of his 1797 book, Knight cited Erasmus Darwin's (1801 - Phytologia), unique observations on buds and grafts (see the footnotes on pp. 177-178).    Furthermore, Erasmus Darwin was noted for his famous experiment that showed how fluids circulate through plant. John Loudon, who in 1832 reviewed Matthew's (1831) book and said he thought it might have something unique to say on the 'origin of species' (no less) notes this on pp 171-172 of his Encyclopedia of Agriculture(Loudon 1824   ) along with comments on Knights work on the same topic.

Contrary to what some writers are claiming in defense of Charles Darwin's (1859) plagiarism of the ideas of others, the rules of citation of the 18th and 19th centuries did very much require that a naturalist not write as though an observation or important and unique prior published or otherwise communicated idea was their own. For example,Anthony Thompson (1822 p.397)    names and shames the French phytologist M Aubert Du Petit Thouars for stealing Erasmus Darwin's "bud theory".

It seems highly unlikely that Matthew, an internationally renowned and award winning orchard owner, who wrote in his own book about the circulation of sap through trees would not have been aware of Erasmus Darwin's unique ideas and experiments in this area. Surely an agricultural naturalist, specializing in apple and pear growing and hybridizing, such as Matthew, with a great scientific bent - would have read Knight's (1801) edition of his classic book with such a pertinent title: 'A Treatise on the Culture of the Apple & Pear: And on the Manufacture of Cider & Perry.' It seems reasonable to conclude, with lack of dis-confirming evidence, that Matthew therein found the scholarly need to go and read Erasmus Darwin's Phytologia. All the more so since Knight's book shared the same London publisher as Matthew's own book of of 1831 - namely, Longman and Co. Furthermore it is not without significance in this story that we know, fromhis notebooks of book to read and books read    that Charles Darwin read Knight's book before 1859 - although he did not record which edition it was.

For the record, Knight's book makes no mention of either the spiny graft or the thicker graft observations that Erasmus Darwin wrote about and Matthew replicated.

Surprisingly from the author of a work entitled "On Naval Timber and arboriculture",Matthew cites Evelyn    as one of the authors whose work he has not bothered to read. Moreover, Evelyn's (1664)    classic work Silva: or, a discourse of forest-trees, and the propagation of timber in His Majesty's dominions is not the original source of the spiny/throrny crab/ungrafted pear grafting observation, nor is it the source of the swelling above the graft observation. That said, Evelyn's classic book (one of the two first published by the Royal Society) , if he really did read it, would have got Matthew thinking about his unique Artificial Selection versus Natural Selection Analogy and evolutionary change. In the following text Evelyn means a crab apple tree where he uses the term "wilding". Evelyn seems to be implying the progression to perfection "development theory" of evolution that was adopted by Robert Chambers - but rejected by Matthew's 1831 bombshell breakthrough with his 'natural process of selection':

Google BooksAttribution

Evelyn 1664: Sylva or a discourse o forest trees and the propagation of timber

So far, it seems, however, in absence of any currently dis-confirming evidence, that I now think I know that Matthew was influenced by all those who Matthew (1831) cited and admitted having read in his book.

turning now to those Matthew mentioned in seemingly claiming not to have read their work. That weird claim, the anonymous author of the Edinburgh Literary Journal Review (1831) found completely implausible and said as much when they wrote that Matthew had copied their work:':

'...in the original works on planting, from whence they are copied, namely those of Miller, Marshal, Pontey etc, authors that Mr Matthew never had the "curiosity" to examine.'

That was written by way of accusation in reply to what Matthew wrote in his preface...:

Google BooksAttribution

Matthew (1831) On Naval Timber and arboriculture . Preface

Therefore, the anonymous author of that review was, in effect, claiming that Matthew had plagiarized the work of others, which he claimed no to have read. But did Matthew claim in the above paragraph from his preface thathe had not read those works. I think not. Because, on a careful reading he seems to be saying that others who had not read those works would find Matthew presumptuous.

To date, therefore, it seems that there is no evidence that Matthew (unlike Charles Darwin) ever wrote a deliberate falsehood (lie).Indeed, seven days later the Edinburgh Literary Journal (1831, July 9th, p. 28) describe Matthew as being honest:

"Our friend the Editor has already found our familiar of considerable use. Its swiftness fits it admirably for reconnoitring the operations of any enemy. Last Monday we sent it across to Perthshire, that it might keep an eye upon Mr Patrick Matthew's motions. The honest gentleman had cut a most respectable bludgeon from one of his crab-trees, but was sitting irresolute in his garden chair."

That Matthew's own imaginary stick is imagined to have been cut from his crab apple tree is unlikely to be of insignificance to whoever implied, jokingly, on July 9, 1831, that Matthew was an enemy, since on pages 283 to 285, Matthew (1831) explains that Siberian crab apple wood is the strongest apple timber by far.Why was Matthew an enemy? There are many possible reasons for that assertion. They are discussed in Nullius.    

Moving on, Matthew was also most certainly influenced by Lamarck and by Buffon. On the basis of what is uniquely reported in this blog post - we he was also more likely than not influenced by Erasmus Darwin and by William Lawrence.

Charles Darwin’s 1838-1851 notebook of books read proves that he read Evelyn’s book on silviculture. Hard facts such as that trump rhetoric and prove that, far from being on an inappropriate and obscure topic (e.g.Dawkins 2010   ), the title and subject matter of Matthew’s book was outwardly ideal for the inclusion of his discovery and a scientific call for others to conduct empirical research and experimentation to test it.

This raises a telling and highly speculative question. Namely: Did Charles Darwin know pre-1858 that Matthew had read, failed to cite and plagiarized the work of his grandfather? If so, might that have possibly served as a guilt neutralization excuse for his own plagiarism of Matthew's prior-published hypothesis? That is not outside the realm of possibility. Is it probable? I believe so. I think it more likely than not

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Plagiarizing Science Fraud: Understanding the objective components of a crime opportunity

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Did Benjamin Franklin Influence Patrick Matthew?

I have earlier (here) explored the likelihood that Matthew (1831) was influenced by Empedocles. In this blog post I explore the very probable influence of Benjamin Franklin.

Writers before me have concluded that Matthew most probably was influenced by the writings of Malthus - the man who both Darwin and Wallace claimed as a most important influence on their "own" work.  Dempster (1983, p. 51) writes that both Malthus and Paley were influenced by Franklin's essay of 1755.  From that cause, it is worth looking at what Franklin wrote that may have influenced Matthew directly, or else indirectly through knowledge contamination.

In 1751, Franklin penned an essay that was finally published in Boston, USA, in 1755. It is entitled: Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind and the Peopling of Countries.

The relevant sections of Franklin's essay are the very final ones 22 to 24:

22. There is in short, no bound to the prolific nature of plants 
or animals, but what is made by their crowding and interfering 
with each others means of subsistence. Was the face of the earth 
vacant of other plants, it might be gradually sowed and overspread 
with one kind only; as, for instance, with Fennel; and were it empty 
of other inhabitants, it might in a few Ages be replenish d from one 
nation only; as for Instance, with Englishmen. Thus there are 
suppos d to be now upwards of One Million English Souls in North 
America, (tho tis thought scarce 80,000 have been brought over 
sea) and yet perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain, but rather 
many more, on Account of the employment the Colonies afford to 
manufacturers at home. This million doubling, suppose but once 
in twenty-five years, will in another century be more than the peo 
ple of England, and the greatest Number of Englishmen will be on 
this side the water. What an accession of Power to the British 
empire by the Sea as well as Land! What increase of trade and navi 
gation! What numbers of ships and seamen! We have been here 
but little more than one hundred years, and yet the force of our 
Privateers in the late war, united, was greater, both in men and 
guns, than that of the whole British Navy in Queen Elizabeth s time. 
How important an affair then to Britain, is the present treaty for 
settling the bounds between her Colonies and the French, and how 
careful should she be to secure room enough, since on the room de 
pends so much the increase of her people? 

223 



10 OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE INCREASE OF MANKIND 

23. In fine, A nation well regulated is like a Polypus; take 
away a limb, its place is soon supply d; cut it in two, and each de 
ficient part shall speedily grow out of the part remaining. Thus 
if you have room and subsistence enough, as you may by dividing 
make ten Polypes out of one, you may of one make ten nations, 
equally populous and powerful; or rather, increase a nation ten fold 
in numbers and strength. 

And since detachments of English horn Britain sent to America, 
will have their places at home so soon supply d and increase so large 
ly here; why should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into 
our settlements, and by herding together establish their languages 
and manners to the exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, 
founded by the English, become a colony of Aliens, who will shortly 
be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, 
and will never adopt our language or customs, any more than they 
can acquire our complexion? 

24. Which leads me to add one remark: That the number 
of purely white people in the world is proportionably very small. 
All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (ex 
clusive of the new comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Span 
iards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes are generally of what 
we call a swarthy complexion ; as are the Germans also, the Saxons 
only excepted, who with the English make the principal body of 
white people on the face of the earth. I could wish their numbers 
were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, scouring our 
planet, by clearing America of woods, and so making this side of 
our globe reflect a brighter light to the eyes of inhabitants in Mars 
or Venus, why should we in the sight of superior beings, darken its 
people? why increase the sons of Africa, by planting them in Ameri 
ca, where we have so fair an opportunity, by excluding all blacks 
and tawneys, of increasing the lovely white and red? But perhaps 
I am partial to the complexion of my Country, for such kind of 
partiality is natural to Mankind. 

If these three sections of  Franklin's (1755) essay, with what Zirkle (1941) saw as the texts that influenced Malthus, that so by 'knowledge contamination' influenced Darwin (and also Wallace)  did not inspire Matthew to write "On Naval Timber" in 1831 and "Emigration Fields" in 1839 then the coincidences are astounding. For Franklin writes on so many of Matthew's key themes: (1) A belief in the superiority of the Saxon's (2) The importance of trade and navigation, (3) The voracious need of the British to obtain timber (4) The fact that some varieties of the human species suffer overcrowding and so need to emigrate so as not to be 'interfering with each other's means of subsistence' (5) The likelihood that by emigration Anglo Saxon's would overtop existing populations in colonies. (6) The ability for any species  to have an ecological power of occupancy in the most circumstance suited environment - namely one that is supportive of life and devoid of superior competitors (think Dodo - until humans turned up). 

See PatrickMathew.com for more information on the discovery of Natural Selection

The Matthew Man’s Interference Analogy Hypothesis

On Strength, Cunning and Swiftness

The general theory of organic evolution has been around since at least the time of the ancient Greeks (see Zirkle 1941)   .

Interestingly, the Greek scholar Empedocles c. 490 – c. 430 BC saw the difference between domestic and naturally selected animals in the wild, and the notion of survival of the fittest in the struggle for survival in nature, but appears not to have realized that the vulnerable qualities of the domesticated animals were due to artificial selection. He wrote:

'Firstly, the fierce brood of lions, that savage tribe, has been protected by courage, the wolf by cunning, by swiftness the stag. But the intelligent dog, so light of sleep and so true of heart, beasts of burden of all kinds, woolly sheep also, and horned herds of oxen, all these are entrusted to men's protection, Memius. For they have eagerly fled from the wild beasts, they have sought peace and the generous provision gained by no labour of theirs, which we give them as reward of their usefulness. But those to which nature gives no such qualities, so that they could neither live by themselves at their own will, nor give us some usefulness, for which we might suffer to feed them under our protection and be safe, these certainly lay by their own fateful chains, until nature brought that race to destruction.'

Patrick Matthew (1831) appears to have been familiar with this passage - or perhaps some later work influenced by it - because he wrote about the natural process of selection on pages 364-365 using very similar examples of fierce strength, cunning and swiftness being present in naturally selected species:

'This law sustains the lion in his strength, the hare in her swiftness, and the fox in his wiles.'

NOTE: Alfred Wallace (1855) replicated this idea, and examples for it, in his Sarawak paper, which was published in a journal edited by Selby - who it is newly known (Sutton 2104) - read and cited Matthew's 1831 book years earlier.

The Artificial versus Natural Selection Analogy of Differences was originated by Patrick Matthew in 1831 as an explanatory device for the theory of macro evolution by natural selection.

In absence of disconfirming data for the currently available evidence that Patrick Matthew (1831) originated (was first to write and have published) the 'Artificial Selection versus Natural Selection Analogy of Differences', when he included it in his book On Naval Timber and Arboriculture, I propose that Matthew (1831) was not only first to originate and have published the full hypothesis of natural selection    , but that he did also originate this powerfully explanatory Analogy.

An analogy is something that is done as an explanatory device to make something complex easier to understand by comparing one thing with another. All analogies are fallacies because the two things being compared are not at all the same thing. What is important is how the person using the analogy in question allows the recipient of it to see how one thing relates to the other and why. An analogy is deployed, therefore, in order to understand the complexity of the original issue being explained. In short, I use common dictionary definitions: “An analogy is a comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation.”

An analogy between things can be used to show how they are different or the same. That said, it must be noted however, that biologists are unique when it comes to how they use analogies. In biology, an analogy is only ever used to show how things are similar or the same. We might call it the "the biologists analogy" as opposed to the wider 'these things are similar or different' analogies that other disciplines understand.Therefore, to date at least, when biologists have written of Darwin's analogy between natural and artificial selection they are only ever referring to an argumentative analogy that Darwin deployed in the Origin of Species (1859) to show, argumentatively, how natural and artificial selection have certain similarities.

As we shall see in this blog post, Darwin also used an analogy of difference between natural and artificial selection that we might call the "Artificial Selection versus Natural Selection Analogy" He used in in an unpublished essay in 1844 and again in the Origin of Species (1859). In absence of dis-confirming evidence Matthew (1831) was the first to use the Artificial versus Natural Selection Analogy and Darwin (1859) the first to use the "Artificial Selection is similar to Natural Selection" argumentative analogy. I am grateful to my associate Dr Mike Weale for debating this issue with me at length on the Patrick Matthew Project until April 14 2015 (here)..   when we agreed on the fact there are in fact these two distinct artificial selection, to explain natural selection, analogies.

Matthew compared natural selection with artificial selection in order to compare things that are different to explain that nature was selecting varieties by way of what he called “the natural process of selection”, which was, unlike artificial selection, operated as a blind and unthinking natural law (process) to select those varieties that were most circumstance suited to survive in the wild. Humans, on the other hand, selected varieties as a cognitive project deliberately for their own wants and needs only.

I am operating on the premise that readers know what natural selection means. If not, then a few clicks on Goggle will find you a good explanation (e.g. here   ). For a simple definition of artificial selection, the Encyclopedia Britannica gives us sound example:

'Artificial selection (or selective breeding ) differs from natural selection in that heritable variations in a species are manipulated by humans through controlled breeding . The breeder attempts to isolate and propagate those genotypes that are responsible for a plant or animal’s desired qualities in a suitable environment. These qualities are economically or aesthetically desirable to humans, rather than useful to the organism in its natural environment.'

I propose that Matthew originated an explanation that changed the world in his use of the Artificial versus Natural Selection Analogy, because - it is newly discovered (Sutton 2014)    - his 1831 book was read and cited pre-1858 by several naturalists who Darwin and Wallace admitted were their major influencers on the topic of varieties and species and organic evolution.

The Matthew Man’s Interference Analogy Hypothesis”:

Patrick Matthew was first to originate and have published the Artificial versus Natural Selection Analogy as an explanation for natural selection.

What Matthew wrote was replicated by several naturalists who followed in his footsteps. Beginning with Matthew, the originator, it is useful to examine who wrote what on this precise analogy and when.

1. ‘Matthew (1831 pages. 307-308   )) wrote

‘The use of the infinite seedling varieties in the families of plants, even in those in a state of nature, differing in luxuriance of growth and local adaptation, seems to be to give one individual (the strongest best circumstance-suited) superiority over others of its kind around, that it may, by overtopping and smothering them, procure room for full extension, and thus affording, at the same time, a continual selection of the strongest, best circumstance suited for reproduction. Man’s interference, by preventing this natural process of selection among plants, independent of the wider range of circumstances to which he introduces them, has increased the difference in varieties, particularly in the more domesticated kinds; and even in man himself, the greater uniformity, and more general vigour among savage tribes, is referrible to nearly similar selecting law - the weaker individual sinking under the ill treatment of the stronger, or under the common hardship.'

Matthew (1831) pages.107-108

'... in timber trees the opposite course has been pursued. The large growing varieties being so long of coming to produce seed, that many plantations are cut down before they reach this maturity, the small growing and weakly varieties, known by early and extreme seeding, have been continually selected as reproductive stock, from the ease and conveniency with which their seed could be procured; and the husks of several kinds of these invariably kiln-dried, in order that the seeds might be the more easily extracted. May we, then, wonder that our plantations are occupied by a sickly short-lived puny race, incapable of supporting existence in situations where their own kind had formerly flourished—particularly evinced in the genus Pinus,more particularly in the species Scots Fir; so much inferior to those of Nature's own rearing, where only the stronger, more hardy, soil-suited varieties can struggle forward to maturity and reproduction?

We say that the rural economist should pay as much regard to the breed or particular variety of his forest trees, as he does to that of his live stock of horses, cows, and sheep. That nurserymen should attest the variety of their timber plants, sowing no seeds but those gathered from the largest, most healthy, and luxuriant growing trees..'

Matthew (1831) page 3:

There are several valuable varieties of apple trees of acute branch angle, which do not throw up the bark of the breeks; this either occasions the branches to split down when loaded with fruit, or if they escape this for a few years, the confined bark becomes putrid and produces canker which generally ruins the tree. We have remedied this by a little attention in assisting the rising of the bark with the knife. Nature must not be charged with the malformation of these varieties; at least had she formed them, as soon as she saw her error she would have blotted out her work.'

Matthew (1831) pages 261-263

' We ask if even the fact of these unnaturally tender varieties (obtained by long continued selection, probably assisted by culture, soil and climate, and which, without the cherishing of man, would soon disappear)..'

Matthew (1831) page 67:

'It is also found that the uniformity in each kind of wild growing plants called species may be broken down by art or culture and that when once a breach is made, there is almost no limit to disorder, the mele that ensues being nearly incapable of reduction.'

Matthew (1831) page 387: 'As far back as history reaches, man had already had considerable influence, and had made encroachments upon his fellow denizens, probably occasioning the destruction of many species, and the production and continuation of a number of varieties or even species, which he found more suited to supply his wants, but which from the infirmity of their condition—not having undergone selection by the law of nature, of which we have spoken cannot maintain their ground without his culture and protection.'

Matthew (1831) Here Matthew refers to crab apple trees – which are likely the closest to the original, and most hardy of the apple species. He crosses his unique heretical discovery of natural selection with is unique use of the Artificial Selection versus Natural Selection Analogy with his seditious Chartist libertarian social reform politics to propose a bio-social explanation for why it is bad for human stock (as a national or regional variety) and bad for human society if there is not free crossing in complex human society as there is in societies which may be closer to 'nature'. He writes on page 366:

‘It is an eastern proverb, that no king is many removes from a shepherd. Most conquerors and founders of dynasties have followed the plough or the flock. Nobility, to be in the highest perfection, like the finer varieties of fruits, independent of having its vigour excited by regular married alliance with wilder stocks, would require stated complete renovation, by selection anew from among the purest crab.’

Matthew (1831) Pages 381 - 382. It is here that Matthew, heretically, hands "God" his redundancy notice. To do so, he uses the analogy in question to demonstrate (provide what he believes is evidential "proof") that living matter has the plastic (malleable) quality necessary to create new species by way of their diverging from ancestral varieties with which they would thereafter be incapable of breeding :

' We are therefore led to admit, either of a repeated miraculous creation; or of a power of change, under a change of circumstances, to belong to living organized matter, or rather to the congeries of inferior life, which appears to form superior. The derangements and changes in organized existence, induced by a change of circumstance from the interference of man, affording us proof of the plastic quality of superior life, and the likelihood that circumstances have been very different in the different epochs, though steady in each, tend to heighten the probability of the latter theory.'

Mudie (1832)    Page 368:

‘If we are to observe nature, therefore, we must go to the wilds, because, in all cultivated productions, there are secondary characters produced by the artificial treatment, and we have no means of observing a distinction between these, and those which the same individual would have displayed, had it been left to a completely natural state. The longer that the race has been under the domestication and culture, the changes are of course the greater. So much is that the case that in very many both of the plants and animals that have been in a state of domestication since the earliest times of which we have any record, we know nothing with certainty about the parent races in their wild state. As to the species, or if you will the genus we can be certain. The domestic horse has not been cultivated out of an animal with cloven hoofs and horns; and the domestic sheep has never been bred out of any of the ox tribe. So also wheat and barley have not been cultivated out of any species of pulse, neither have Windsor beans at any time been grasses. But within some such limits as these our certain information lies; and for aught we know the parent race may, in its wild state, be before our eyes every day and yet we may not have the means of knowing that it is so. The breeding artificially has been going on for at least three thousand years…’

Mudie (1832)    Page 369-370

‘But there is another difficulty. When great changes are made on the surface of a country, as when forests are changed into open land, and marshes into corn fields, or any other change that is considerable, the changes of the climate must correspond; and as the wild productions are very much affected by that, they must also undergo changes; and these changes may in time amount to the entire extinction of some of the old tribes, both of plants and of animals, the modification of others to the full extent that the hereditary specific characters admit, and the introduction of not varieties only but of species altogether new.

That not only may but must have been the case. The productions of soils and climates are as varied as these are; and when a change takes place in either of these, if the living productions cannot alter their habits so as to accommodate themselves to the change there is no alternative, but they must perish.’

Mudie (1832)    seemed to be recommending that humans engage in trying to approximate a kind of natural process of selection (370-371):

“Cultivation itself will deteriorate, and in time destroy races, if the same race and the same mode of culture be pursued amid general change. Our own times are times of very rapid change, and, upon the whole, of improvement; we dare not, without the certainty of their falling off, continue the same stock and the same seed corn, season after season, and age after age, as was done by our forefathers. The general change of the country, must have change and not mere succession, in that which we cultivate; and thus we must cross the breeds of our animals, and remove the seeds and plants of our vegetables from district to district. There is something of the same kind in human beings..”

3. Lyell (1832, p, 56)   , Matthew's Forfarshire neighbor and Darwin's great friend and geological mentor, wrote:

'…we have no data as yet to warrant the conclusion that a single permanent hybrid race has ever been formed even in gardens by the intermarriage of two allied species brought from distant habitations. Until some fact of this kind is fairly established, and a new species capable of perpetuating itself in a state of perfect independence of man, can be pointed out, we think it reasonable to call in question entirely this hypothetical source of new species. That varieties do sometimes spring up from cross breeds, in a natural way, can hardly be doubted, but they probably die out even more rapidly than races propagated by grafts or layers.'

3. Low (1844)    wrote:

‘The Wild Pine attains its greatest perfection of growth and form in the colder countries, and on the older rock formations. It is in its native regions of granite, gneiss and the allied deposits, that it grows in extended forests over hundreds of leagues, overpowering the less robust species. When transplanted to the lower plains and subjected to culture, it loses so much of the aspect and characters of the noble original, as scarcely to appear the same. No change can be greater to the habits of a plant than the transportation of this child of the mountain to the shelter and cultivated soil of the nursery; and when the seeds of these cultivated trees are collected and sown again, the progeny diverges more and more from the parent type. Hence one of the reasons why so many worthless plantations of pine appear in the plains of England and Scotland, and why so much discredit has become attached to the culture of the species.’

4. Darwin (1844 – unpublished essay)    wrote

‘In the case of forest trees raised in nurseries, which vary more than the same trees do in their aboriginal forests, the cause would seem to lie in their not having to struggle against other trees and weeds, which in their natural state doubtless would limit the conditions of their existence…’

5. Wallace (1858 Ternate paper)    wrote

‘…those that prolong their existence can only be the most perfect in health and vigour – those who are best able to obtain food regularly, and avoid their numerous enemies. It is, as we commenced by remarking, “a struggle for existence,” in which the weakest and least perfectly organized must always succumb.’ [And]: ‘We see, then, that no inferences as to varieties in a state of nature can be deduced from the observation of those occurring among domestic animals. The two are so much opposed to each other in every circumstance of their existence, that what applies to the one is almost sure not to apply to the other. Domestic animals are abnormal, irregular, artificial; they are subject to varieties which never occur and never can occur in a state of nature: their very existence depends altogether on human care; so far are many of them removed from that just proportion of faculties, that true balance of organization, by means of which alone an animal left to its own resources can preserve its existence and continue its race.’

6. Darwin (1859, p.7 (opening words) and then pp. 83-84)    wrote:

"When we look to the individuals of the same variety or sub-variety of our older cultivated plants and animals, one of the first points which strikes us is, that they generally differ more from each other than do the individuals of any one species or variety in a state of nature.”

"Man selects only for his own good; Nature only for that of the being which she tends. Every selected character is fully exercised by her; and the being is placed under well-suited conditions of life. Man keeps the natives of many climates in the same country; he seldom exercises each selected character in some peculiar and fitting manner; he feeds a long and a short beaked pigeon on the same food; he does not exercise a long-backed or long-legged quadruped in any peculiar manner; he exposes sheep with long and short wool to the same climate. He does not allow the most vigorous males to struggle for the females. He does not rigidly destroy all inferior animals, but protects during each varying season, as far as lies in his power, all his productions. He often begins his selection by some half-monstrous form; or at least by some modification prominent enough to catch his eye, or to be plainly useful to him. Under nature, the slightest difference of structure or constitution may well turn the nicely-balanced scale in the struggle for life, and so be preserved. How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature during whole geological periods. Can we wonder, then, that nature's productions should be far 'truer' in character than man's productions; that they should be infinitely better adapted to the most complex conditions of life, and should plainly bear the stamp of far higher workmanship?'

7. Darwin 1868 wrote    (misspelling Matthew's name) : "Our common forest trees are very variable, as may be seen in every extensive nursery-ground; but as they are not valued as fruit trees, and as they seed late in life, no selection has been applied to them; consequently, as Mr Patrick Matthew remarks, they have not yielded different races…" The historian and anthropologist Loren Eiseley saw Darwin's use of this analogy in his private 1844 essay as too great a double coincidence (see Sutton 2014    for a deeper discussion) that Darwin could replicate both Matthew's unique hypothesis and his unique analogy to explain it, using trees, which were both the central topic of Matthew's book and his example in his original analogy.

The Man's Interference Analogy:

What did Matthew, Wallace and Darwin understand about artificial selection versus natural selection that makes the Artificial selection versus Natural Selection Analogy the perfect device to explain the natural process of selection?

An analogy is used as an explanatory device – a model.

An analogy is about what is analogous to what and why. In that way it must be kept simple. Simplicity is the most important criteria of a useful analogy – why else use one?

The next most important criteria of a good analogy is how close it is to reality (in my opinion). This is why the artificial selection analogy is so powerful, so useful.

Artificial selection is not natural selection, and so it is – like all analogies – a fallacy. But “selection” is the analogy. And it is close to reality as an analogy, because humans breed what they want into varieties they desire. Nature has no such cognitive purpose – selection in nature is born of random types being the most circumstance suited to survive and so they are better able to pass on their characteristics. But the outcome of this random generated process of natural selection leads to the most circumstance suited (in the wild) varieties – and, eventually, new species.

An analogy explains how two things are similar. What is similar in the case in point is “selection”. Selection is the only analogy. Selection is what is similar. Artificial selection by humans versus natural selection by nature. That is the analogy.Darwin, Wallace and Matthew all used it, and so did Low and Mudie.

Starting with the originator, Matthew, he Wallace and Darwin all understood that (1) a combination of artificial selection plus a necessary relaxation of natural selection leads, under human culture, to more varieties any one point in time kept within human culture. And (2) Natural selection often leads to fewer varieties at any one point in time in the wild, but those varieties can survive better under wild conditions than domesticated varieties – which most usually cannot. (3) Because in nature varieties come slowly to the fore that are more suited to survival in the wild than varieties selected relatively rapidly by human breeding programs, the analogy allows us to see that the process of natural selection is different to selection by humans. The natural process of selection is an unconscious and lengthy process leading to survival of the most circumstance suited. Humans are consciously selecting what suites immediate human needs and desires - even if that means those varieties need a greater deal of protection under human culture.

Test the hypothesis

Remember it is the 'Man's interference' explanatory analogy that we are looking for, not the full explanation of natural selection (although if you find that pre-1831 you will have stuck historical gold). Therefore, to dis-confirm the hypothesis we need to find evidence in the literature of others - pre-Matthew (1831) - realizing as a minimum that: (a) varieties consciously bred under human culture are less robust in the wild than naturally occurring wild varieties, because (b) in the wild, natural varieties must be most circumstance suited to wild conditions in order to survive and multiply. With that explanation in mind the essential hypothesis in question can be stated thus: (a) nature 'selects' varieties that are more suited to survival in the wild and that (b) distinct varieties bred by humans to suit human needs and desires are most usually less suited to the wild than natural wild species.

Here on Best Thinking.com and also on The Patrick Matthew Project,    I invite others to test this hypothesis with regard to the published literature record. I call it: “The Matthew Man’s Interference Analogy Hypothesis”. If anyone can dis-confirm it. I will warmly embrace their endeavors and their discovery of new data. Moreover, I will thank them for taking our knowledge forward with regard to coming closer to a purer form of the truth in the story of the discovery of natural selection.

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Nullius in Verba

Who were Robert Mudie and David Low?

Readers with some knowledge of the history of the discovery of natural selection will have heard of Patrick Matthew, Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin, but perhaps not of Mudie and Low. So who were they? You can find out in my earlier blog post on the F2B2 Hypothesis.

The full story of the history of the discovery of the theory of natural selection has changed, because new data has been discovered that completely disproves prior Darwinist knowledge beliefs in Darwin's immaculate conception of a prior published theory. Read Nullius in Verba: Darwin's greatest secret    to discover the implications of the New Data.

Bombshell heresy crossed with seditious bio-social politics

What Matthew did that was most revolutionary, and against the codes of the 19th gentlemen of science, was to take his unique discovery of the process of natural selection and his apparent origination of the artificial versus natural selection analogy and apply both to human society to advocate Chartism, wider social reform and inter-class breeding. He proposed that the nobility would do best to breed with those less protected from the harsh realities of nature by the class system. We can see his seditious blending of his heretical work on natural selection with his seditious politics in the following quotation from Matthew (1831 - Note B of his Appendix) he refers to crab apple trees - the original, and most hardy of the apple species:

'It is an eastern proverb, that no king is many removes from a shepherd. Most conquerors and founders of dynasties have followed the plough or the flock. Nobility, to be in the highest perfection, like the finer varieties of fruits, independent of having its vigour excited by regular married alliance with wilder stocks, would require stated complete renovation, by selection anew from among the purest crab.'

My nook Nullius contains considerable evidence that Liar Charles Lyell, who lived just 19 miles as the crow flies from Matthew's home in Forfarshire, read Laird Matthew's 1831 book following its scandalous hammering - and accusations of plagiarism - in the Edinburgh Literary Journal in 1831 (see Sutton 2014   ).

A blog post presentation of the etymological links between Matthew's book and the works of Lyell's associates and friends can be found here.

Conclusions

Jim Dempster (Dempster, W. J (1996) Evolutionary Concepts in the Nineteenth Century. Edinburgh. The Pentland Press.) wrote a whole chapter (pp. 80-97) on the use of "selection" by 19th century animal breeders and what Matthew, Darwin and others wrote on the subject at page 85:

'Patrick Matthew after 20 years experience as a fruit breeder wrote out 'natural process of selection' in his Naval Timber 'without an effort of concentrated thought'. As a professional breeder the term 'selection' would be part of his everyday existence. It would appear, however, this was the first time the term had been formally committed to print in a philosophical sense.To the hybridist Matthew the analogy between artificial and natural selection was a fact too obvious to merit further debate on the basis of hypothesis.'

That is true, but we have seen, by collecting all that Matthew wrote on the analogy,that he fully understood its significance in explaining the outcomes of both artificial and natural selection.

Dempster (1886 p. 88):

'For someone with a philosophic turn of mind the analogy between artificial selection for domestic purposes and what obtained in nature was exact.'

Here, when Dempster uses the term analogy he is not referring to a the specific definition of analogy as a comparison of similarities. Instead, he is using the wider Oxford English Dictionary definition of: 'A comparison made between one thing and another for the purpose of explanation or clarification.' In other words, it is enough that a comparison of some kind is made in order to explain what the things compared are and why they are either the same or - as in the analogy in question - different.

It is important to stress that the analogy in question - to be an analogy - makes a comparison of the differences between artificial selection (breeding by humans) with natural selection (the natural process of most circumstance suited selection in the wild). Many authors before Matthew noted that humans bred more and different varieties than occurred in nature, and to suit themselves, but it is very important to stress that that observation alone is not the analogy. Many, such as Blaine (1824), who, for example, in his work on dogs, came very close indeed- see his footnotes on pages 97 to 98    in describing how greyhounds and pointers were not best suited to hunting under certain conditions in the wild. But, as did Matthew's predecessors, he failed to point out the natural selection implications that there are - when we compare artificially selected domesticated with wild species - fewer varieties in the wild, or else specifically stating that they could not survive in competition with wild varieties in any natural conditions.

Once we go further than Eiseley, Dempster or any others have apparently seen, by focusing focus upon the general analogy to explain natural slection by way of stating the difference between artificial and natural selection, rather than the same analogy identified only by way of the very precise subject of plants or trees in nurseries versus the wild, we find that Darwin not only replicated Matthew's precise 'plants' analogy without citation in his private essay of 1844, but also the general analogy on pp 79-80 in the Origin of Species in 1859!    That is highly significant, in my opinion.

The analogy originated by Matthew (1831) explains: (a) why artificial selection is different to natural selection in a way that can explain the 'natural process of selection' by comparing (b) what the two do that is (c) different, thereby resulting in (d) what the effects are. Namely, that in such cases where certain species are bred by humans under culture that there are (e) fewer varieties in nature than under human culture, because humans protect the varieties they breed from the harshness and competition that occurs in nature, whereas wild nature selects by way of the 'natural process of selection' only those that can survive in the wild. This means (f) that many varieties bred by artificial selection, under culture, cannot survive in the wild.

What has been crucially explained in this blog post is that Matthew was not only first to write the full hypothesis of natural selection, he was also the first to use an analogy specifically to explain selection in nature by way of the differences in the way nature selects varieties of plants and animals to the way humans selects varieties of plants and animals. I have called this the Artificial Selection versus Natural Selection Analogy. This analogy was replicated by Mudie, Low, Darwin and Wallace. That Darwin and Wallace could each independently replicate both Matthew's hypothesis of natural selection and his unique explanatory analogy simply beggars rational belief - in my considered and evidence led opinion.

Of great importance to the ongoing project to reach a purer form of the truth in the story of the history of the discovery of natural selection, is the fact that it has been herein established that Matthew did (in absence of disconfirming evidence) not only originate the theory of natural selection but also the first analogy of the dissimilarities between artificial and natural selection to explain it.

I cannot help wondering whether the fact Darwin not only replicated Matthew's analogy in 1844, but also in the Origin of Species, has been missed until now because of the peculiarities of the discipline of biology, which insists that an analogy is only a comparison between things that are similar in order to point out their similarities. The problem is, as I have said in my book Nullius in Verba, that biologists have the virtual monopoly of telling the story of the discovery of natural selection in books and scholarly journals. Moreover, those writing in this field invariably self-identify as Darwinists, with all the bias that goes with writing about the unique greatness of their namesake whilst ignoring, playing down or lashing out at those who see a 'blemish in the darling' (e.g Bowler 2013).   

Darwin's more complex analogy of the similarities between artificial and natural selection has been explained rather simply, though arguably not quite precisely, by John Pollack in his book on the power of analogies    Pollock (2014: 'Shortcut: How Analogies Reveal Connections, Spark Innovation, and Sell Our Greatest Ideas') refers to what I have coined: "Darwin's 'Artificial and Natural Selection Analogy of Similarities   " as his "third analogy." The complexity of Darwin's use of several different analogies between artificial and natural selection has been ably discussed by Susan Sterrett in 20012 (Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Volume 33, Issue 1, March 2002, Pages 151–168).

At a more basic level, if we focus upon the powerfully simple analogy that was used to explain a complex process, we now know that Matthew's original 1831 analogy of thedifferences between artificial and natural selection was not only replicated by Darwin in his unpublished essay of (1844), as Eiseley (1979)    discovered, and Dempster (1996) emphasised   , but also by others with proven pre -1858 links to Matthew's book and Charles Darwin - namely Low and Muddie. Moreover, we now newly know that Wallace also replicated the same explanatory analogy and that Darwin (1859) did so also on pages 83-84 of the Origin of Species. This is not a discovery to be taken lightly because it proves that Darwin and Wallace not only supposedly "immaculately conceived" and then miraculously replicated Matthew's 1831 prior published discovery of natural selection, whilst surround by acknowledged influencers who read it pre-1858, they also replicated his key analogical explanatory device for it!

Dempster (1996, p.83) writes about how Lawrence had in 1819 published his heretical lectures on breeding improved stock of humans using artificial selection techniques known to animal breeders. On the grounds of its heresy, according to Dempster, Lawrence's book was refused copyright by the Lord Chancellor, but underground copies existed. Dempster tells us that Darlington in his 1859 book' Darwin's place in history'    claims that Matthew probably read and was converted by Lawrence's heresy. Dempster (p. 84) notes the problem is that Matthew. like Darwin. was not good at citing his influencers- and he never cited Lawrence. Lawrence's papers, first published in 1819 can be found online in a volume published in 1822 (here   ). It is now my intention to run the ID method based upon the premise of the "First o be be Second F2B2 Hypothesis" to see whether there is evidence to support Darlington's belief that Matthew read and was influenced Lawrence pre 1831. This is the first time I have used the ID method in the F2B2 way since writing my book. But I always knew the right opportunity to test it again would come up. That is why in 2014 I wrote:   

The failure of Matthew to cite his influences is deeply frustrating. However, it is an area that future work can shed considerably more light upon, now that we can use ID to detect the less obvious etymological and philosophical origins of NTA [Naval Timber and Arboriculture by Matthew 1831]. Whatever the case of his influences, if it exists, I have totally failed, despite my very best efforts, to find anything remotely resembling a hypothesis of natural selection preceding NTA.

What I found in investigating the links between Lawrence and Matthew is that Lawerence's work contains nothing of the theory of natural selection at all. However, Matthew was quite likely influenced by it to replicate Lawrence's use of shepherds and crab apple trees as an example to reveal simply the varying inferiority of varieties bred by humans and upper-class human varieties selected by both the desires and the limitations imposed by complex societies See the results in my later blog post.

The Support and Suppression of Lawrence

According to Dempster (p.82) Edward Blyth supported Lawrence's work - which although withdrawn in 1820 was recommended to his readers by Blyth in 1835.

Dempster tells us that Lawrence warned Huxley not to become engaged in work on the natural history of man. That warning was given for good reason.

Blyth was never recognised in his lifetime for his work. Darwin used him endlessly. Despite that reliance he once mocked him in a letter to his great friend and geological mentor Lyell    as "Poor Blyth of Calcutta" - an epithet Darwin later used to mock Matthew in anotherletter to his best friend and botanical mentor Hooker    - describing him as "poor old Patrick Matthew". Were those neglected naturalists mocked as "poor" essentially because they failed to see what Darwin and his closest friends knew about how to play the game to ones best advantage in life?

The story of Lawrence sheds much light on the prejudice of society (led in Britain by the naturalist parsons of Oxford and Cambridge) towards any published work on ideas about artificial selection and the 'breeding of humans' - something, as we have seen above, which Matthew wrote about and then carried forward in his book Emigration Fields (1839) where he advocated that Europeans should cross with the Maori people of New Zealand. So much for the self-serving Darwinist myth that Matthew did nothing to take his ideas forward after 1831!

A summary of the importance of the new understanding that Matthew originated and prior published the Artifical versus Natural Selection Analogy in 1831 - years before Darwin and Wallace replicated both his bombshell hypothesis of natural selection and that powerful analogy - can be found on my website PatrickMatthew.com   

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Patrick Matthew: Solver of the problem of emergence of new and extinction of species, God-slaying biological father of the theory of natural selection

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