Natural Selection and Patrick Matthew: Evolutionary Concepts in the Nineteenth Century.

It is a long-held distortion of scientific history which claims that evolution by natural selection was a scientific innovation first promulgated by Charles Darwin. It has been a popular, yet spurious, myth in England for so long that the name of the great man has become synonymous with Evolution itself. But nearly thirty years before Darwin, a Scottish gentleman farmer and fruit-grower, Patrick Matthew, had detailed in his book, Naval Timber and Arboriculture (1831), the basic principle underlying what came to be termed Darwinism.In this completely revised and updated edition of this definitive work on Matthew, Mr Dempster sets the record straight - on Matthew, on Darwin, on Lamarck and on Cuvier. Dempster shows that Darwin never used the word Evolution. The true founder of Evolution was Lamarck and the true origin of the principle of natural selection lies with Matthew. Matthew was not only a scholar, with an original and enquiring mind, rooted in the traditions of the Scottish Enlightenment, but also was a practical man, having long experience as a commercial grower with the techniques of improving fruit-tree stock by selection. He brought a distinctive Scottish contribution to the development of scientific thought which has been almost overlooked by history.