Patrick Matthew's law of natural selection

Abstract

Patrick Matthew is the little-known first originator of macroevolution by natural selection. I review his ideas, and introduce some previously unnoticed writings (catalogued at a new website: http://smarturl.it/patrickmatthew) that clarify how they differ from Darwin's and Wallace's. Matthew's formulation emphasized natural selection as an axiomatic 'law' rather than a 'theory', a distinction that could still be of use to us today.