Patrick Matthew's synthesis of catastrophism and transformism

Abstract

Patrick Matthew (1790–1874) regarded natural selection as a force of conformity. Competition between species kept them from dysmorphic chaos. Catastrophes exterminated many species that would otherwise compete. The absence of this competitive natural selection allowed the remnants to ramify (their lineages to split). Matthew thus united elements of catastrophism and transformism in a way opposite to Lyell combining uniformitarianism with species fixity. Matthew's mechanism of lineage splitting differed from Darwin's or Wallace's. Wallace's lineages split in the presence of competing species. Darwin saw competition within species as the disruptive force splitting lineages. How, then, did the majority come to regard Matthew's and Darwin's mechanism as equal, a view shared by the mainstream and the fringe? The roots of this misconception lie in publications by Thomas Huxley, Patrick Matthew and Charles Darwin, each of whom had fragmentary knowledge of the others' ideas. Later writers elaborated the divergent presentism rolling from split narratives.