Historical Influences on Darwin

In my opinion, Thomas Malthus had the greatest influence of Darwin's work on natural selection. Malthus studied and developed ideas about human population, which Darwin later extended to his study of biology. In "Essay on the Principle of Population," Malthus discussed limiting human population growth. Offspring were being produced more rapidly than the resources that were essential to survival were. He pointed out that this often resulted in death, poverty, and famine among other unfortunate consequences. Malthus believed that these were natural outcomes, but were still caused by a divine source. (http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/malthus.html)

Inspired by Malthus’s studies, Darwin concluded that there is a constant competition for resources between all living beings (animals, plants, man), and those who could find more resources would have a higher chance of survival and reproduction. Further consideration of how different organisms were more equipped to survive than others resulted in Darwin proposing natural selection. “Resources are limited” was strongly inspired by Malthus. He stated that as population increased, resource production remained mostly constant, which in turn limited the number of offspring that would survive. Thus solidifying Darwin’s claim that “there will not be enough resources available for all organisms to reproduce as many offspring as they can.” From there, Darwin considered who would be more likely to survive and how the competition for resources affected organisms, which gave way to his understanding that “organisms with better access to resources will be more successful in their reproductive efforts.”

I think Thomas Malthus's information was essential to Charles Darwin's development of his theory of evolution. The ideas of reproduction rates and competition of resources is what allowed Darwin to consolidate the concept of natural selection. I don't know if Darwin would have been able to develop this theory without Malthus. Darwin built upon the knowledge of Malthus and many other scientists during his time spent studying evolution, which is what science is all about. He may have been able to develop these ideas without Malthus and other scientists, but it would have taken Darwin a considerably longer amount of time to do so.

The church's attitude towards natural selection and other evolutionary notions was extremely negative, and greatly affected Darwin's decision to publish his findings. Originally he did not want to publish because of his fear of backlash from the church, society, and even his own wife. Fortunately enough for the current world population, Darwin published his works when he heard that another scientist (Alfred Russel Wallace) was going to publish a paper on his concept of natural selection. Darwin didn't want someone else taking credit for this concept, so he published a paper presenting his work. His work did not receive much attention until he published the infamous On the Origin of Species.