Malthus' Push
Thomas Malthus was a political economist that helped Darwin close in on the theory of natural selection. Malthus studied how the increasing human population could lead to an inability to feed everyone, we would end up with more mouths to feed than food. He proposed that the human population needed to be controlled to prevent "famine and misery". Malthus said the same was true for the populations of plants and animals also, populations had to be controlled by something or they would take over. Darwin reading what Malthus had published concluded that living things don't necessarily reproduce enough just for stability, as he previously thought. They reproduce more than what's necessary and they all have different traits. He realized that some animals were better fit to handle some conditions in the wild. This makes these animals more likely to survive and reproduce, therefore, passing their traits on to their offspring. Without reading Mathus' findings Darwin event...