Historical Influences on Darwin

I think that Thomas Malthus had the most positive impact on Darwin's development of his theory of Natural Selection. Malthus introduced the idea of competition of the availability of resources to the scientific community. He argues that population size was held in check by the lack of resources. Malthus explained the idea of a decline of living conditions because of overpopulation which was relatively new thinking at the time."He blamed this decline on three elements: the overproduction of young; the instability of resources to keep up with the rising human population; and the irresponsibility of the lower classes."
(http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/malthus.html)
Darwin took this idea of the competition for the lack for resources and made his theory of Natural Selection. Malthus's idea was the basis for Darwin's work.

The points that Malthus was mostly related to his work were: the idea that all organisms have to potential of reproducing exponentially, what prevents organisms from reproducing at their potential, and that resources are limited. Malthus was not concerned about species change. Although, he insisted that the human population be limited because of the reality of limited resources. This idea became Darwin's key principle of natural selection, the fact that competition between individuals affected species.

Darwin would not have developed his idea of natural selection because competition of resources has to occur in the process of natural selection. Whether it be competition for mates or other resources such as food.

The church was highly against Darwin's work because it went against its teachings. Also Darwin's work went against the entire natural history of Europe. Eventually, Darwin went on to publish his book On the Origins of Species.