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From Darwin's Big Idea: Natural Selection
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Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population...
In this book, the British scholar and clergyman Thomas Malthus argued that human populations grew faster than the available food supply, leading to a struggle for resources. After reading the book in 1838, Darwin extended this theory to plants and animals, making it central to his explanation of natural selection. Because of limited resources, only those organisms best adapted to their environments survive.
T. R. Malthus (1766–1834). An Essay on the Principle of Population.... Vol. 1. Washington City: Roger Chew Weightman, 1798 [1809].
