Thomas Malthus and Charles Lyell were two figures who influenced Darwin's theories. Malthus was an influence through his book on the population principle. Darwin had aparallel thinking in the concept of individual struggle in natural selection. Lyell'sinfluence on Darwin was from his book "Principles". Darwin agreed with Lyell'suniformitarian theories, and the uniformitarian understanding helped Darwin explain theelements of natural selection. Malthus believed that starvation would always be a part of human life because he thoughtthat population would increase at a greater rate than food supply. In his book, "Essay onthe Principle of Population", he discussed eliminating help for the poor. He thought thiswould be a natural way of getting rid of poverty and stopping the poor from reproducingmore poor people. Malthus also explained that competition was best for all in humansocieties and man would always have to struggle to feed himself and his family. Anotherway Malthus viewed the population principle was as something brought on by God as away to prevent man from being lazy and to make man work hard to support his family. Darwin derived the concept of the struggle for existence in part from Malthus's essay. Hebelieved that creatures less fit for their environment would tend to die off. This would becalled the struggle for existence. Some people thought that nature was a balanced system,but Darwin saw it as a mechanism. He believed the creatures that were best adaptedwould survive. Although Darwin agreed with Malthus on the struggle of individuals, hediffered in opinion on Malthus's idea of the increase of population. Darwin (just fromobservation) did not believe that population would increase at a tremendous rate fromyear to year but believed it would stay somewhat constant. Charles Lyell was a uniformitarian. He believed the earth had gone through changes bythe same causes (earthquakes and volcanic eruptions) on the same scale we see t...
