An Essay on the Principle of Population - The Book That Inspired Darwin and Wallace

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) was a British demographer and economist who wrote what turned out to be one very influential book: An Essay on the Principle of Population. In it, Malthus describes the tendency for populations to increase more rapidly than the food supplies on which they rely. The book also suggests that limiting factors take effect when a population exceeds the carrying capacity of its environment and for this reason, population growth remains in check. Malthus' book, first published in 1798, focused on the growth of human populations but the book's influence soon extended far beyond our own species. Both Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace read Malthus' work and cited it as influential in shaping their theories of evolutionary change.