The Development of Darwin's Theory

The period examined is that between 1838 by which time Darwin had formulated his theory of evolution by natural selection and 1859 when the Origin of Species was published. Ospovat examines this period in detail and shows that Darwin's views changed quite radically from initially believing that animals and plants were perfectly adapted to their environments and that evolution only occurred when the environment changed to believing that living things were not perfectly adapted were in constant competition with each other and hence were continually evolving.