Why did Darwin's contemporaries believe that natural selection could not move a population beyond its initial range of variation?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Darwin's contemporaries believed that natural selection could not move a population beyond its initial range of variation because they did not understand the concept of mutations, which introduce new variants in a population. They thought that selection could only act on existing traits and could not produce new ones. However, we now know that mutations generate new genetic variation that can be acted upon by selection.

Why Did Darwin's Contemporaries Believe That Natural Selection Could Not