Essay on the Principle of Population, Written by Thomas Malthus

Essay on the Principle of Population, written by Thomas Malthus in 1798, influenced Darwin's thoughts as he struggled to understand what mechanisms could be at work to produce evolution. Malthus proposed that populations of animals and plants, including humans,

A) increased arithmetically in numbers while the nutrients available only increased geometrically.
B) decreased arithmetically in numbers while the nutrients available increased geometrically.
C) increased geometrically in numbers while the nutrients available only increased arithmetically.
D) increased geometrically in numbers while the nutrients available increased arithmetically.
E) evolved from mainland to islands, thus explaining why the island flora and fauna resembled the mainland species so closely.