But in Darwin's time, it was impossible to see any of that. No one was sure how animals or plants passed down traits. And Darwin knew that the lack of an explanation for heredity left a big gap in ...

It was in this pivotal year that Darwin, back from his voyage on the Beagle and trying to understand the forces that drove the origin of new species, read the works of Thomas Malthus, a parson and ...

Darwin, like many intellectuals of his era, was well versed in a variety of natural sciences, as well as in medicine and theology. When he set forth on his first voyage aboard the HMS Beagle, he ...