|Question 14Verbal

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Before the 1858 publication of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin developed his theory of natural selection in five notebooks. In them he first expressed one of natural selection's principles: that species produce more offspring than available resources can sustain. He also listed books he read, such as Charles Lyell's Elements of Geology. A fall 1838 entry in one of Darwin's notebooks mentions species struggle for survival in a world of insufficient resources "as inference from Malthus," referring to a 1798 essay by economist Thomas Malthus asserting that population growth will outpace agricultural production. A later notebook, begun in October 1838, mentions "the grand crush of population." This suggests that ____
Which choice most logically completes the text?
though some of Darwin's notebook entries relating to his theory of natural selection date from 1838, others must have been written as late as 1858.
A
in early fall 1838, Darwin realized that Malthus's ideas regarding human populations derived from observations of animal behavior in nature.
B
sometime in or before October 1838, Darwin determined that a postulate rooted in economics might also be applicable to biology.
C
a key concept in Darwin's theory of natural selection had been previously articulated in the same terms by economists sometime between 1798 and 1838..
D