CHARLES DARWIN AND THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION It is commonly thought today that the theory of evolution originated from Darwin in the nineteenth century. However, the idea that species mutated over time has been around for a long time in one form or another. Therefore, by Darwin's time the idea that species change from one type into another was surely not new, but was rejected by most because the proposers of evolution could not come up with a satisfactory mechanism that would explain this change. The most influential evolutionary theories prior to Darwin were those of Lamarck and Geoffroy St. Hilaire, developed between 17