In 1831, in the appendix to a book on the raising of trees for shipbuilding, Scottish grain merchant Patrick Matthew suggested that, over great expanses of time, “the progeny of the same parents, under great difference of circumstance, might, in several generations, even become distinct species, incapable of co-reproduction.” He’d struck on the central idea of natural selection nearly 30 years before On the Origin of Species:

As the field of existence is limited and pre-occupied, it is only the hardier, more robust, better suited to circumstance individuals, who are able to struggle forward to maturity, these inhabiting only the situations to which they have superior adaptation and greater power of occupancy than any other kind; the weaker, less circumstance-suited, being prematurely destroyed.

On learning of this, Darwin allowed that Matthew “briefly but completely anticipates the theory of Nat. Selection.” In a letter to the Gardeners’ Chronicle, in which Matthew had pointed out his early observation, Darwin wrote, “I freely acknowledge that Mr. Matthew has anticipated by many years the explanation which I have offered of the origin of species, under the name of natural selection.”

But modern observers point out that Matthew didn’t pursue the idea and may not have realized the breadth of its import. Historian of science Peter Bowler writes, “Simple priority is not enough to earn a thinker a place in the history of science: one has to develop the idea and convince others of its value to make a real contribution.” Darwin called Matthew’s note “a complete but not developed anticipation … Anyhow one may be excused in not having discovered the fact in a work on Naval Timber.”