Whose work is it possible that influenced Darwin's ideas on natural...

It is possible that the work of Thomas Malthus on populations influenced Darwin. Natural selection is based on certain observations which are factual. For example, natural resources are limited, populations are stable in size except for seasonal fluctuation, members of a population vary in characteristics (infact no two individuals are alike) even though they look superficially similar, most of variations are inherited etc. The fact that theoretically population size will grow exponentially if everybody reproduced maximally (this fact can be seen in a growing bacterial population) and the fact that population sizes in reality are limited, means that there had been competition for resources. Only some survived and grew at the \cos t of others that could not flourish. The novelty and brilliant insight of Darwin was this: he asserted that variations, which are heritable and which make resource utilisation better for few (adapted to habitat better) will enable only those to reproduce and leave more progeny. Hence for a period of time, over many generations, survivors will leave more progeny and there would be a change in population characteristic and hence new forms appear to arise.