Theories Before Darwin
Darwin was not the first person to declare a theory about evolution. People like Aristotle and Xenophanes also had a few ideas before Darwin and they were around 500-300 BC. In the Islamic world many naturalists talked about evolution 1000 years before Darwin was even born. Of course there were many different kinds of theories and not all of them were scientifically proven.
In 520 BC Anaximander, a Greek philosopher, published a book. He stated that earths life started as slime in the ocean and ten moved to drier places. He also stated that species change and evolve over time. Aristotle lived around 350BC and created his own theory about evolution. It was more of a epigenetic model of evolution. He also came up with a classification system for all animals.
Over 2000 years later Carolus Linnaeus, a Swedish naturalist, published a book called Systema Naturae. In this book he had stated that new species came through hybridization, and under gods hands. Comte de Buffon, also a naturalist, had about the same idea as Carolus Linnaeus. He thought that all organisms were created by god with mankind at the top. He also thought that the environment had to do with evolution but had nothing to back this statment up. After a few more theories came Erasmus Darwin's theory, that all living organisms came from the same ancestor. He also thought that competition and sexual selection had to do with a species change but had no proof of this. Eventually Darwin came up with his evolution theory and was able to prove it. He proved to be his grandfathers true grandson.
