Page:Divine Selection or The Survival of the Useful.djvu/31

 means, development would have stopped long ago. Progress would have been checked in the first instance. For the conclusion of Evolution is that the universe, having run its course, will return to the nebula from which it came. In which case nebula is better fitted to survive than anything formed from it.

Again, it is axiomatic that the simpler the form the better fitted it is to exist. That nebula is better fitted to survive (in the sense of existing) than rock, and rock than plants, and plants than animals, need no comment.

Very early, therefore, in the application of the principle we come upon well defined limitations, which could be multiplied almost without limit. The phrase, "survival of the fittest," is more suggestive of the struggle for existence than is the term "natural selection," and refers ostensibly rather to that phase of nature's facts. There also it has extensive limitations.