Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/494

 488 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

��WAR AND THE SUBVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Bt Pbofmsob I. W. HOWDRTH

UMITBR8ITT OF CALIVOBNIA

-L and first used by him in his " Principles of Biology/'^ published in 1864. By this phrase he sought to express in purely mechanical terms the operation of nature in the evolution of organisms^ a process which Darwin had called "natural selection or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life." Alfred Bussel Wallace, who shares with Darwin the honor of discovering the principle of natural selection, recognized at once the advantages of Spencer's phrase and wrote to Darwin urging its acceptance as a substitute for "natural selection/' He said:
 * rTlHE survival of the fittest*' is a phrase coined by Herbert Spencer

It IB ft plain ezpresBion of tbe fact, while natural selection is a metaphorical expression of it and to a certain degree incorrect, since. . . nature does not so much select special varieties as exterminate the most unfavorable ones.

But Darwin, while perceiving the advantages of the phrase and admit- ting its greater accuracy, pointed out the objection that it can not be used as a substantive governing a verb. He also regards the bring- ing into connection of natural and artificial selection by the term " natural selection " as an advantage not to be overlooked, and the wide use of the term both at home and abroad made him doubtful whether it could be given up. ''With all its faults," he said, " I should be sorry to see the attempt made." In the later editions of the " Origin of Spe- cies," Darwin used " survival of the fittest " as an alternative of " nat- ural selection"; and Spencer in his subsequent writings used both phrases with something like equal frequency.^

"The survival of the fittest," then, and "natural selection" are two expressions for practically the same thing, namely, the mode of descent of organisms and groups of organisms from earlier and simpler forms. This mode briefiy stated is as follows: The conditions of life necessitate on the part of all living things a struggle for existence, and this struggle is intensified by the procreative powers of animals and plants, more being brought into existence than can possibly survive ; in all organisms there is a tendency to vary and in the struggle the organisms which

1 Spencer, Herbert, "Principles of Biology," Vol. I., p. 530. Bevised and enlarged edition, New York, 1898.

»6ee "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," IL, pp. 229-30, N. Y., 1901.

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