70 NATURAL SELECTION. 



tions of life. Can it then be thought improbable, seeing 

 that variations useful to man have undoubtedly occurred, 

 that other variations useful in some way to each being in the 

 great and complex battle of life, should occur in the course 

 of many successive generations ? If such do occur, can we 

 doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born 

 than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advan- 

 tage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance 

 of surviving and procreating their kind ? On the other 

 hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree 

 injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of 

 favorable individual differences and variations, and the 

 destruction of those which are injurious, I have called 

 Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. Varia- 

 tions neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by 

 natural selection, and would be left either a fluctuating ele- 

 ment, as perhaps we see in certain potymorphic species, or 

 would ultimately become fixed, owing t» the nature of the 

 organism and the nature of the conditions. 



Several writers have misapprehended or objected to the 

 term Natural Selection. Some have even imagined that 

 natural selection induces variability, whereas it implies only 

 the preservation of such variations as arise and are benefi- 

 cial to the being under its conditions of life. No one 

 objects to agriculturists speaking of the potent effects of 

 man's selection ; and in this case the individual differences 

 given by nature, which man for some object selects, must of 

 necessity first occur. Others have objected that the term 

 selection implies conscious choice in the animals which 

 become modified ; and it has even been urged, that, as plants 

 have no volition, natural selection is not applicable to them ! 

 In the literal sense of the word, no doubt, natural selection 

 is a false term ; but who ever objected to chemists speaking 

 of the elective affinities of the various elements ? — and yet 

 an acid cannot strictly be said to elect the base with which 

 it in preference combines. It has been said that I speak of 

 natural selection as an active power or Deity ; but who 

 objects to an author speaking of the attraction of gravity as 

 ruling the movements of the planets ? Every one knows 

 what is meant and is implied by such metaphorical expres- 

 sions ; and they are almost necessary for brevity. So again 

 it is difficult to avoid personifying the word Nature ; but I 

 mean by nature, only the aggregate action and product of 

 many natural laws, and by laws the sequence of events a3 



