268 INOLUTION [Chai. IV 



Letter 190 "seeking only the good of the species," etc., etc. To the few 

 this is as clear as daylight, and beautifully suggestive, but to 

 many it is evidently a stumbling-block. I wish, therefore, 

 to suggest to you the possibility of entirely avoiding this 

 source of -misconception in your great work (if not now too 

 late), and also in any future editions of the Origin, and I 

 think it may be done without difficulty and very effectually 

 by adopting Spencer's term (which he generally uses in pre- 

 ference to Natural Selection) — viz., "survival of the fittest." 



This term is the plain expression of the fact ; Natural 

 Selection is a metaphorical expression of it, and to a certain 

 degree indirect and incorrect, since, even personifying Nature, 

 she does not so much select special variations as exterminate 

 the most unfavourable ones. 



Combined with the enormous multiplying powers of all 

 organisms, and the " struggle for existence " leading to the 

 constant destruction of by far the largest proportion— facts 

 which no one of your opponents, as far as I am aware, has 

 denied or misunderstood — " the survival of the fittest " 

 rather than of those who were less fit could not possibly be 

 denied or misunderstood. Neither would it be possible 

 to say that to ensure the "survival of the fittest" any 

 intelligent chooser was necessary ; whereas when you say 

 Natural Selection acts so as to choose those that are 

 fittest, it is misunderstood, and apparently always will 

 be. Referring to your book, I find such expressions as 

 " Man selects only for his own good ; Nature only for that 

 of the being which she tends." This, it seems, will always be 

 misunderstood ; but if you had said " Man selects only for his 

 own good ; Nature, by the inevitable ' survival of the fittest,' 

 only for that of the being she tends," it would have been less 

 liable to be so. 



I find you use the term " Natural Selection " in two 

 senses: (1) for the simple preservation of favourable and 

 rejection of unfavourable variations, in which case it is 

 equivalent to "survival of the fittest" ; and (2) for the effect 

 or change produced by this preservation, as when you say, 

 " To sum up the circumstances favourable or unfavourable to 

 Natural Selection," and again, " Isolation, also, is an important 

 clement in the process of Natural Selection." Here it is not 

 merely " survival of the fittest," but change produced by 



