I.] PHRASEOLOGY OP EVOLUTION. 31 



a convenient and abbreviated formula for the designation 

 of important principles, for use in common writing and 

 speech, and not to express a literal truth. Darwin was 

 himself well aware of the danger of the literal interpre- 

 tation of the epigram "natural selection." "The term 

 'natural selection,'" he writes, "is in some respects a 

 bad one, as it seems to imply conscious choice; but this 

 will be disregarded after a little familiarity." This tech- 

 nical use of the term "natural selection" is now gen- 

 erally accepted unconsciously; and yet there have been 

 recent revolts against it, upon the score that it does not 

 itself express a literal principle or truth. If we accept 

 the term in the sense in which it was propounded by its 

 author, we are equally bound to accept ' ' survival of the 

 fittest" as a sjaionymous expression, because its author 

 so designed it. " By natural selection or survival of the 

 fittest," writes Spencer, " — by the preservation in suc- 

 cessive generations of those whose moving equilibria 

 happen to be least at variance with the requirements, 

 there is eventually produced a changed equilibrium 

 completely in harmony with the requirements." 



It should be said that there is no reason other than 

 usage why the phrase "survival of the fittest" should 

 not apply to the result of Lamarckian or functional evo- 

 lution as well as of Darwinian or selective evolution. It 

 simply expresses a fact without designating the cause or 

 the process. Cope has written a book upon the "Origin of 

 the Fittest," in which the argument is Lamarckian. The 

 phrase implies a conflict, and the loss of certain contest- 

 ants and the salvation of certain others. It asserts that 

 the contestants or characters which survive are the fittest, 

 but it does not explain whether they are fit because en- 

 dowed with greater strength, greater prolificness, com- 



