NATURAL SELECTION 63 



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 advantage, how- 

 ever 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. Vari- 

 ations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natu- 

 ral selection, and would be left either a fluctuating element, as 

 perhaps we see in certain polymorphic species, or would ultimately 

 become fixed, owing to 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 selec- 

 tion induces variability, whereas it implies only the preservation 

 of such variations as arise and are beneficial 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 voli- 

 tion, 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 expressions; 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 as ascertained by us. With a little familiar- 

 ity such superficial objections will be forgotten. 



We shall best understand the probable course of natural selec- 

 tion by taking the case of a country undergoing some slight physi- 

 cal change, for instance, of climate. The proportional numbers of 

 its inhabitants will almost immediately undergo a change, and 



