The Discovery of Natural Selection 



lution. Indeed tlie term *^ survival of the fittest," approved 

 by both Darwin and Wallace as an alternative for *^ natural 

 selection/' was, as is well known, introduced by Spencer. 

 Wallace's relations with Spencer, though somewhat con- 

 troversial at times, were nevertheless cordial and sym- 

 pathetic. In ^^My Life'' he tells of his first visit, and 

 the impression left upon his mind by their conversation. 

 It occurred somewhere about 1862-3, shortly after he and 

 Bates had read, and been greatly impressed by, Spencer's 

 ** First Principles." *^ Our thoughts," he says, "were 

 full of the great unsolved problem of the origin of life — 

 a problem which Darwin's ^ Origin of Species ' left in as 

 much obscurity as ever — and we looked to Spencer as the 

 one man living who could give us some clue to it. His 

 wonderful exposition of the fundamental laws and condi- 

 tions, actions and interactions of the material universe 

 seemed to penetrate so deeply into that ' nature of things ' 

 after which the early philosophers searched in vain . . . 

 that we hoped he would throw some light on that great 

 problem of problems. . . . He was very pleasant, spoke 

 appreciatively of what we had both done for the practical 

 exposition of evolution, and hoped we would continue 

 to work at the subject. But when we touched upon the 

 great problem, and whether he had arrived at even one of 

 the first steps towards its solution, our hopes were dashed 

 at once. That, he said, was too fundamental a problem to 

 even think of solving at present. We did not yet know 

 enough of matter in its essential constitution nor of the 

 various forces of nature; and all he could say was that 

 everything pointed to its having been a development out of 

 matter — a phase of that continuous process of evolution by 

 which the whole universe had been brought to its present 

 condition. And so we had to wait and work contentedly 

 at minor problems. And now, after forty years, though 



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