THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 267 



same moment eliminates the unfit and establishes 

 the fit. Too frequently the moralist's attention is 

 diverted to the negative side, to what seems the 

 quite immoral spectacle of the massacre of the 

 innocent, the rout and murder of the unfit. But 

 in earlier Nature there is no such word as inno- 

 cent; and no ethical meaning at that stage can 

 attach itself to the term * unfit' Fitness in the 

 stormy days of the world's animal youth was neces- 

 sarily fighting-fitness ; no higher end was present 

 anywhere than simply to gain for life a footing in 

 the world, and perfect it up to the highest physical 

 form. The creature which did that fulfilled its 

 destiny, and no higher destiny was possible or con- 

 ceivable. The Survival of the Fittest, of course, does 

 not mean the survival of the strongest. It means 

 the Survival of the Adapted — the survival of the 

 most fitted to the circumstances which surround 

 it. A fish survives in water when a leaking iron- 

 clad goes to the bottom, not because it is stronger 

 but because it is better adapted to the element 

 in which it lives. A Texas bull is stronger than 

 a mosquito, but in an autumn drought the bull 

 dies, the mosquito lives. Fitness to survive is 

 simply fittedness, and has nothing to do with 

 strength or courage, or intelligence or cunning as 

 such, but only with adjustments as fit or unfit to 



