SUMMARY OF 'PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGJQUE: 281 



crease of the smaller, and especially of the most imper- 

 fect, animals, their numbers would become so great as 

 to prove injurious to the conservation of breeds, and to 

 the progress already made towards more perfect organ- 

 ization, unless nature had taken precautions to keep 

 them down within certain fixed limits which she cannot 

 exceed." * 



This seems to contain, and in a nutshell, as much of 

 the essence of what Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. 

 Charles Darwin have termed the survival of the fittest 

 in the struggle for existence, as was necessary for 

 Lamarck's purpose. 



To Lamarck, as to Dr. Darwin and Buffon, it was 

 perfectly clear that the facts, that animals have to find 

 their food under varying circumstances, and that they 

 must defend themselves in all manner of varying ways 

 against other creatures which would eat them if they 

 could, were simply some of the conditions of their 

 existence. In saying that the surrounding circum- 

 stances — which amount to the conditions of existence — 

 determined the direction in which any plant or animal 

 should be slowly modified, Lamarck includes as a matter 

 of course the fact that the " stronger and better armed 

 should eat the weaker," and thus survive and bear 

 offspring which would inherit the strength and better 

 armour of its parents. Nothing therefore can be more 

 at variance with the truth than to represent Lamarck 

 and the other early evolutionists as ignoring the struggle 

 for existence and the survival of the fittest ; these are 

 inevitably implied whenever they use the word "ctV- 

 • « PhU. Zool.,' torn. i. p. 112. 



