The Survival of the Fittest. 1 3 1 



body there are organs generating secretions, which 

 they themselves do not need and cannot use, but 

 which other parts of the system require. So Dr. 

 Foster remarks of the function which produces 

 glycogen: " Obviously the organ makes this not for 

 itself, but for other parts of the body; it labors to 

 produce, but they make use of, the precious mate- 

 rial, which thus becomes a bond of union between 

 the two." Is anything more desired to show a de- 

 sign over things, than that one should labor, and, 

 if you like, " struggle " and perhaps die in the work, 

 while another reaps the fruit; and that all the while 

 the economy of nature should roll on indefectibly 

 and smoothly? Mr. Darwin does not understand 

 things thus: he means a struggle for the individual's 

 own existence. In that case, whether you take it as 

 struggling or as simply living for the individual's 

 own solitary good, there is but a limited play of 

 such individualism in the divinely contrived course 

 of nature. 



143. Equally restricted is the meaning which un- 

 derlies the other phrase of Mr. Darwin's, " the sur- 

 vival of the fittest." This survival 

 should mean for his purpose, as it cer- ^Fittest* 

 tainly does mean for the evolution which 

 moves on parallel lines with his, the origin of higher 

 species in the world, a general trending upwards of 

 the organic orders, the lower species which survive 

 becoming gradually higher. In this way, the lower 

 orders which are meant to be the food of the higher, 



