1886.] j Editors Table. 535 
varied and multiplied. The conditions of the fitness essential to 
survival were thus originally those of physical endurance, and as 
life multiplied and inorganic nature receded in importance as a 
factor, these conditions came to depend more and more continu- 
ally on intellectual development or adaptation to the wants of 
the most intelligent organisms. The most useful and successful 
man in the Plymouth Rock colony was he of the strongest arm 
and broadest shoulders, but the most useful and successful man 
| of the metropolis to-day is he of the greatest business. tact and 
A shrewdness and the broadest human sympathies. 
When we speak of the “ survival of the fittest,” it is obvious 
that we must keep before our minds a clear idea of the sense in 
| which the words “ survival” and “ fittest” are used. If the con- 
ditions of a certain sense of the word “survival” pass away or 
indefinitely decrease in relative importance, we cannot reasonably 
€xpect to apply the word in that sense as if it were invariable. 
It is necessary, instead, to employ a more constant and general 
signification of the word. : 
If there were no universal and overwhelming convulsions of 
nature after the arrival of the highest members of the scale of 
` animal life at a plane of absolute intelligence, we are warranted in 
2 Supposing that the most intelligent mammals, at least, were 
. capable of preserving themselves from destruction and burial by 
the lesser convulsions of nature that occurred from time to time. 
Moreover, if we assume, for the sake of argument, that man 
descended from the highest development of anthropoid apes 
Whose existence in prehistoric times is known, we must admit 
the occurrence of a considerable interval between the cessation 
) of such convulsions of nature as were likely to bury and preserve 
7 the remains of anthropoid apes and the attainment by the anthro- 
the dead in a manner calculated to preserve their remains for 
modern scientific inspection. ae 
The longer this intermediate period is supposed to be, the © 
Steater the intellectual development which, under the laws of 
volution, should take place in the course of it, The reasonable 
ence is that the greater the gap between the highest known 
= of anthropoid ape and the lowest known form of man, the 
veoh important, relatively, must have become the social and 
Moral conditions of development, while the physical conditions 
poid of a sufficient degree of intelligence to suggest the burial of 
