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in the portion of my garden set apart for the cultivation of the e s common 
British plants, it is a daily care to prevent these from being elbowed out of 
existence by the seeds from the meadows taking root amongst them. The 
fields around me show that “ natural selection ” succeeds almost as well as arti- 
ficial cultivation, for land on which for twenty or thirty years I have bestowed 
some pains with different artificial manures, seeking to improve the herbage, 
does not much surpass that on which no such care has been bestowed. If 
the plants of grass und herbage were counted in a square yard of each, I 
fancy there would be but little difference either in the variety or the plants 
themselves, after all my efforts to assist some in the struggle for life. 
Why, then, do I quarrel with this expression — “the survival of the 
fittest ” ? My objection is simply to the last word, and to that which is im- 
plied in it. Fittest for what? For the good of man? I suppose not. 
Taking the particular instance of what is in sight whilst I write, — fields and 
trees, adapted for the use and pleasure of man. Are these in their natural 
condition ? So far from it that in the time of our British ancestors all was, 
as far as we can learn, a wild forest, and even now the soil appears most 
adapted to the growth of trees. Man has altered all this, and that only too 
effectually — I wish he had left us some specimens of the fine old secular oaks 
of the Druids — so that we have an unknown period of forest, a millennium of 
cultivation, and next, if the rage for building continues long enough, the 
district will form part of “a province covered with houses,” filled with people 
engaged in a life-struggle to realize the survival of “ the fittest.” Which of 
these three states, or the three in succession, was the original design of the 
Creator — the fittest in His sight ? All is under the control of a watchful 
Providence, no doubt, but what of “ the fittest ” ? I do not ask whether the 
optimist view is correct, or whether the English climate is the best that can 
be conceived, or her pastures the most fertile in the world, nor do I enter on 
the questions brought before us in Scripture as to “ the groaning of creation.” 
I feel too much my restricted space. I ask simply what is meant by “ the 
fittest ” ? 
I answer that it is a cautiously-guarded phrase, meant to take the place of 
“Natural Selection,” and to insinuate, without stating the questionable 
fact, that there is a power existent ready to take advantage of every slight 
variation that might possibly be advantageous to the plant or animal, and 
so, gradually to develop legs and wings where they did not exist, or to 
form an eye or an ear by gradual moulding ; or in the end to bring out 
man as the crowning point of this mysterious jugglery of the universe. 
God is deprived of the glory of His attributes ! The heavens declare the 
glories of evolution, and the whole varied Kosmos shows the admirable 
effect of “ the survival of the fittest ” ! This is why I object to the phrase. 
My conviction is, that however subtilely woven the theory may be, it is 
a piece of new cloth patched on to the old garment of Christian revela- 
tion, which cannot by any means be made to adhere — that Christian 
Evolutionism is pre-eminently a failure. 
