14 
“Unconscious selection by man which depends on the preservation 
of all the more or less valuable individuals, and on the destruction 
of the worst.”—(Origin of Species, p. yi.) 
“ During this process (unconscious selection) the best or most 
valued individuals are not separated and prevented crossing with 
others of the same breed, but are simply preferred and preserved : 
but this inevitably leads during a long succession of generations to 
their increase in number and to their gradual improvement; so that, 
finally, they prevail to the exclusion of the old parent form. This 
form of selection has probably led to far more important results 
than methodical selection, and is likewise more important under 
a theoretical point of view from closely resembling natural selection.” 
—{The Variation, ii., isl ed., p. 424.) 
Mr. Darwin further asserts that:— 
“ Unconscious selection graduates into methodical and only extreme 
cases can be distinctly separated.—{The Variation, ii., p. 193.) 
So that in point of fact natural and artificial selection 
are defined to mean the selection of the fittest only ; the 
selection of the fittest in company with some not the fittest, 
and every possible step of gradation between these two ; 
all which is pretty vague, to say the least. 
The same uncertainty clings to the phrase “ survival of 
the fittest.” Mr. Cope declares that it is “an expression 
both comprehensive and exact.”* But Mr. Wallace de 
fines it thus :— 
“ Survival of the fittest, or natural selection, meaning simply that 
on the whole those die which are least fitted to maintain their 
existence.”—{Contributions, p. 302.) 
Mr. Herbert Spencer, the author of the phrase, himself 
says :— 
“ Organisms which live thereby prove themselves fit to live in so 
far as they have been tried; while organisms which die thereby prove 
themselves in some respects unfitted for living.—{The Principles of 
Biology, i., p. 443.) 
The Origin of the Fittest, f. 13.