Huxley bites Spencer
"The unlucky substitution
of 'survival of fittest' for 'natural
selection' has done much harm in consequence of the
ambiguity of "'fittest' – which many take to
mean 'best"' or 'highest' ....
I absolutely disbelieve in use-inheritance as the evidence stands.
[Herbert] Spencer is bound to it a priori – his psychology
goes to pieces without it." [Huxley to
Mr. William Platt Ball, 27 October 1890]
Text arrangement © 2020 by Steven M Carr