ck: there is no power of running from
danger--no power of distinguishing and picking up food. If we say the
chick is unintelligent, we must certainly say the infant is
unintelligent. And yet from the unintelligence of the infant to the
intelligence of the adult, there is an advance by steps so small that on
no day is the amount of mind shown, appreciably different from that
shown on preceding and succeeding days.

Thus the tacit assumption that there exists a break, is not simply
gratuitous, but is negatived by the most obvious facts.

* * * * *

Certain of the words and phrases used in explaining that particular part
of the Doctrine of Evolution which deals with the origin of species, are
commented upon by Mr. Martineau as having implications justifying his
view. Let us consider his comments.

He says that _competition_ is not an "original power, which can of
itself do anything;" further, that "it cannot act except in the presence
of some _possibility of a better or worse_;" and that this "possibility
of a better or worse" implies a "world pre-arranged for progress," "a
directing Will intent upon the good." Had Mr. Martineau looked more
closely into the matter, he would have found that, though the words and
phrases he quotes are used for convenience, the conceptions they
imply are not at all essential to the doctrine. Under its
rigorously-scientific form, the doctrine is expressible in
purely-physical terms, which neither imply competition nor imply better
and worse.[37]

Beyond this indirect mistake there is a direct mistake. Mr. Martineau
speaks of the "survivorship of the better," as though that were the
statement of the law; and then adds that the alleged result cannot be
inferred "except on the assumption that whatever is _better_ is
_stronger_ too." But the words he here uses are his own words, not the
words of those he opposes. The law is the survival of the _fittest_.
Probably, in substituting "better" for "fittest," Mr. Martineau did not
suppose that he was changing the meaning; though I dare say he perceived
that the meaning of the word "fittest" did not suit his argument so
well. Had he examined the facts, he would have found that the law is not
the survival of the "better" or the "stronger," if we give to those
words any thing like their ordinary meanings. It is the survival of
those which are constitutionally fittest to thrive under the conditions
in which they are plac