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Even apart from the evidence derived from the ascending grades of animals up from zoophytes, as they are significantly named, it needs only to observe the evolution of a single animal to see that there does not exist any break or chasm between the life which shows no mind and the life which shows mind. The yelk of an egg which the cook has just broken, not only yields no sign of mind, but yields no sign of life. It does not respond to a stimulus as much even as many plants do. Had the egg, instead of being broken by the cook, been left under the hen for a certain time, the yelk would have passed by infinitesimal gradations through a series of forms ending in the chick; and by similarly infinitesimal gradations would have arisen those functions which end in the chick breaking its shell; and which, when it gets out, show themselves in running about, distinguishing and picking up food, and squeaking if hurt. When did the feeling begin? and how did there come into existence that power of perception which the chick’s actions show? Should it be objected that the chick’s actions are mainly automatic, I will not dwell on the fact that, though they are largely so, the chick manifestly has feeling and therefore consciousness; but I will accept the objection, and propose that instead we take the human being. The course of development before birth is just of the same general kind; and similarly, at a certain stage, begins to be accompanied by reflex movements. At birth there is displayed an amount of mind certainly not greater than that of the chick: 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 placed; and very often that which, humanly speaking, is inferiority, causes the survival. Superiority, whether in size, strength, activity, or sagacity, is, other things equal, at the cost of diminished fertility; and where the life led by a species does not demand these higher attributes, the species profits by decrease of them, and accompanying increase of fertility. This is the reason why there occur so many cases of retrograde metamorphosis–this is the reason why parasites, internal and external, are so commonly degraded forms of higher types. Survival of the “better” does not cover these cases, though survival of the “fittest” does; and as I am responsible for the phrase, I suppose I am competent to say that the word “fittest” was chosen for this reason. When it is remembered that these cases outnumber all others–that there are more species of parasites than there are species of all other animals put together–it will be seen that the expression “survivorship of the better” is wholly inappropriate, and the argument Mr. Martineau bases upon it quite untenable. Indeed, if, in place of those adjustments of the human sense-organs, which he so eloquently describes as implying pre-arrangement, Mr. Martineau had described the countless elaborate appliances which enable parasites to torture animals immeasurably superior to them, and which, from his point of view, no less imply pre-arrangement, I think the notes of admiration which end his descriptions would not have seemed to him so appropriate.