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To Lawson Tait   22 February [1876]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

Feb 22 75

My dear Sir

I shall be pleased to read your review in the Spectator.2 Herbert Spencer is the inventor of the term “survival of the fittest”. I have sometimes used this term, and intended to use it much oftener, but found a substantive like “natural selection” much more convenient.3

I think there is much truth in the distinction which you draw but it is so fine a one that I rather doubt whether the public would appreciate it, so as to understand or use it.4 I have often spoken of Natural Selection destroying the individuals which do not come up to the proper standard in structure, & this comes to nearly the same thing5

My dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

LS

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from Lawson Tait, 21 February 1876.
2
See letter from Lawson Tait, 21 February 1876. Tait’s review of Variation 2d ed. appeared in two parts in the Spectator on 4 and 25 March 1876 (L. Tait 1876b).
4
In his letter to CD of 21 February 1876, Tait had drawn a distinction between survival of the fittest and what he termed ‘survival by reason of fitness’. See also L. Tait 1876b, pp. 20–1.
5
See, for example, Origin, p. 104, or Variation 1: 4.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10406,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10406