Spencer's statement of the survival of
the fittest means the same thing.
The judges who pronounce and execute the verdict of death, or award
the prize of life, are the forces and conditions of environment. We
have already considered the meaning of this word. Many of its forces
and conditions are still unknown, or but very imperfectly
understood. But known or unknown, visible or invisible, the result
of their united action is the extinction or degradation of these
individuals which deviate from certain fairly well-marked lines of
development. We must keep clearly before our minds the fact that the
world of living beings makes up by far the most important part of
the environment of any individual plant or animal. Two plants may be
equally well suited to the soil and climate of any region; but if
one have a scanty development of root or leaf, or is for any reason
more liable to attacks from insects or germs, other things being
equal, it will in time be crowded out by its competitor. Worms are
eaten by lower vertebrates, and these by higher. An animal's
environment, like that of a merchant or manufacturer, is very
largely a matter of the ability and methods of its competitors. And
man, compelled to live in society, makes that part of the
environment by which he is most largely moulded.
This process of extinction Mr.
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