Herbert Spencer coined the term "survival of the fittest" in 1852 and suggested that Darwin use it himself after he read On the Origin of Species in 1859. However, Darwin was resistant because he thought it could be misinterpreted. According to historian Thomas Leonard, Spencer then appealed to Alfred Russell Wallace to pressure Darwin to accept the term. Darwin eventually agreed and it appeared in the fifth edition of Origin in 1869.
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Your link for Leonard doesn't seem to go anywhere..
Thanks. I've fixed the link.
Eric, you really should check with Wikipedia ;-)
Herbert Spencer introduced the expression `survival of the fittestâ in Principles of biology, vol. 1, 1864 â after he'd read On the Origin of Species, not before! The 1852 date seems to be a common error, but the phrase doesn't appear in his Social Statics of 1851 or any other early writings, as far as I can tell.
http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-5145
Thanks for the tip Dave. I'll look into that. But here's what historian Gregory Claeys has to say in his paper "'Survival of the Fittest' and the Origins of Social Darwinism" (which is where I got this date).
The source Claeys cites is Spencer's 1852 essay "A Theory of Population Deduced from the General Law of Animal Fertility," Westminster Review. It's possible that Claeys is wrong and that this wasn't picked up when his article went out for peer review. I'll look into it.
As far as I can tell there is no scan of the Westminster Review from that year available on the web. I will seek out a copy at the library when I can. However, I found this transcription of Spencer's essay at Victorian Web. The specific phrase "survival of the fittest" doesn't appear, but he uses the word fitness several times and Spencer is unambiguous that he's talking about the survival of those individuals that are most fit.
I would say that whoever entered that into Wikipedia is technically correct and that Spencer may not have used the exact phrase until 1864, but they're wrong that he didn't come up with the idea until he read Darwin. Spencer also shows how he conflates the natural with the social and perceives evolution to be progressive (both of which Darwin rejected). This essay clearly shows that "survival of the fittest" was being advocated by Spencer seven years before Darwin published his book.
Thanks, I'll be glad to be corrected if mistaken!
Skimming a transcription, Spencer seems to have anticipated natural selection (in humans) in the essay, but not used the famous phrase. It doesn't show up on a search, but I may have missed it.
http://www.victorianweb.org/science/science_texts/spencer2.html
Darwin acknowledged that Spencer had put the idea of selection clearly in his letter, available from the Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter 3126 â Darwin, C. R. to Spencer, Herbert, 23 [Feb 1860] â I've not given a link, but that should lead to the relevant letter.
Interesting puzzle, there do seem to be a number of sources claiming the phrase was in that essay, while others say that claim is mistaken.