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