Author: Spencer, Herbert (1820-1903).:
Title: The inadequacy of "natural selection".
Description: London: Williams & Norgate, 1893. 8vo, 21.3cm. Pp. 69,[3,blank]. Orig. printed wrappers. Spine neatly mended with matching paper, good otherwise. - With stamp "From the Author" on front cover, and signature of the prominent Danish botanist C[hristian] Raunkiaer with date 1895. - Rare separate edition of a controversial paper contributed in two installments to The Contemporary Review in 1893. Spencer was a widely influential (if self-taught) British "natural philosopher", already a popularizer of evolutionary theory as far back as 1851. He coined the term "survival of the fittest" and popularized the term "evolution." Along with his strong Lamarckian and progressivist leanings, he advocated laissez-faire economics in accord with "social Darwinian" theories that actually had little to do with natural selection per se.

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