r. Darwin's own admission, a
"more accurate" one is to hand in "the survival of the fittest"?[366]
This term is not appreciably longer than natural selection. Mr. Darwin
may say, indeed, that it is "sometimes" as convenient a term as natural
selection; but the kind of men who exercise permanent effect upon the
opinions of other people will bid such a passage as this stand aside
somewhat sternly. If a term is not appreciably longer than another, and
if at the same time it more accurately expresses the idea which is
intended to be conveyed, it is not sometimes only, but always, more
convenient, and should immediately be substituted for the less accurate
one.

No one complains of the use of what is, strictly speaking, an inaccurate
expression, when it is nevertheless the best that we can get. It may be
doubted whether there is any such thing possible as a perfectly accurate
expression. All words that are not simply names of things are apt to
turn out little else than compendious false analogies; but we have a
right to complain when a writer tells us that he is using a less
accurate expression when a more accurate one is ready to his hand.
Hence, when Mr. Darwin continues, "Who ever objected to chemists
speaking of the elective affinities of the various elements? and yet an
acid cannot strictly be said to elect the base with which it by
preference combines," he is beside the mark. Chemists do not speak of
"elective affinities" in spite of there being a more accurate and not
appreciably longer expression at their disposal.

"It has been said," continues Mr. Darwin, "that I speak of natural
selection as an active power or deity. But who objects to an author
speaking of the attraction of gravity? Everyone knows what is meant and
implied by such metaphorical expressions, and they are almost necessary
for brevity."

Mr. Darwin certainly does speak of natural selection "acting,"
"accumulating," "operating"; and if "every-one knew what was meant and
implied by this metaphorical expression," as they now do, or think they
do, in the case of the attraction of gravity, there might be less ground
of complaint; but the expression was known to very few at the time Mr.
Darwin introduced it, and was used with so much ambiguity, and with so
little to protect the reader from falling into the error of supposing
that it was the cause of the modifications which we see around us, that
we had a just right to complain, even in the first instanc