"Modification of form is admitted to be a matter of time"
"Why do some die and some live? The answer was clearly, that on the whole the best fitted live. From the effects of disease the most healthy escaped; from enemies, the strongest, swiftest, or the most cunning; from famine, the best hunters or those with the best digestion; and so on. Then it suddenly flashed upon me that this self-acting process would necessarily improve the race, because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain-that is, the fittest would survive."
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Source: Alfred Russel Wallace, Andrew Berry (2003). “Infinite Tropics: An Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology”, p.225, Verso
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