

He first used the term in his book Principles of Biology, published in 1864. Herbert Spencer was a British social philosopher who applied his personal conception of evolution to many other fields, from the origin of the solar system to economics. These metaphors stick in the mind, but they need to be properly understood, or they may be used wrongly. Scientists often use such metaphors as shorthand for key ideas. It is a metaphor, as are the phrases struggle for existence, and natural selection, both of which were used by Charles Darwin. Survival of the fittest is a famous phrase of Herbert Spencer which describes the idea that, in nature, there is competition to survive and reproduce.

Herbert Spencer coined the phrase, "survival of the fittest."
