"the fitting of as many as possible to survive"

"The propounders of what are called the 'ethics of evolution,' when the "evolution of ethics" would usually better express the object of their speculations, adduce a number of more or less interesting facts and more or less sound arguments, in favour of the origin of the moral sentiments, in the same way as other natural phenomena, by a process of evolution. I have little doubt, for my own part, that they are on the right track; but as the immoral sentiments have no less been evolved, there is, so far, as much natural sanction for the one as the other. The thief and the murderer follow nature just as much as the philanthropist. Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good and the evil tendencies of man may have come about; but, in itself, it is incompetent to furnish any better reason why what we call good is preferable to what we call evil than we had before. . . .
     "Men in society are undoubtedly subject to the cosmic process. . . .  But the influence of the cosmic process on the evolution of society is the greater the more rudimentary its civilization.  Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the ethical process; the end of which is not the survival of those who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the conditions which exist, but of those who are ethically the best.
     "As I have already urged, the practice of that which is ethically best—what we call goodness or virtue—involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which lead to success in the cosmic struggle for existence.  In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help his fellows; its influence is directed, not so much to the survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive.  It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence. . . .  The struggle for existence, which has done such admirable work in cosmic nature, must, it appears, be equally beneficient in the ethical sphere.  Yet, if that which I have insisted upon is true; if the cosmic process has no sort of relation to moral ends; if the imitation of it by man is inconsistent with the first principles of ethics; what becomes of this surprising theory?
     "Let us understand, once for all, that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it."

     Thomas H. Huxley, Evolution and ethics, The Romanes Lecture 1893, delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre, May 18, 1893 (London, Macmillan & Co., 1893), 31-34.  I was put onto this by John Gray's dismissive review of The evolution of moral progress:  a biocultural theory (Oxford University Press, 2018) in The New York review of books 66, no. 20 (December 19, 2019):  78 (76-78).