In Social Statics, Spencer asserts that evil is never permanent (59). He reasons to this conclusion from two premises. First, he defines evil as the “non-adaptation of constitution to conditions” (1841, 59). Second, he claims that all living beings gradually change to fit into their environment (59–60). He lists a great number of natural phenomena that supposedly illustrate this law (60). At the point of writing, Spencer was a Lamarckian, but he later maintained essentially this argument as