 Originally, the concepts of evolution and development were closely connected. In fact, since the end of the 17th century the concept of ‘evolution’ was widely used to describe individual developmental processes, and ‘developmental hypotheses’ often referred to what is now called evolution. In addition, development (‘Entwicklung’) was often considered to not only describe ontogenetic changes in organisms (Goethe 1790; Debraw 1777) but also (what we consider today) phylogenetic changes. For example, Friedrich W.J. Schelling (1798) states that the sequence of stages of all organic beings took shape through the gradual development (‘Entwicklung’) of the same organization. This situation changed in the beginning of the 19th century when evolution was used by some authors for labeling transgenerational transformations of organisms, among others by Charles Lyell and Georg W.F. Hegel. However, in his first edition of his Origin of Species (1859) Darwin did not use the term evolution, likely because he wanted to distance his theory from earlier developmental understandings of the word. Instead, he spoke of ‘descent with modification.’ But especially due to the work of Herbert Spencer, evolution became established as a concept that concerns the “transformation of species”, and Darwin’s theory of transformation through selection was increasingly seen as the exemplar of a “theory of evolution” (Spencer 1852 [1891], 1). According to this theory, evolution is driven through organisms “struggle for existence” (Darwin) and the “survival of the fittest” (Spencer).