[f. FORTUIT-OUS + -ISM.] The belief that adaptations in nature are produced by natural causes operating ‘fortuitously.’ So Fortuitist, one who believes in fortuitism.
1881. St. James’s Gaz., 14 April, 13/1. There will always be teleologists, no doubt, and there will always be fortuitists (if we may coin a needful correlative term); but … Professor Mivart’s teleology now so nearly approaches Mr. Darwin’s fortuitism that [etc.].
1890. S. Butler, The Deadlock in Darwinism, in Univ. Rev., VII. 15 June, 239. In assigning the lion’s share of development to the accumulation of fortunate accidents, he tempted fortuitists to try and cut the ground from under Lamarck’s feet by denying that the effects of use and disuse can be inherited at all.
