Page:Divine Selection or The Survival of the Useful.djvu/38

 for the final life-forms. The earth produces vegetation; vegetation provides food and shelter for the animal kingdom; and all offer themselves for the service of mankind, the crowning form in the ascending scale. And moral man offers himself as the servant of Him who "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister."

There is set to every created thing the seal of Him who holds the servant of all the greatest of all. No other conclusion can be rightly drawn than that a plan of use runs through all things and binds them in mutual service and unity. Forms have come and gone, but the useful in each age survive for their use, and in the end the useful for the end survive. It is an inexorable law that what does not yield to use in the kingdom of mutual service is eliminated.

It does not seem to require a very deep insight into the operations of na-