Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/36

 The law of use has not entirely escaped the Materialist. For against the theory that duration of life is determined by external conditions, Weismann has argued that the "needs of the species" is the determining factor. The "needs of the species" is nothing other than the law of use, which, if it rules in one case, must be capable of so doing in all.

Natural Selection, so called in distinction from selection through human agency whereby superior varieties of plants and of animals are developed, and Survival of the Fittest must not be regarded as the whole of the law or its highest expression. Survival of the Useful is a higher law than Survival of the Fittest, and guides it. Divine Selection is superior to Natural Selection, and is within it as the governing cause. Rightly interpreted. Natural Selection and Survival of the Fittest are but the outward and visible expression of the workings of Divine Selection and of the all-governing law of the Survival of the Useful.

The inconsistencies and assumptions that the theory of Evolution imposes have caused doubts