Would Natural Selection Favour Use-Inheritance?
If use-inheritance is really one of the factors of evolution, it is certainly a subordinate one, and an utterly helpless one, whenever it comes into conflict with the great ruling principle of Selection. Would this dominant cause of evolution have favoured a tendency to use-inheritance if such had appeared, or would it have discouraged and destroyed it? We have already seen that use-inheritance is unnecessary, since natural selection will be far more effective in bringing about advantageous modifications; and if it can be shown that use-inheritance would often be an evil, it then becomes probable that on the whole natural selection would more strongly discourage and eliminate it as a hostile factor than it might occasionally favour such a tendency as a totally unnecessary aid.