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.