the law of beauty and usefulness,
we find gradually being exterminated. That the earth, as a planet, is
obeying this cosmic law of evolution from grossness to refinement; from
crudity to perfection; from the limited to the all-inclusive, is
indisputable. As the motor power of electricity has become general, we find
that beasts of burden are fast disappearing from the earth, according to
the law of the "survival of the fittest," this law, always being subject to
change. The "fittest" means that which is best fitted to the conditions of
the time.

Brute force survives among brutes, in the degree that it is strong or weak;
coming out of that expression of law into the mental areas of
consciousness, we find that the _mentally_ fit survive among those who live
only in the areas of the mind; so on, into the spiritual, we will find the
"survival of the fittest" will be those who are best fitted for spiritual
eternity--for godhood.

Coming again, to our consideration of the term consciousness, we will take
a brief survey of that phase of consciousness which we see manifested in
the forms of life that have the power to move from their immediate
environment; such for instance would include the fish in the sea; insect
life; reptiles; the birds in the air; and all forms of animal life.

While expressing a very limited degree of consciousness, yet there is
evident a certain degree or aggregate of cell consciousness, which
transcends that of the mineral and vegetable life. This apparently
_advanced_ degree of consciousness, does not, as we have stated, presuppose
a nearer approach to immortality, however, for the reason that we apply
the law of the survival of the fittest to all manifestation, and that
which is best fitted for certain stages of the planet's life during the
process of evolvement, may be most unfitted for succeeding stages, and
will, by the inexorable law of survival, be discontinued--discarded, even
as the properties and stage-settings of a drama are thrown aside, when the
play has been "taken off the boards."

It is admitted, therefore, that those forms of life having the power of
locomotion, involve a more complex degree of consciousness, than does that
of the mineral or vegetable.

In that phase of life that we see possessing the power to move, to change
its immediate environment, even though not capable of changing its
_habitat_ we may perceive the beginning of that consciousness expressed as
"free-will." He