94 THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION 



primitive elephants, which, to all appearances, might 

 have risen up out of the ground, as Buffon fancied 

 that they actually did. However, on evolutionary 

 principles, they must have had ancestors and the 

 obvious inference was that they had immigrated 

 into the northern continents from some southern 

 land. By a process of elimination, the conclusion 

 was reached that Africa must have been the original 

 home of these animals, a result which has been 

 amply confirmed by discoveries made not long ago 

 in Egypt, which carry the history of the order much 

 farther back in time than had previously been pos- 

 sible. 



Another objection which has frequently been 

 brought against the palseontological argument for 

 the theory of evolution is that, while the genealogical 

 series made out within certain families may be ad- 

 mitted as proving development within relatively 

 small groups, the fossil record fails to connect the 

 larger and more widely separated types, thus indi- 

 cating that evolution, while real enough, is of strictly 

 limited possibilities. This, it will be remembered, 

 is the same objection as has been urged against the 

 argument from embryology, and the answer is in 

 both cases the same. In part, the objection is 

 founded upon an assumption which is not true and 

 is being gradually refuted by the progress of dis- 

 covery and, where this is not likely to happen, there 

 are obvious reasons why we cannot expect to find 

 the connecting links. The most ancient known 



