DAVIS : PRO. PHILLIPS. 
15 
were convinced that development or evolution was the true expla- 
nation of the origin of all the multitude of species which do now, 
and have in times past, peopled the earth ; but to Darwin was 
reserved the grand discovery of natural selection and descent 
with modification. The many and important results of these re- 
searches may be briefly stated as follows. That all life is the result 
of development from pre-existing forms, and adaptation to the 
circumstances under which it exists ; and, as Mr. Spencer has aptly 
termed it, " the survival of the fittest." A most important result 
of the theory is the present widely extended belief in the antiquity 
of man. The limited period of 6,000 years is now proved to be 
totally inadequate. The remains of man have been repeatedly found 
in association with extinct animals, both in Yorkshire and in all 
parts of the world. In the gravels of the Somme Valley, the 
Kjokkenmodding of Denmark and Sweden and the Lake dwellings 
of Switzerland, the worked and carved tools of the old inhabitants 
have been found. It is possible, nay j)robable, that man was in 
existence prior to the last so-called glacial epoch and descends 
even to the tertiary strata ; if this be so, the age of man on the 
earth will of necessity be carried back much further than the few 
thousands of years assigned to him. 
During the year following the publication of Darwin's " Origin 
of Species," Professor Phillips wrote his book, entitled " Life on 
the Earth, its origin and succession," in which he attempted to 
show the fallacy of Darwin's investigations. His arguments were 
derived principally from want of distinct evidence of the actual 
transmission of some peculiarity in the fossil fonns. The several 
animals or plants existing fossilized in the rocks certainly exhibited 
great advances in structure and organization over those found in 
strata of greater antiquity, but the connecting links had not been 
discovered, and Professor PhiQips, like most other people, was 
much inclined to consider all the several forms as independent crea- 
tions. After reviewing in detail the difficulties attendant on the 
development of a higher form from a lower, Professor Phillips 
