JOHN PHILLIPS, F.R.S. 
133 
look for such evidence in the fossil state. In the face of the 
assumption requisite to imagine such a chain, we cannot venture to 
adopt it as a probable hypothesis, and thus the idea of one general 
oceanic germ of life, whether we like it or not, must be abandoned. 
Reasoning of the same kind will convince us that to derive by any 
probable steps any one gi'eat division of the animal kingdom from 
another, involves too much hazardous assumption to be adopted by 
a prudent inquirer." 
From this extract it is clear that to the mind of Professor 
Phillips, in 1860, the difficulties in connection with the acceptance 
of Darwin's theory of evolution quite outweighed the simplicity 
and beauty of the conception, and he felt bound to reject it. But 
in the short space of a dozen years, the labours of many naturalists, 
in most cases equally unbelieving, had produced such a mass of 
confirmatory evidence, that the theory was generally accepted by 
the scientific workers of every countr}'. In 1873, at the meeting 
of the British Association at Bradford, the ever-increasing mass 
of evidence in favour of natural selection and development had 
produced their natural result, and we find the Professor in his 
presidential address to the geological section discoursing as fol- 
lows" : — But concurrently with the apparent perpetuity of similar 
forms and ways of life another general idea comes into notice. No 
two plants are more than alike ; no two men have more than a 
family resemblance ; the offspring is not in all respects an exact 
copy of the parent. A general reference to some earher type accom- 
panied by special diversity in every case (' descent with modification ') 
is recognised in the case of everj^ living being. 
" Similitude, not identity, is the effect of natural agencies in 
the continuation of life forms, the small differences from identity 
being due to limited physical conditions, in harmony with the 
general law that organic structures are adapted to the exigencies of 
being. Moreover, the structures are adapted to new conditions ; if 
the conditions change, the structures change also, but not suddenly ; 
the plant or animal may survive in presence of slowly altered circum- 
stances, but must perish under critical inversions. These adapta- 
* Brit. Assoc. Report, 1873. Trans, of the Sections, pp. 73, 74. 
