PROOFS OF EVOLUTION. 
45 
links,” it may be well clearly to understand just 
what we should, and just what we should not, 
expect to find. First, as to those living links 
which we do not find, it may be affirmed that 
their very absence is proof of Evolution. Its 
vital principle forbids their presence. Natural 
Selection sends the weakest to the wall, and so 
the transitional forms do not live to be looked at. 
No one life, nor a thousand, is long enough to 
observe the changing forms. As Mr. Darwin 
remarks: “ They perish by the very process of 
the formation of the new species.” A hundred 
thousand years or more have doubtless passed 
since man was first a man. His ancestral link 
was prior to himself, and could not have survived 
after man was fully evolved. It could not remain 
a link, but must push on to a fully developed man. 
If it were not so, Evolution would be but a 
childish dream. 
But the graded forms from brute to man, have 
all been on the earth. “Why,” you ask, “do we 
not find their remains now?” For this reason: 
Only now and then one was drowned ; for it must 
be remembered that ocean travel was limited in 
those days, and yachting parties were somewhat 
