Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1883-07-23
Tendency of Scientific Inquiry-Man Not
Evolved from a Lower Order in Ami
mails.

Tendency of Scientific Inquiry-Man Not
! Evolved from Lower Order in Ami
mails.
The annual meeting of the Victoria
/ Philosophical Institute of London, Eng
| land, held its annual meeting in the last
week in June. Sir Henry Barkly Occu-
pied the chair and Captain Petrie read the
/ annual report. From this report it APP
| peared that the substitute, founded to in
vestigate all questions Of philosophy and
science, and more especially any alleged
to initiate against the truth of revelation,
had now risen to 1,020 members, of whom
about one-third were foreign, colonial
and American, and new applications to
join were constantly coming in. An in
creasing number of leading men of
science had Joined its ranks, and men of
science, whether in its ranks or not, CO.
operated in its work. During the ses-
sion a careful analysis had been
undertaken by Professor Stokes, f. r.
s., Sir j. r. Bennett, Vice President,
! r. S., Professor Beale, +. r. S., and
/ others, of the various theories of EvOlu-
/ ton, and it was reported that, as yet, no
! scientific evidence had been met with
! giving cOuntenance to the theory that
man had been evolved from a lower order
/ in animals; and Professor VirchOw had
1 declared that there was a complete
absence of any fossil type of a lower stage
in the development of man; and that any
/ positive advance in the province of pre-
historic anthropolOgy has actually re-
moved us further from proofs Ofsuch con-
nectiOn-namely, with the rest of the
animal kingdom. In this, Professor Bar
rande, the great palaontologist, had con-
CURED, declaring that in none of his in
vestigatiOns had he found any one fossil
species develop into another. In fact, it
would seem that no scientific man had yet
discovered a link between man and the
ape, between fish and frog, or between the
vertebrate and the invertebrate animals;
further, there was no evidence of any one
species, fossil or other, losing its peculiar
characteristics to acquire new ones be-
longing to other species; for instance,
however similar the dog to the wolf, there
was no connecting link, and among eX-
tinct species the same was the case; there
was no gradual passage from one to an
other. Moreover, the first animals that
existed on the earth were by no means to
be considered as inferior or degraded.
Among other Investigations, one into
the truth of the argument from
Design in Nature had been carried on, and
had hitherto tended to fully confirm that
doctrine. The question of the Assyrian
inscriptions and the recent BabylOnian
researches had been under the leadership
of Mr.. HormuZd Rassam, who, on his ar
rival from Nineveh, had given full re-
port of the extent of his new excavations,
which were of the highest interest. His
discovery of Sepharvaim, one of the first
cities mentioned in Holy Writ, was most
important. Professor Delitsch and others
aided in the consideration of the dis
coveries and inscriptions found. Two
meetings had been held to
consider the questions raised in
Mr.. Herbert Spencer's Philosophy, and
Lord O'Neill and others had shown, by
careful analysis of his arguments, that
greater attention to accuracy in state
ment would have kept Mr.. Spencer from
arriving at those hasty conclusions which
had made his philosophy remarkable. 1t
was announced that the results of explo-
ratiOns now being carried on IN Egypt
would be laid before the institute early in
the winter. The discoveries were very
important, especially that of the site Of
Succoth, which, like the results of the
survey of Palestine, was confrmatory of
the Sacred Record.