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Much to his credit, it may be said that a good share of Agassiz's invincible aversion to evolution may be traced to the spirit in which it was taken up by his early associate, Vogt, and, indeed, by most of the German school then and since, which justly offended both his scientific and his religious sense. Agassiz always "thought nobly of the soul," and could in no way approve either materialistic or agnostic opinions. The idealistic turn of his mind was doubtless confirmed in his student days at Munich, whither he and his friend Braun resorted after one session at Heidelberg, and where both devotedly attended the lectures of Schelling then in his later glory and of Oken, whose "Natur-Philosophie" was then in the ascendant. Although fascinated and inspired by Oken's

We are in danger of drifting into a new 'Natur-Philosophie' worse than the old, because there is less excuse for it. Boyle did great service to science by his 'Sceptical Chemist, and I am inclined to think that, at the present day, a 'Sceptical Biologist' might exert an equally beneficent influence.

My oldest sister is busy every day in making drawings for me to illustrate their gradual development. . .I dissect now as much and on as great a variety of subjects as possible. This makes my principal occupation. I am often busy too with Oken. His "Natur-philosophie" gives me the greatest pleasure. I long for my box, being in need of my books, which, no doubt, you have sent.

In Schelling's Natur-Philosophie, and the System des transcendentalen Idealismus, I first found a genial coincidence with much that I had toiled out for myself, and a powerful assistance in what I had yet to do.