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The botanical professor, the genial Von Martius, should also be mentioned here. He found Agassiz a student, barely of age; he directly made him an author, and an authority, in the subject of his predilection. Dr. Spix, the zoölogical companion of Martius in Brazilian exploration, died in 1826; the fishes of the collection were left untouched.
Yet, upon some ground, which is not explained, and which we are unable to conjecture, Mr. Agassiz concludes to the contrary in the organic kingdoms, and insists, that, because the members of such a series have an intellectual connection, "they cannot be the result of a material differentiation of the objects themselves," that is, they cannot have had a genealogical connection.
Agassiz died in his sins, unconvinced unrepentant, refusing the rite of extreme unction that Asa Gray offered him, his sensitive spirit writhing at mention of the word "Darwin." On his tomb, Clio with moving finger has carved one of his own sentences, nor all your tears shall blot a line of it.
Agassiz had arranged no programme of exercises, trusting to the interest of the occasion to suggest what might best be said or done. But, as he looked upon his pupils gathered there to study nature with him, by an impulse as natural as it was unpremeditated, he called upon them to join in silently asking God's blessing on their work together.
Between the years 1807 and 1825 at least eight illustrious scientists "saw the light" Sir Charles Lyell, Sir Joseph Hooker, T.H. Huxley, Herbert Spencer, John Tyndall, Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace and Louis Agassiz; whilst amongst statesmen and authors we recall Bismarck, Gladstone, Lincoln, Tennyson, Longfellow, Robert and Elizabeth Browning, Ruskin, John Stuart Blackie and Oliver Wendell Holmes a wonderful galaxy of shining names.
To him students flocked from all sides. Among these one of the most brilliant was Agassiz, the Swiss naturalist, who later came to this country, filled with Cuvier's ideas. This great teacher believed that species are fixed. He knew better than any man of his times the wonderful similarity in structure between animals of a given class.
You will then surely pardon my friendly goodwill toward you, my dear M. Agassiz, if I entreat you to make use of the accompanying small credit. You would do more for me I am sure. Consider it an advance which need not be paid for years, and which I will gladly increase when I go away or even earlier.
This pool is altogether too high to be reached by any tidal influence, and undoubtedly indicates an old sea-level, and a comparatively recent upheaval of the shore. The second was a genuine moraine, corresponding in every respect to those which occur all over the northern hemisphere. Agassiz came upon it in ascending to the third terrace above the salt-pool and a little farther inland.
How far he finally went in recognizing the agency of natural selection as the sufficient element in this I do not know, for at that time the battle waged over that phase of the question; but that he did not accept the solution proposed by Darwin as final I have reason to believe, from the fact that, the last time I saw him, he assured me that he was confident that if he could have seen Agassiz again before he died he could have persuaded him that evolution was the solution of the problem of creation, though knowing that Agassiz could never have accepted the doctrine of natural selection in its bareness, absolutely convinced as he was of the agency of Conscious Mind in creation.
The final resume of Mr. Agassiz is as follows: "We may sum up the results of this discussion, up to this point, in still fewer words.
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