Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/711

Rh " (or words to that effect) "by !" Whether from accident or design, the type-setter's choice of Roman capitals was very happy. Upon many readers the effect must have been tremendous; and quite possibly there may be some who, without further investigation, will carry to their dying day the opinion that it is all over with the Darwinian theory, since "Agassiz Himself" has refuted it.

Upon me the effect was such as to make me lay down my paper and ask myself: Can it be that we have, after all, a sort of scientific pope among us? Has it come to this, that the dicta of some one "servant and interpreter of Nature" are to be accepted as final, even against the better judgment of the majority of his compeers? In short, who is Agassiz himself, that he should thus single-handed have demolished the stoutest edifice which observation and deduction have reared since the day when Newton built to such good purpose?

Prof. Agassiz is a naturalist who is justly world-renowned for his achievements. His contributions to geology, to paleontology, and to systematic zoology, have been such as to place him in a very high rank among contemporary naturalists. Not quite in the highest place, I should say; for, apart from all questions of theory, it is probable that Mr. Darwin's gigantic industry, his wonderful thoroughness and accuracy as an observer, and his unrivalled fertility of suggestion, will cause him in the future to be ranked along with Aristotle, Linnaeus, and Cuvier; and upon this high level we cannot place Prof. Agassiz. Leaving Mr. Darwin out of the account, we may say that Prof. Agassiz stands in the first rank of contemporary naturalists. But any exceptional supremacy in this first rank can by no means be claimed for him. Both for learning and for sagacity, the names of Gray, Wyman, Huxley, Hooker, Wallace, Lubbock, Lyell, Vogt, Haeckel, and Gegenbaur, are quite as illustrious as the name of Agassiz; and we may note, in passing, that these are the names of men who openly indorse and defend the Darwinian theory.

Possibly, however, there are some who will not be inclined to accept the estimates made in the foregoing paragraph. No doubt there are many people in this country who have long accustomed themselves to regard Prof. Agassiz not simply as one among a dozen or twenty living naturalists of the highest rank, but as occupying a solitary position as the greatest of all living naturalists—as a kind of second Cuvier, for example. There is, to the popular eye, a halo about the name of Agassiz which there is not about the name of Gray; though, if there is any man now living in America, of whom America might, justly boast as her chief ornament and pride, so far as science is concerned, that man is unquestionably Prof. Asa Gray. Now, this greater popular fame of Agassiz is due to the fact that he is a European who cast in his lot with us at a time when we were wont to