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694 foreign importations of whatever sort. As a European, therefore, he outshines such men as Profs. Gray and Wyinan, and, as a man whom we know, he outshines other Europeans, like Haeckel and Gegenbaur, whose acquaintance we happen not to have made; just as Rubinstein, whose fame has filled the American newspapers, outshines Bülow (probably his equal as a pianist), who has not yet visited this country. In this way Prof. Agassiz has acquired a reputation in America which is greater than his reputation in Europe, and which is greater than his achievements—admirable as they are—would be able, on trial, to sustain.

And now I come to my first point. Admitting for Prof. Agassiz all the wonderful greatness as a naturalist with which the vague sentiments of the uneducated multitude in this country would accredit him; admitting, in other words, that he is the greatest of naturalists, and not one among a dozen or twenty equals; it must still be asked, why should his rejection of Darwinism be regarded as conclusively fatal to the Darwinian theory? The history of science supplies us with many an instance in which a new and unpopular theory has been vehemently opposed by those whom one would at first suppose most competent to judge of its merits, and has nevertheless gained the victory. Dr. Draper brings a terrible indictment against Bacon for rejecting the Copernican theory, and refusing to profit by the discoveries of Gilbert in magnetism. This should not be allowed to detract from Bacon's real greatness, any more than the rejection of Darwinism should be allowed to detract from the real merit of Agassiz. Great men must be measured by their positive achievements rather than by their negative shortcomings, otherwise they might all have to step down from their pedestals. Leibnitz rejected Newton's law of gravitation; Harvey saw nothing but foolishness in Aselli's discovery of the lacteals; Magendie ridiculed the great work in which the younger Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire began to investigate the conditions of nutrition which determine the birth of monsters; and when Young, Fresnel, and Malus, completed the demonstration of that undulatory theory of light which has made their names immortal, Laplace, nevertheless, the greatest mathematician of the age, persisted until his dying day in heaping contumely upon these eminent men and upon their arguments. Nay, even Cuvier—the teacher whom Prof. Agassiz so justly reveres—did not Cuvier adhere to the last to the grotesque theory of "pre-formation," and reject the true theory of "epigenesis," which C. F. Wolff, even before Baer, had placed upon a scientific basis? Supposing, then, that the Darwinian theory is rejected by Agassiz, this fact is no more decisive against the Darwinian theory than the rejection of Fresnel's theory by Laplace was decisive against Fresnel's theory.

For the facts just cited show that even the wisest and most learned men are not infallible, and that it will not do to have a papacy where scientific questions are concerned. Strange as it may at first seem,