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Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence
Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence
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THERE is no need to give an abstract of the contents of these fascinating volumes, for everybody is reading them. Most are probably wishing for more personal details, especially of the American life; but the editorial work is so deftly and delicately done, and “the story of an intellectual life marked by rare coherence and unity ” is so well arranged to tell itself and make its impression, that we may thankfully accept what has been given us,
though the desired “ fullness of personal narrative” be wanting.
The celebrated Swiss naturalist came over in the bloom of his manly beauty to charm us with his winning ways, and inspire us with his overflowing enthusiasm, as he entered upon the American half of that career which has been so beneficial to the interests of natural science. Those who attended the first Lowell Lectures in the autumn of 1846,—perhaps all the more taking for the broken English in which they were delivered,—and who shared in the delight with which, in a supplementary lecture, he more fluently addressed his audience in his mother tongue.
In these earliest lectures he sounded the note of which his last public utterance was the dying cadence. For, as this biography rightly intimates, his scientific life was singularly entire and homogeneous, — if not uninfluenced yet quite unchanged by the transitions which have marked the period.
In a small circle of naturalists, almost the first that was assembled to greet him on his coming to this country, and of which the writer is the sole survivor, when Agassiz was inquired of as to his conception of “species,” he sententiously replied: “ A species is a thought of the Creator.” To this thoroughly theistic conception he joined the scientific deduction which he had already been led to draw, that the animal species of each geological age, or even stratum, were different from those preceding and following, and also unconnected by natural derivation. And his very last published words reiterated his steadfast conviction that “there is no evidence of a direct descent of later from earlier species in the geological succession of animals.”
Indeed, so far as we know, he would not even admit that such “thoughts of the Creator" as these might have been actualized in the natural course of events. If he had accepted such a view, and if he had himself apprehended and developed in his own way the now well-nigh assured significance of some of his early and pregnant generalizations, the history of the doctrine of development would have been different from what it is, a different spirit and another name would have been prominent in it, and Agassiz would not have passed away while fighting what he felt to be — at least for the present—a losing battle.
It is possible that the “whirligig of time” may still “bring in his revenges,” but not very probable.
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.
though the desired “ fullness of personal narrative” be wanting.
The celebrated Swiss naturalist came over in the bloom of his manly beauty to charm us with his winning ways, and inspire us with his overflowing enthusiasm, as he entered upon the American half of that career which has been so beneficial to the interests of natural science. Those who attended the first Lowell Lectures in the autumn of 1846,—perhaps all the more taking for the broken English in which they were delivered,—and who shared in the delight with which, in a supplementary lecture, he more fluently addressed his audience in his mother tongue.
In these earliest lectures he sounded the note of which his last public utterance was the dying cadence. For, as this biography rightly intimates, his scientific life was singularly entire and homogeneous, — if not uninfluenced yet quite unchanged by the transitions which have marked the period.
In a small circle of naturalists, almost the first that was assembled to greet him on his coming to this country, and of which the writer is the sole survivor, when Agassiz was inquired of as to his conception of “species,” he sententiously replied: “ A species is a thought of the Creator.” To this thoroughly theistic conception he joined the scientific deduction which he had already been led to draw, that the animal species of each geological age, or even stratum, were different from those preceding and following, and also unconnected by natural derivation. And his very last published words reiterated his steadfast conviction that “there is no evidence of a direct descent of later from earlier species in the geological succession of animals.”
Indeed, so far as we know, he would not even admit that such “thoughts of the Creator" as these might have been actualized in the natural course of events. If he had accepted such a view, and if he had himself apprehended and developed in his own way the now well-nigh assured significance of some of his early and pregnant generalizations, the history of the doctrine of development would have been different from what it is, a different spirit and another name would have been prominent in it, and Agassiz would not have passed away while fighting what he felt to be — at least for the present—a losing battle.
It is possible that the “whirligig of time” may still “bring in his revenges,” but not very probable.
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.
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