x PREFACE. 



and ought to be able to deal with the difficult task of 

 writing his biography, for I have had unusual opportu- 

 nities to know him and his surroundings in the Old 

 and New Worlds. I can truly say that the task of 

 writing his life has been a work of friendly love and 

 respect for the man, and of justice to the savant. 



My aim has been constantly to make a judicious 

 blending of history, correspondence, and extracts from 

 his works, and of the estimation in which these are held 

 by others. Mrs. Agassiz's account of her husband's life 

 gives the character of Agassiz by means of a list of 

 qualities rather than a complete picture. As is very 

 likely to happen, her biography is rather a panegyric 

 than an analysis of character. I have her example con- 

 stantly before my eyes, in my endeavour not to fall into 

 the same error; as Massimo d'Azelio says: "I must 

 be honest, not only with the reader, but with myself ; 

 otherwise I should be treating the life of Agassiz like 

 a half-decayed peach, the spoilt part of which I should 

 cut out, and present only the sound portion." 



Without passing over in silence the moral failings of 

 the man, and the inequalities of talent of the naturalist, 

 I have expressed all my admiration for this master of 

 natural history. The unity which is not to be found in 

 his acts or in his works will be found in his iron will ; 

 he had a fixed idea - - he wished to be the " first natural- 

 ist of his time," as he said in a letter to his father, when 

 he was still a student at Munich. 



Although Agassiz was very ready to care for his own 

 interests, he never was a practical man, in the full 

 business sense of the word. Unable to choose suitable 



