1858-64.] JEFFRIES WYMAN. in 



liberty to repeat the substance of a conversation which 

 I had with him [Jeffries Wyman] some time after the 

 death of the lamented Agassiz, and not long before his 

 own. I repeat the substance only, not the words." 



"Agassiz repeated to me," he said, "a remark made 

 to him by Humboldt, to the effect that Cuvier made a 

 great mistake, and missed a great opportunity, when he 

 took the sides he did in the famous controversy with 

 Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. He should have accepted the 

 doctrine of morphology, and brought his vast knowledge 

 of comparative anatomy and his unequalled powers to 

 their illustration. Had he done so, instead of gaining 

 by his superior knowledge some temporary and doubt- 

 ful victories in a lost cause, his pre-eminence for all 

 our time would have been assured and complete. I 

 thought," continued Wyman, "that there was a parallel 

 case before me --that if Agassiz had brought his vast 

 stores of knowledge in zoology, embryology, and palae- 

 ontology, his genius for morphology, and all his quick- 

 ness of apprehension and fertility in illustrations, to the 

 elucidation and support of the doctrine of the progres- 

 sive development of species, science in our day would 

 have gained much, some grave misunderstandings been 

 earlier rectified, and the permanent fame of Agassiz 

 been placed on a broader and higher basis even than it 

 is now." 



These opinions of Wyman, quoted and indorsed by 

 Gray, indicate an inclination in both to say, " what a pity 

 that Cuvier and Agassiz did not at once accept La- 

 marck's, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire's, and Darwin's theories 

 of descent ; if they had done so, they would have been 



