122 LOUIS AGASSIZ. [CHAP. xvm. 



cept one, and that one was very unfortunate, for it was 

 in regard to the formation of atolls by corals, which he 

 preconceived when on the coast of South America, 

 before he had seen a single coral island of Australia. 

 Since 1874 Darwin's theory has been so often damaged 

 by the numerous facts brought forward by Semper, 

 John Murray, Agassiz, Guppy, and Bourne, that it is 

 now regarded as an exploded hypothesis. 



As a matter of course, like all zoologists, with the 

 unique exception of Edward Forbes, Darwin was op- 

 posed to the theory of change of place of the continents 

 and oceans. Although an evolutionist of the most 

 radical type when applied to animals and plants, he 

 was ultra-conservative and even retrograde in his views 

 of the permanence l of seas and lands. 



To this day there has been nothing but chaos in 

 regard to the questions agitated by the new school. 

 All disagree on some of the most important points; 

 and if Darwin, according to Gray's expression, " has 

 turned the world of science upside down," he has 

 failed to give a doctrine well based and acceptable 

 as an indisputable truth, like the glacial theory, the 

 strata identified by organized fossils, the primordial 

 fauna, comparative anatomy, and historic and chron- 

 ologic geology. 



As Agassiz says : " Suppose that descent of species 

 is proved as correct ; in what arc we more advanced 



1 This is a rare contradiction of all the views and opinions advanced by 

 Darwin, and almost incredible from a geologist who had made a journey 

 round the world. Immutability of oceans and lands is a greater heresy in 

 the eyes of all true practical geologists than immutability of species for 

 Darwinians. 



