6 94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



rate foreign importations of whatever sort. As a Eurojiean, there- 

 fore, he outshines such men as Profs. Gray and Wyinan, and, as a man 

 whom we know, he outshines other Europeans, like Haeckel and Ge- 

 genbaur, whose acquaintance we happen not to have made ; just as 

 Rubinstein, whose fame has filled the American newspapers, outshines 

 Billow (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 vic- 

 tory. Dr. Draper brings a terrible indictment against Bacon for re- 

 jecting the Copernican theory, and refusing to profit by the discov- 

 eries of Gilbert in magnetism. This should not be allowed to detract 

 from Bacon's real gi'eatness, 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 ; Magen- 

 die 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 mathemati- 

 cian of the age, persisted until his dying day in heaping contumely 

 upon these eminent men and upon their arguments. Nay, even Cu- 

 vier 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 Dar- 

 winian 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, 



