696 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



inquirers to occupy themselves exclusively with matters of detail, to 

 the neglect of wide-reaching generalizations. And the rejection of 

 Mr. Darwin's name was justified upon the ground, not that he had 

 made unscientific generalizations, but that he had been a mere (!) gen- 

 eralize]*, instead of a collector of facts. The allegation was, indeed, 

 incorrect ; since Mr. Darwin is as eminent for his industry in collect- 

 ing facts as for his boldness in generalizing. But the form of the 

 allegation well illustrates the truth of what I have been seeking to 

 show that familiarity with the details of a subject does not enable 

 one to deal with it in the grand style, and elicit new truth from old 

 facts, unless one also possesses some faculty for penetrating into the 

 hidden implications of the facts ; or, in other words, some faculty for 

 philosophizing. 



Now, I am far from saying of Prof. Agassiz that he is a mere col- 

 lector of echinoderms and dissector of fishes, with no tact whatever 

 in philosophizing. He does not stand in the position of those who 

 think that the end of scientific research is attained when we have 

 carefully ticketed a few thousand specimens of corals and butterflies, 

 in mucli the same spirit as that in which a school-girl collects and clas- 

 sifies autographs or postage-stamps. Along with his indefatigable in- 

 dustry as a collector and observer, Prof. Agassiz has a decided inclina- 

 tion toward general views. However lamentably deficient we may 

 think him in his ability to discern the hidden implications of facts, 

 there can be no question that his facts are of little importance to him 

 save as items in a philosophic scheme. He knows very well perhaps 

 almost too well that the value of facts lies in the conclusions to which 

 they point. And, accordingly, lack of philosophizing is the last short- 

 coming with which, as a scientific writer, he can be charged. If he 

 errs on a great scientific question, lying within his own range of inves- 

 tigation, it is not because he refrains steadfastly from all general con- 

 siderations, but because he philosophizes and philosophizes on un- 

 sound principles. It is because his philosophizing is not a natural 

 outgrowth from the facts of Nature which lie at his disposal, but is 

 made up out of sundry traditions of his youth, which, by dint of play- 

 ing upon the associations of ideas which are grouped around certain 

 combinations of words, have come to usurp the place of observed facts 

 as a basis for forming conclusions. It is not because he abstains from 

 generalizing that Prof. Agassiz is unable to appreciate the arguments 

 by which Mr. Darwin has established his theory, but it is because he 

 long ago brought his mind to acquiesce in various generalizations, of a 

 thoroughly unscientific or non-scientific character, with the further 

 maintenance of which the acceptance of the Darwinian theory is (or 

 seems to Prof. Agassiz to be) incompatible. 



The generalizations which have thus preoccupied Prof. Agassiz's 

 mind are purely theological or mythological in their nature. In esti- 

 mating the probable soundness of his opinion upon any scientific ques- 



