AGASSIZ AND DARWINISM. 703 



growth, recall this gradation. He has a fish-like, a reptile-like stage 

 before he shows unmistakable mammal-like features. We do not on 

 this account suppose a quadruped grows out of a fish in our time, for 

 this simple reason, that we live among quadrupeds and fishes, and we 

 know that no such thing takes place. But resemblances of the same 

 kind, separated by geological ages, allow play for the imagination, and 

 for inference unchecked by observation." 



I do not believe that Prof. Agassiz's worst enemy if he ever had 

 an enemy could have been so hard-hearted as to wish for him the 

 direful catastrophe into which this wonderful piece of argument has 

 plunged him irretrievably. For the question must at once suggest 

 itself to every reader at all familiar with the subject, If Prof. Agassiz 

 supposes that the development theory, as held nowadays, implies that 

 a quadruped was ever the direct issue of a fish, of what possible value 

 can his opinion be as regards the development theory in any way ? 



If I may speak frankly, as I have indeed been doing from the out- 

 set, I will say that, as regards the Darwinian theory, Prof. Agassiz 

 seems to me to be hopelessly behind the age. I have never yet come 

 across the first indication that he knows what the Darwinian theory is. 

 Against the development theory, as it was taught him by the discus- 

 sions of forty years ago, he is fond of uttering, I will not say argu- 

 ments, but expressions of dislike. With the modern development 

 theory, with the circumstances of variation, heredity, and natural se- 

 lection, he never, in any of his writings, betrays the slightest acquaint- 

 ance. Against a mere man of straw of his own devising, he indus- 

 triously hurls anathemas of a quasi-theological character. But any 

 thins: like a scientific examination of the character and limits of the 

 agency of natural selection in modifying the appearance and structure 

 of a species, any thing like such an examination as is to be found in 

 the interesting work of Mr. St. George Mivart, he has never yet 

 brought forth. 



Now, when Prof. Agassiz fairly comes to an issue, if he ever does, and 

 undertakes to refute the Darwinian theory, these are some of the ques- 

 tions which he will have to answer : 1. If all organisms are not asso- 

 ciated through the bonds of common descent, why is it that the facts 

 of classification are just such as they would have been had they been 

 due to such a common descent ? 2. Why does a mammal always 

 begin to develop as if it were going to become a fish, and then, chang- 

 ing its tactics, proceed as if it were going to become a reptile or bird, 

 and only after great delay and circumlocution take the direct road 

 toward mammality ? In answer to this, we do not care to be told that 

 a mammal never was the son of a fish, because we know that already ; 

 nor do we care to hear any more about the " free manifestations of an 

 intelligent mind," because we have had quite enough of metaphysical 

 phrases which do not contain a description of some actual or imagi- 

 nable process. We want to know how this state of things can be sci- 



