MURRAY: ALEXANDER AGASSIZ. 



157 



interested in all evolutionary problems. He used to say that Darwin 

 had probably explained the survival but not the arrival of species, and 

 he looked forward to a great increase of knowledge from experiments 

 in Mendelism. He believed that the mutation theory had received 

 remarkable confirmation by experiments carried on in recent years. 

 He believed that the doctrines of heredity, which had been so success- 

 fully applied to the improvement of domestic plants and animals, 

 would, in the not very distant future, be in like manner applied for 

 the elevation of the human species, the most important of all domestic 

 organisms. He felt convinced that the modern theories as to elec- 

 trons, the disruption of atoms, and as to energy configurations in the 

 ether being the sole ultimate phenomenal basis of matter would in 

 time profoundly affect the philosophical outlook of many naturalists 

 and their mental attitude generally towards materialism and the 

 riddles of the universe. The study of the world of physical and mental 

 phenomena, he would say, was sufficient for this life. The deeper 

 and more earnestly these were investigated, the brighter and more 

 definite would become the glimpses of that eternal something lying 

 behind all manifestations, which in the meantime he was content to 

 reverence. His religious feelings seemed to be best expressed as a 

 yearning after a higher and better life, which he held would become 

 more attainable and more pronounced as mankind advanced in scien- 

 tific knowledge. Like all great men he was 



"A dreamer of the common dreams, 

 A fisher in familiar streams: 

 He chased the transitory gleams 



That all pursue, 

 But on his lips the eternal themes 



Again were new." 



Great he unquestionably was. Great in his power for work, great 

 in his conception of duty, great in his desire to add to natural knowl- 

 edge, great in the height of his love, great in the depth of his sorrow, 

 great in his elevated personality, great in his admiration for his Uni- 

 versity, great in his patriotism, great in his ideas as to the destiny of 

 our race, great in his influence for good, like the genial and vivifying 

 rain from heaven. Like all of us he doubtless had faults, both heredi- 

 tary and acquired. We know that 



"His life was gentle, and the elements 

 So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up 

 And say to all the world, 'This was a man!" 



