INCONSISTENCY OF AGASSIZ. 67 



something like himself, and so makes man in his own image. 

 The end of all the history of creation is thus arrived at 

 and the series of revolutions of the earth is closed. Man, 

 the child and image of God, gives him so much to do, causes 

 him so much pleasure and trouble, that he is wearied no 

 longer, and therefore need not undertake a new creation. 

 It is clear that if, according to Agassiz, we once assign 

 to the Creator entirely human attributes and qualities, and 

 regard his work of creation as entirely analogous to human 

 creative activity, we are necessarily obliged to admit such 

 utterly absurd inferences as those just stated. 



The many intrinsic contradictions and perversities in 

 Agassiz's view of creation — a view which necessarily led 

 him to the most decided opposition to the Theory of 

 Descent — ^must excite our astonishment all the more be- 

 cause, in his earlier scientific works, he had in many 

 respects actually paved the way for Darwin, especially 

 by his researches in Palaeontology. Among the numerous 

 investigations which created general interest in the then 

 young science of Palaeontology, those of Agassiz, especially 

 his celebrated work on " Fossil Fish," rank next in import- 

 ance to Cuvier's work, which formed the foundation of the 

 science. The petrified fish, with which Agassiz has made 

 us acquainted, have not only an extremely great import- 

 ance for the understanding of all groups of Vertebrate 

 animals, and their historical development, but we have 

 arrived through them at a sure knowledge of important 

 general laws of development, some of which were first 

 discovered by Agassiz. He it was who drew special atten- 

 tion to the remarkable parallelism between the embryonal 

 and the palseontological development — between ontogeny 



