1864.] 231 



many species vary both in coloration and structural characters, not 

 only in different geographical localities, but oven in the same locality, 

 Agassiz seems to suppose that variation and divergence from the 

 normal type are peculiar to domesticated species, " Nature," he says, 

 " holds inviolable the stamp that God has set upon his creatures ; 

 and if man is able to influence their ormmization in some slight 

 degree, it is because the Creator has given to his [man's ?] relations 

 with the animals he [the Creator ?] has intended for his [man's ?] 

 companions the same plasticity which he [the Creator ?] has allowed 

 to every other side of his [man's?] life." (Mrth. St. p. 147.) So far 

 as the meaning of this most obscure and mystical sentence can be 

 guessed at, it is asserted that the Creator conferred the quality of vari- 

 ability upon such animals as he intended to be domesticated by man, 

 but not upon those which he intended to run wild ; and since the ass, 

 the guinea-fowl, the honey-bee* and the silk-worm vary scarcely at all 

 in a state of domestication, and certainly vary not one-huudreth part as 

 much as many species which are not domesticated, it follows, according 

 to what seems to be the doctrine of Prof. Agassiz, that the Creator never 

 intended these animals to be domesticated, and consequently that any 

 man that keeps them in a state of domestication violates the laws of God ! 



Herbert Spencer has remarked of Hugh Miller, that he '• fell short 

 of that highest faith, which knows that all truths must harmonize, 

 and which is therefore content trustfully to follow the evidence whith- 

 ersoever it leads." {Illustr. Universal Progress.) The more closely we 

 examine the i-ecorded opinions of Prof. Agassiz, the more inclined shall 

 we become to believe, that there is the same radical defect in the con- 

 stitution of his mind. 



* The Italian bee (Apis ligustica Spin.) is not a variety but a distinct species, 

 and has been of late years extensively propagated in this country by introduc- 

 ing fertilized queens into hives of the ordinary sjjecies. Hence one interesting 

 fact has already been arrived at, viz. that in the space of about 3 or -t months 

 the whole working population of the hive possessing an Italian queen comes to 

 consist of the Italian species, whence it results that working bees live in the 

 imago state only about 3 months. Virgil describes the queen-bee as marked 

 with bright, golden spots, (maculis auro squalentibus ardens, Georg. iv. 91), 

 so that it would seem that the Italian bee was the only species known to him. 

 From not attending to the jieculiar characters of this species, Kirby and Spence 

 have denied the accuracy of Virgil's description. {Introd. Letter 19, p. 377.) 



