EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xxi 



gave the naturalist an awareness of ultimate truth. For Agassiz, there- 

 fore, there was 



a system in nature to which the different systems of authors are successive ap- 

 proximations. . . . This growing coincidence between our systems and that of 

 nature shows . . . the identity of the operations of the human and the Divine 

 intellect; especially when it is remembered to what an extraordinary degree 

 many a priori conceptions . . . have in the end been proved to agree with the 

 reality, in spite of every objection at first offered by empiric observers, (pp. 25-26) 



Agassiz in effect equated the work of the naturalist with that of a 

 theologian. The taxonomist's understanding of Divine intent was 

 made precise by empirical knowledge of nature so that he could 

 report on the conditions of creation with the greatest accuracy. Of 

 the men who strove to achieve this correspondence between sub- 

 jective perception and divine reality Cuvier was by far the most 

 significant. 



In so defining the nature and purpose of classification and its 

 practitioners, Agassiz asked a modern and pertinent question and 

 supplied a traditional answer. His view that classification should 

 reflect the actuality of nature was advanced, but his conception of 

 what that reality was stretched back to Plato, the Greek speaking 

 through the more recent perceptions of Cuvier. Agassiz, in fact, 

 broadened the scope of his master's idealism by making it more in- 

 clusive. Affirming with Cuvier that the identity of structure of the 

 major branches of the animal kingdom signified an "intellectual con- 

 ception which unites them in the creative thought," Agassiz ascribed 

 the same ideal character to all the lesser taxonomic divisions. Thus, 

 "the species is an ideal entity, as much as the genus, the family, the 

 order, the class. . . ." As an ideal form, the species continued to 

 exist; even though the individual animal that represented it on earth 

 perished, it was replaced by others that signified the same ideal 

 type. Individuals, too, exemplified in their form and structure the 

 entire range of higher, ideal categories and the naturalist could 

 discern such features in them. 



Individuals . . . represent their species . . . [and] at the same time their 

 genus, their family, their order, their class, and their type [branch], the char- 

 acters of which they bear as indelibly as those of the species." (p. 176) 



Agassiz always insisted that his metaphysical conclusions were 

 grounded upon the actuality of nature itself. This intellectual trait 



