EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xxxi 



Is there an investigator, who having once recognized ... a similarity between 

 certain faculties of Man and those of the higher animals, can feel prepared . . . 

 to trace the limit where this community of nature ceases? ... I confess I could 

 not say in what the mental faculties of a child differ from those of a young 

 Chimpanzee, (p. 68) 



Such statements were representative of many perceptive observations 

 by Agassiz. In the years that followed the publication of the Essay 

 naturalists who were not burdened by the limitations of special 

 creationism contributed to the solution of problems and questions 

 posed there. 



The public and professional response to the Essay was a preview 

 in microcosm of Agassiz's social and intellectual career after 1857. 

 Humboldt's words of admiration, published widely in American 

 newspapers, reflected Agassiz's conception of himself as a universal 

 intellect, quite as capable of cosmic generalizations as his life-long 

 mentor. Sir Richard Owen's appreciation typified Agassiz's dominant 

 role as an opponent of Darwin in the scientific controversy over evo- 

 lution of the early 1860's. Oliver Wendell Holmes's glowing praise 

 for "Agassiz's Natural History" in the Atlantic Monthly'^^ was a pre- 

 diction of Agassiz's subsequent relationship to that controversy. Un- 

 able to convince his fellow naturalists that Darwin's ideas were un- 

 worthy of serious attention, Agassiz ceased to oppose evolution in 

 the professional forum of intellectual interchange. Instead, he shifted 

 his attack to the popular level, and in this comfortable area where 

 his prestige was still high, he became more dogmatic with the passing 

 of the years. In this way he sharpened the intellectual isolation that 

 the public involvements of the 1850's had created for him and to 

 which he devoted himself so largely during his later career. Among 

 his endeavors were the raising of large sums for the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology (nearly $600,000 by the time of his death), 

 helping to establish the National Academy of Sciences, aiding the 

 organization of Cornell University, and founding a summer school 

 for the study of natural history. In the years just before his death 

 in 1873 he strove to evaluate the evolutionary concept in a more ob- 

 jective fashion, but his efforts involved no fundamental change in 

 attitude. His popular renown was never dimmed by his determined 



"In I (1858), 320-323. 



