xxxii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 



anti-Darwinian stand. ^^ General appreciation of him is perhaps most 

 clearly expressed by Holmes, who wrote to him a few years after the 

 publication of the Essay and the subsequent Darwinian debates: 



It very rarely happens that the same person can take at once the largest and 

 deepest scientific views and come down without apparent effort to the level ot 

 popular intelligence. This is what singularly gifts you for our country. . . . 

 You have gained the heart of our purpose . . .1* 



The major professional review of the Essay appeared in the Ameri- 

 can Journal of Science and was written by James Dwight Dana^^ a 

 perfect choice for such an assessment because he was a highly com- 

 petent naturalist who had done much important work in the geo- 

 graphical distribution of marine animals as well as in geology. 

 Though opposed to the hypothesis of development, he believed with 

 Gray that the issue of development versus creation was far from 

 resolved. His overall conclusion was that Agassiz's work "has already 

 borne science to a higher level than it had before attained, and given 

 a force and direction to thought which will insure rapid progress 

 towards perfection." ^® Affirming that Agassiz's views would hardly 

 meet with unqualified acceptance, he praised the "honest purpose 

 in research, thoroughness of investigation, breadth of philosophical 

 ideas, and beauty of actual results" ^^ that marked Agassiz's effort. He 

 doubted that Agassiz's taxonomy, representing an attempt to correct 

 certain designations of Cuvier, would prove as useful or valuable as 

 claimed. He objected that some of the larger divisions and a few of 

 the smaller subdivisions were too rigid, especially in the classification 

 of marine animals and the higher vertebrates. This was an under- 

 standable criticism in view of Agassiz's effort to have classes, orders, 

 and families in one branch of the animal kingdom correspond in 

 value with those in other branches in a neatly balanced scheme of 

 classification. Such reservations about the inflexible views in the 

 Essay somewhat strained Dana's praise, but he agreed with Agassiz's 

 basic belief in the permanence of species and with his insistence that 

 present knowledge made the concept of development a "deluding 



*'For the details of Agassiz's life see Edward Lurie, Louis Agassiz: A Life in Science 

 (Chicago, 1960). 



^* Holmes to Agassiz, October 20, 1863, Agassiz Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard 

 University. 



"In XXV, (2d ser., 1858), 126-128, 202-216, 321-341. 



"/6id., p. 341. 



"/6jd., p. 127. 



