802 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Realism appeared in still stranger forms at the time to which I 

 refer. The community of plan which is observable in each great group 

 of animals was hypostatized into a Platonic idea with the appropriate 

 name of " archetype," and we were told, as a disciple of Philo-Judaeus 

 might have told us, that this realistic figment was " the archetypal 

 light " by which Nature has been guided amid the " wreck of worlds." 

 So, again, another naturalist who had no less earned a well-deserved 

 reputation by his contributions to positive knowledge, put forward a 

 theory of the production of living things which, as nearly as the increase 

 of knowledge allowed, was a reproduction of the doctrine inculcated 

 by the Jewish Cabala. 



Annexing the archetype notion, and carrying it to its full logical 

 consequence, the author of this theory conceived that the species of 

 animals and plants were so many incarnations of the thoughts of God 

 — material representations of Divine Ideas during the particular period 

 of the world's history at which they existed. But, under the influence 

 of the embryological and paleontological discoveries of modern times, 

 which had already lent some scientific support to the revived ancient 

 theories of cosmical evolution or emanation, the ingenious author of 

 this speculation, w T hile denying and repudiating the ordinary theory 

 of evolution by successive modification of individuals, maintained and 

 endeavored to prove the occurrence of a progressive modification in 

 the Divine Ideas of successive epochs. 



On the foundation of a supposed elevation of organization in the 

 whole living population of any epoch as compared with that of its 

 predecessor, and a supposed complete difference in species between 

 the populations of any two epochs (neither of which suppositions has 

 stood the test of further inquiry), the author of this speculation based 

 his conclusion that the Creator had, so to speak, improved upon his 

 thoughts as time w r ent on ; and that, as each such amended scheme of 

 creation came up, the embodiment of the earlier divine thoughts was 

 swept avray by a universal catastrophe, and an incarnation of the im- 

 proved ideas took its place. Only after the last such "wreck" thus 

 brought about did the embodiment of a divine thought, in the shape 

 of the first man, make its appearance as the ne %>lus ultra of the cos- 

 mogonieal process. 



I imagine that Louis Agassiz, the genial backwoodsman of the sci- 

 ence of my young days, who did more to open out new tracks in the 

 scientific forest than most men, would have been much surprised to 

 learn that he was preaching the doctrine of the Cabala, pure and 

 simple. According to this modification of Neoplatonism by contact 

 with Hebrew speculation, the divine essence is unknowable — without 

 form or attribute ; but the interval between it and the world of sense 

 is filled by intelligible entities, which are nothing but the familiar 

 hypostatized abstractions of the realists. These have emanated, like 

 immense waves of light, from the divine center, and, as ten consecu- 



