238 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



ing a delay, and after a brief sojourn in Vienna went to Paris, where he 

 conceived a strong desire to bring himself into relation with the pleiadea 

 of celebrities of the Museum of Natural History. Cuvier, Blainville, 

 Valenciennes received very kindly the young doctor. He saw frequently 

 Humboldt, who was then in the height of his renown, and who gave him 

 substantial proof of his friendship by furnishing him the means of pro- 

 longing his stay in Paris. * 



The interest felt by Agassiz in the investigation of fishes increased 

 with his knowledge of tlie subject. He found in Paris one of the most 

 complete collections, and a beautiful series of fossil fishes from Monte 

 Bolca belonging to Count Gazzola. Ho undertook the description of 

 the latter. This was his first step in paleontological research. Cuvier, 

 who soon observed in the young naturalist signs of rare ability, placed 

 generously at his disposal material collected for a history of fossil fishes, 

 and this influential encouragement decided his career. 



Zoology alone did not satisfy his j)owers of generalization, and he 

 soon recognized that paleontology was its indispensable complement. 

 The division of the animal kingdom into branches, classes, orders, fami- 

 lies, genera, and species, was not in his opinion merely a system, in- 

 vented to simplify research, but a divine institution ; according to ,his 

 view, this great plan of creation existed from the beginning, and the 

 organisms now found upon the surface of the globe form a part of it as 

 well as those whose remains are found in the most ancient deposits. 

 The nature of fossils, the entire system of their organization, prove in the 

 most conclusive manner the existence of this primitive plan, which has 

 developed regularly up to the present period. Paleontology furnishes 

 thousands of species, of genera, and even of numerous families, which 

 to-day have entirely disappeared, and which constitute an important part 

 of this great plan. To base a zoological classification upon living organ- 

 isms is to make a whole of a small part, is to eliminate arbitrarily from 

 the divine system the majority of the elements of which it is composed. 

 The great work of Cuvier had suddenly revealed the importance of pa- 

 leontology. In his investigation of fossil bones he laid the foundation 

 of this science, by showing that the species found below the surface of 

 the globe are different from those living at the present time. He had 

 established the laws of the unity of plan which allowed the conception 

 of ancient from existing forms ; and the law of concordance of cJiaracterSj 

 which, establishing the necessity that all parts of an organism are dis- 

 posed for the same end, authorized the deduction from each of them of 

 the character of the other parts, as well as of the kind of life of the ani- 

 mal, t 



To understand an extinct type we do not need to have it entire under 

 our eyes. The solid parts (which are alone preserved) not only give us 

 sufficient characteristics to class it in the genus and the species to which 



'Letters of Agassiz to Louis Coulou, Mem. Soc. Pliys., Genfeve, 1874, XXIII, 472. 

 t Pictet, Trait6 de Pal^outologie. Introduction. 



