LOUIS AGASSIZ. 255 



would seem must necessarily hare led him to the idea of evolution, he 

 always remained an absolute partisan of the hypothesis of successive 

 creations, and he may be regarded as the chief of the opposition to the 

 theory of development. 



The fact that the most distinct types exist simultaneously in identical 

 circumstances, and that we find identical types in the most different cir- 

 cumstances, the entire development of the animal kingdom, the harmony 

 in its most diverse parts, its present and past distribution upon the con- 

 tinents and in the sea, furnished him unceasingly with new arguments to 

 combat this theory and to defend that of the individuality and the con- 

 stancy of species. 



If it is evident that the flora and fauna are renewed a great number of 

 times on the surface of the globe, it has never been proved, according 

 to him, that the sx)ecies were changed during one of those periods. 

 The observations made of the times in which we live, indicate that they 

 remained invariable during each period. This is demonstrated by the 

 plants and animals found in the tombs of Egyi)t and the fauna of the 

 coral reefs of Florida. Daily discoveries contradict strongly the opinion 

 that inferior beings first appeared upon the earth, and that types more 

 and more elevated were manifested until the advent of man. On the 

 contrary", representatives of numerous families of the four great branches 

 of the animal kingdom, Eadiates, Mollusks, Articulates, and Vertebrates, 

 lived simultaneously from the most ancient periods. The Vertebrates 

 alone have not yet been found in the first deposits, but they appeared 

 in immense numbers before the end of the first period. These branches, 

 which manifest in their structure a complete independence, have tra- 

 versed side by side all the series of geological ages up to the present 

 time. The first three are even represented from the beginning by nu- 

 merous types of their different classes, and the character of the branches 

 of the classes of the families have always been as distinct as to-day. 

 " Until the facts of nature are shown to have been mistaken by those 

 who have collected them," said Agassiz, "and that they have a different 

 meaning from that now generally assigned to them, I shall consider the 

 transmutation theory as a scientific mistake, untrue in its facts, unsci- 

 entific in its method, and mischievous in its tendency."* 



Agassiz preferred greatly direct observation of nature to theoretic 

 research, and he found more than any other naturalist opportunities for 

 this study in his numerous voyages and in the immense material he 

 collected. In a country so rich, so varied in climate and conditions, and 

 also so new, his collections rapidly accumulated ; he sold them in 1852 

 to Harvard College. A building which had been put up to receive them 

 proved to be too small. The University of Cambridge, aided by a pub- 

 lic subscription and by the State of Massachusetts, caused to be erected 

 the first wing of a large edifice, which was to bear the name of the Mu- 

 seum of Comparative Zoology. Mr. Fr. C. Gray bequeathed 850,000 to 



On the Origin of Species. Am. Journal of Science. 1860. Vol. xxx, p. 154. 



