398 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 
mind. Probably he felt more surprise than did Dr. Wyman 
when notified, a few months afterward, of the choice of the 
corporation. The exigencies of the botanic garden probably 
overbore other considerations. I doubt if Dr. Wyman ever 
had an envious feeling. Certain it is that no one welcomed 
the new professor with truer cordiality, or proved himself a 
more constant friend. . 
In these days it is sure to be asked how an anatomist, phy- 
siologist, and morphologist like Professor Wyman regarded 
the most remarkable scientific movement of his time, the re- 
vival and apparent prevalence of doctrines of evolution. As 
might be expected, he was neither an advocate or an opponent. 
He was not one of those persons who quickly make up their 
minds, and announce their opinions, with a confidence in- 
versely proportionate to their knowledge. He could consider 
long, and hold his judgment in suspense. How well he could 
do this appears from an early, and so far as I know, his only 
published presentation of the topic, in a short review of 
Owen’s “ Monograph of the Aye-Aye” Gn Am. Journ. Sci- 
ence, Sept., 1863) —the paper in which Professor Owen’s 
acceptance of evolution, but not of natural selection, was 
promulgated. Dr. Wyman compares Owen’s view with that 
of Darwin (to whom he had already communicated interesting 
and novel illustrations of the play of natural selection) ; and 
he adds some acute remarks upon a rather earlier speculation 
by Mr. Agassiz, in which the latter suggests that the species 
of animals might have been created as eggs rather than as 
adults. He states the case between the two general views 
with perfect impartiality, and the bent of his own mind is 
barely discernible. In due time he satisfied himself as to 
which of them was the more probable, or, in any case, the 
more fertile hypothesis. As to this I may venture to take the 
liberty to repeat the substance of a conversation which I had 
with him some time after the death of the lamented Agassiz, 
and not long before his own. I report the substance only, 
not the words. 
Agassiz repeated to me, he said, a remark made to him by 
Humboldt, to the effect that Cuvier made a great mistake, 
