HIS NOVEL OPINIONS. 441 



has in some measure stemmed this erring current of 

 public opinion, and has done his adopted country and 

 the cause of science good service, by setting forth 

 in his lectures the true doctrine of development as 

 opposed to that of Lamarck, popularised in the 

 Vestiges. 



On the other hand, he has introduced into his public 

 addresses and published writings other doctrines of a 

 somewhat startling kind, which, though well received 

 in a free-thinking community like that of Boston, and 

 for other reasons by the negro-haters, have neverthe 

 less disturbed the minds of many sincere men, and filled 

 them with new doubts respecting the relations of science 

 to religion. 



A man who knows his subject well, and is confident 

 as to his conclusions, has a right to state these conclu 

 sions confidently and with boldness. But when these 

 are of a kind unnecessarily to agitate the minds of h^ 

 hearers, a public teacher may sometimes feel it a duty 

 he owes to his science and to its cultivators, to waive a 

 portion of that right, and not too suddenly to transport 

 his audience to the farthest point to which he desires to 

 carry them. In the words of Playfair, &quot; reason some 

 times carries us farther than (even) imagination dares to 

 follow.&quot; 



The notion of specific centres of animal and vegetable 

 life is not new. That animals and plants are now re 

 stricted to certain limited areas of the earth s surface, 

 and to certain heights above the sea, may or may not 

 imply either that they were created within these several 

 areas, or that the work of creation was performed at 

 more than one period. 



But Professor Agassiz has gone boldly into the ques 

 tion, and has maintained, in regard to existing animals 

 first, That from their habits they could not have been 

 all created in one place ; second, That from their very 



