478 PR 'A GMENTS F SCIENCE. 
rocks is not always without a counterpart in the logical 
pulverization of the objector. But though in handling 
this mighty theme all passion has been stilled, there is an 
emotion of the intellect, incident to the discernment of 
new truth, which often colors and warms the pages of Mr. 
Darwin. His success has been great; and this implies not 
only the solidity of his work, but the preparedness of the 
public mind for such a revelation. On this head, a remark 
of Agassiz impressed me more than anything else. Sprung 
from a race of theologians, this celebrated man combated 
to the last the theory of natural selection. One of the 
many times I had the pleasure of meeting him in the 
United States was at Mr. Winthrop's beautiful residence at 
Brookliue, near Boston. Eising from luncheon, we all 
halted as if by common consent, in front of a window, 
and continued there a discussion which had been started at 
table. The maple was in its autumn glory, and the 
exquisite beauty of the scene outside seemed, in my case, 
to interpenetrate without disturbance the intellectual 
action. Earnestly, almost sadly, Agassiz turned, and said 
to the gentlemen standing round, "I confess that I was not 
prepared to see this theory received as it has been by the 
best intellects of our time. Its success is greater than I 
could have thought possible." 
SECTION 7. In our day grand generalizations have been 
reached. " The theory of the origin of species is but one of 
them. Another, of still wider grasp and more radical 
significance, is the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy, 
the ultimate philosophical issues of which are as yet but 
dimly seen that doctrine which "binds nature fast in 
fate," to an extent not hitherto recognized, exacting from 
every antecedent its equivalent consequent, from every con- 
sequent its equivalent antecedent, and bringing vital as 
well as physical phenomena under the dominion of that 
law of causal connection which, so far as the human under- 
standing has yet pierced, asserts itself everywhere in 
nature. Long in advance of all definite experiment upon 
the subject, the constancy and indestructibility of matter 
had been affirmed; and all subsequent experience justified 
the affirmation. Majer extended the attribute of inde- 
structibility to energy, applying it in the first instance to 
