OPINIONS OF CUVIER AND AGASSIZ, 99 



the Bridgewater Treatise. At this moment it is 

 not supported by a single geologist of the least 

 repute. May not, then, the Baron Curier be 

 wrong also in his opinion regarding the develop- 

 ment of species r So much, I trust, may be said 

 without any disparagement to the author of the 

 Regne Animal. The faot is, that the erroneous and 

 imperfect ideas of great men often become an 

 annoyance, from no fault on their part, but only 

 because the weak and narrow-minded are so apt, 

 afterwards, to seize upon such ideas, and brandish 

 them in the faces of advancing truths. For M. 

 Agassiz I likewise entertain great respect ; but it 

 happens that his liability" to error is equally well 

 established. The doctrines which he persisted for 

 years in maintaining with respect to the constitu- 

 tion and movement of glaciers, are now all but 

 deserted for the more accurate and philosophical 

 deductions of Professor James Forbes. I may, 

 therefore, receive the intelligence which the Xeuf- 

 chatel philosopher brings me regarding the fossil 

 fish, but be cautious in accepting as an infallible 

 dictum what he is pleased to say on the compara- 

 tively profound doctrine of organic development. 

 Professor Owen, whose modesty keeps pace with 

 his fame, will hardly pretend to an infallibility 

 /2 



