48 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



joined in the turbulent discussion that followed its pub- 

 lication, his father entered the arena and remained a 

 firm opponent of Darwin to the end of his life. Of 

 Alexander Agassiz's final attitude on evolution, some- 

 thing will be said in a later chapter. The two following 

 letters to a well-known German naturalist who, for 

 political reasons, was living in Brazil, are interesting 

 as showing what were his early opinions on the sub- 

 ject:— 



TO FRITZ MULLER 



Cambridge, Jan. 17, 1864. 



Your very interesting letter of Sept. 9, 1863, has 

 been lying before me for nearly two months. I have 

 been obliged to delay answering so long because the 

 friend to whom I had given the books for you in charge 

 had not returned from an expedition to the western part 

 of the Continent. 



Nothing will give me greater pleasure than to answer 

 your questions about the Ccelenterata and Darwin. It is 

 only by discussing these broad questions in the most 

 unprejudiced manner that we may hope to arrive at the 

 truth, and mere dogmatic expressions of opinion ought 

 never to influence us in the least, no matter what the 

 source from which they come, and how great the author- 

 ity may be. I trust that henceforth in Natural History, 

 workers will not allow themselves to be biased by any 

 weight of authority, either on one side or the other, 

 but will examine the facts and carefully analyze them 

 to see what they mean. We should not have so many 

 wild theories in our science, did not every one who has 

 studied a subject somewhat give generally such dispro- 

 portionate importance to the particular part which they 



