NATURE 



529 



THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 1896. 



A LIFE OF LOUIS AGASSIZ. 

 Life, Letters, and Works of Louis Agassis. By Jules 

 Marcou. With illustrations. 2 vols. Pp. xxxii + 620. 

 (London : Macmillan and Co., 1896.) 



BIOGRAPHIES of Agassiz have not been wanting. 

 In 1885 his widow published a "Life and Cor- 

 respondence" ; in 1893 Dr. F. Holder wrote a " Life and 

 Work," a smaller book, which was reviewed in these 

 pages (Nature, vol. xlviii. p. 52) ; while biographical 

 sketches, short and long, are numerous. But in M. 

 Marcou's opinion, to quote from his preface, 



" No true life of him has yet appeared : nearly all have 

 been too eulogistic, while, on the other hand, some rather 

 severe strictures and criticisms have incidentally appeared 

 in articles purporting to give the life of some of his 

 associates, or dealing with some special questions of 

 natural history. . . . The true history of Agassiz has 

 not yet been written." 



So the task has been taken in hand by M. Marcou, 

 who has executed it in the spirit of the " candid friend," 

 and takes good care that the worshipper, while called 

 upon to notice the gold, shall be in no danger of over- 

 looking any spots of dross in the precious metal of the 

 image. No illusion is any longer possible. We go away 

 convinced that Agassiz was" very far from faultless, a man 

 of great strength, with a considerable share of human 

 weaknesses, and that M. Marcou is a very superior 

 person. 



Which of the many pictures is the most true, only those 

 who knew Agassiz intimately can judge. It may be per- 

 mitted, however, to doubt whether his family will feel 

 themselves under an overpowering debt of gratitude to 

 M. Marcou. Granted that he does full justice to Agassiz' 

 genius — his acuteness of observation, his extraordinary 

 memory, his eloquence, perseverance, and powers of 

 work — still he turns the search-light so full on his weak- 

 nesses, that they seem almost as prominent as his excel- 

 lences. But does this serve any good purpose ? Some 

 of these weaknesses were inseparable from the nature of 

 the man. Let us grant that he was unbusinesslike in his 

 habits, that money passed through his fingers like water 

 through a sieve, that he was always crying " give, give," 

 even as " the daughters of the horseleech " — was this for 

 his own enrichment, or to serve his own ends ? No, it 

 was for the sake of science ; the great aim of his life was 

 to procure abundant specimens for study, and, in America, 

 to build up a splendid museum. Granted that he was 

 injudicious in the selection of his assistants, and that 

 his arrangements with them, or rather want of arrange- 

 ments, sometimes led to trouble — surely the one was an 

 error on the side of a generous trust, the other was pardon- 

 able, when the exigencies of the case are considered. How 

 during the stress and poverty of his earlier life could 

 Agassiz have obtained helpers had he not instituted a 

 coenobite establishment of some kind ? How could he 

 make very precise bargains with men to whom he could 

 offer no stipends ; who came more as fellow-workers than 

 as assistants ? Any one who has read one of the 

 biographies already in existence can see that Agassiz 

 sometimes made mistakes in dealing with his fellows, 

 NO. 1380, VOL. 53] 



that he was not a good man of business, and was 

 imprudent, we might say reckless, in matters of finance ; 

 but his imprudence was for the cause of science, not to 

 minister to his own ease or luxury. The audacity with 

 which he faced immense difficulties, ran risks that seemed 

 hopeless, and almost courted ruin, if trying to relatives, 

 friends, and even legislators, demands a lenient judgment 

 from those who have profited by his efforts, and who 

 recognise the greatness of his services to science. 



There are of course occasions when the saying, De 

 mortuis nil nisi bonum, must not be observed, when it is 

 necessary to speak plainly of men whose work is ended. 

 There are faults, about which a biographer cannot be 

 silent — falsehood and treachery, gross selfishness or 

 flagrant immorality. But of these no one can accuse 

 Agassiz. There are times, too, when it is a duty to call 

 attention even to the errors in science which the dead 

 have committed ; namely, when a school of this or that 

 prophet is seeking by the glamour of their master's 

 name to paralyse the honest worker and to check the 

 progress of knowledge — but no one has done that wrong 

 to the memory of Agassiz. Posterity, then, does not need 

 that his mistakes should be proclaimed upon the house- 

 tops ; it knows them already ; it is content to be thankful 

 for the good work which he did, and to say, in regard to 

 the bad, " Which of us shall first cast a stone against 

 him?" 



But M. Marcou himself has views on scientific con- 

 troversies, and where Agassiz takes the same side, is not 

 parsimonious in praise. For instance, Agassiz held 

 certain views as to the origin of species opposed to those 

 of Darwin. No opportunity is lost of belittling the 

 latter ; a chapter is even devoted to this purpose. We 

 are virtually told that both Darwin and his supporters 

 were more prone to evolve theories out of their inner 

 consciousness than to make careful observations. Here 

 is a sample of M. Marcou's condemnation. 



" The most enthusiastic propagators and apostles of 

 the new gospel were not naturalists at all, with the 

 exception of the systematic botanist, Asa Gray. Not one 

 of them was a zoologist, in any sense of the word. 

 Agassiz was too much a naturalist to accept a number of 

 mere suggestions until they were scientifically proved 

 by exact observations." 



So we learn, among other pieces of interesting in- 

 formation, that the evidence obtained in the more recent 

 deep-sea dredgings is adverse to Darwin's views as to 

 the origin of species, that had he been right the trans- 

 mutation of species ought by this time to have been 

 demonstrated by experiment ; nay, that even his hypo- 

 thesis regarding the formation of atolls has been proved 

 erroneous. As to the first, M. Marcou's remarks seem 

 curiously inconclusive ; as to the second, they indicate 

 considerable misapprehension of Darwin's views ; as to 

 the third, perhaps room still remains for difference of 

 opinion. Darwin's hypothesis as to the origin of species 

 and the origin of atolls may not be " the whole truth and 

 nothing but the truth," but we believe many authorities, 

 quite as respectable as M. Marcou, continue to regard 

 them as at least a long step in that direction. But 

 nothing very good, our censor hints, could be expected 

 from Darwin and his followers. 



" Physically Cuvier and Agassiz resembled each other 

 in possessing enormous heads and largely developed 



A A 



