478 FRAQMKNTti OF SCI KNCK. 



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 

 Brookline, near Boston. Rising 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 bee'n affirmed; and all subsequent experience justified 

 the affirmation. Mayer extended the attribute of inde- 

 structibility to energy, applying it in the first instance to 



