64 LOUIS AGASSIZ 



have devoted my whole life to the study 

 of Nature, and yet a single sentence may 

 express all that I have done. I have 

 shown that there is a correspondence 

 between the succession of fishes in geo- 

 logical times and the different stages of 

 their growth in the egg this is all." 

 To-day this is taken as due to inheri- 

 tance, and as one of the strongest rea- 

 sons for believing in the change of 

 species by descent. So, again, with 

 Agassiz's " synthetic or prophetic 

 types," uniting characteristics which 

 were afterward separated and confined 

 each to its own group as, for in- 

 stance, the early creatures, who were 

 half like the reptiles and half like the 

 fishes modern interpretation would, 

 of course, call these the ancestors of 

 both. To express the law of succession 

 and development of fishes during all 

 geologic epochs was his aim, as it is that 

 of every evolutionist 5 and in the modern 

 theory, Agassiz's results have become the 



