JEFFRIES WYMAN. 399 



and missed a great opportunity, when he took the side he did 

 in the famous controversy with Geoffroy St. Hilaire ; he should 

 have accepted the doctrines of morphology, and brought his 

 vast knowledge of comparative anatomy and zoology, and 

 his unequaled powers, to their illustration. Had he done so, 

 instead of gaining by his superior knowledge some temporary 

 and doubtful victories in a lost cause, his preeminence for all 

 our time would have been assured and complete. I thought, 

 continued Wyman, that there was a parallel case before me, 

 that if Agassiz had brought his vast stores of knowledge in 

 zoology, embryology, and palaeontology, his genius for mor- 

 phology, and all his quickness of apprehension and fertility in 

 illustration, to the elucidation and support of the doctrine of 

 the progressive development of species, science in our day 

 would have gained much, some grave misunderstandings been 

 earlier rectified, and the permanent fame of Agassiz been 

 placed on a broader and higher basis even than it is now. 



Upon one point Wyman was clear from the beginning. He 

 did not wait until evolutionary doctrines were about to pre- 

 vail, before he judged them to be essentially philosophical 

 and healthful, " in accordance with the order of nature as 

 commonly manifested in her works," and that they need not 

 disturb the foundations of natural theology. 



Perhaps none of us can be trusted to judge of such a ques- 

 tion impartially, upon the bare merits of the case ; but Wy- 

 man's judgment was as free from bias as that of any one I 

 ever knew. Not at all, however, in this case from indifference 

 or unconcern. He was not only, philosophically, a convinced 

 theist, in all hours and under all kk variations of mood and 

 tense," but personally a devout man, an habitual and reverent 

 attendant upon Christian worship and ministrations. 



Those of us who attended his funeral must have felt the 

 appropriateness for the occasion of the words which were 

 there read from the Psalmist : — 



"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament 

 showeth his handy-work. . . . O Lord, how manifold arc thy 

 works! In wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is 

 full of thy riches; so is this great and wide sea, wherein are 



