484 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



his conception of " species," he sententiously replied : " A 

 species is a thought of the Creator." To this thoroughly theis- 

 tic conception he joined the scientific deduction which he had 

 already been led to draw, that the animal species of each 

 geological age, or even stratum, were different from those pre- 

 ceding and following, and also unconnected by natural deriva- 

 tion. And his very last published works reiterated his stead- 

 fast conviction that " there is no evidence of a direct descent 

 of later from earlier species in the geological succession of an- 

 imals." Indeed, so far as we know, he would not even admit 

 that such " thoughts of the Creator" as these might have been 

 actualized in the natural course of events. If he had ac- 

 cepted such a view, and if he had himself apprehended and 

 developed in his own way the now wellnigh assured signifi- 

 cance of some of his early and pregnant generalizations, the 

 history of the doctrine of development would have been differ- 

 ent from what it is, a different spirit and another name would 

 have been prominent in it, and Agassiz would not have passed 

 away while fighting what he felt to be — at least for the 

 present — a losing battle. It is possible that the " whirligig 

 of time " may still " bring in his revenges," but not very 

 probable. 



Much to his credit, it may be said that a good share of 

 Agassiz's invincible aversion to evolution may be traced to 

 the spirit in which it was taken up by his early associate Vogt, 

 and, indeed, by most of the German school then and since, 

 which justly offended both his scientific and his religious 

 sense. Agassiz always " thought nobly of the soul," and 

 could in no way approve either materialistic or agnostic opin- 

 ions. The idealistic turn of his mind was doubtless confirmed 

 in his student days at Munich, whither he and his friend 

 Braun resorted after one session at Heidelberg, and where 

 both devotedly attended the lectures of Schelling, — then in 

 his later glory, — and of Oken, whose " Natur-Philosophie " 

 was then in the ascendant. Although fascinated and inspired 

 by Oken's a priori biology (built upon morphological ideas 

 which had not yet been established but had, in part, been 

 rightly divined), the two young naturalists were not carried 



