Record. xli 



pathetic realization of the intentions of its founder. The 

 inscription on the wall of the entrance hall of the Museum — 



LUDOVICI AGASSIZ PATRI FILIUS ALEXANDER MDCCCLXXX 



— fittingly links the names of the two men whose genius 

 and unselfish dedication of life and means have created and 

 established it. 



Son of a Swiss Protestant pastor, under whose immediate 

 tuition enriched by the daily example of a mother of rare in- 

 telligence and deep religious convictions he passed the first ten 

 years of his life, Agassiz's early training, like that of Cuvier, was 

 distinctively Calvinistic; to the fundamental tenet, of an all- 

 powerful and all-wise Creator, he held fast, as a vital conviction, 

 to the end of his Hfe. In a letter to Humboldt (July, 1832) he 

 announced his own pregnant discovery 'Hhat the genetic suc- 

 cession of the fishes [in their geological sequence] corresponds 

 perfectly with their zoological classification." Karl Ernst v. 

 Baer had already (1828) shown that the embryos of higher ani- 

 mals pass through successive phases of development parallel to 

 those observed in lower animals of the same type. Having 

 demonstrated a like '' parallelism between the embryological 

 development of the Cycloids and Ctenoids and the genetic or 

 palaeontological development of the whole class [of fishes]," 

 he saw in it a proof 'Hhat the same thought, the same plan, 

 which presides to-day over the formation of the embryo, is also 

 manifested in the successive development of the numerous 

 creatures which have formerly peopled the earth. . . . Phenom- 

 ena closely allied in the order of their succession, and yet without 

 sufficient cause in themselves for their appearance; an infinite 

 diversity of species without any common material bond, so 

 grouping themselves as to present the most admirable progressive 

 development to which our own species is linked, — are these not 

 incontestable proofs of the existence of a superior intelligence 

 whose power alone could have established such an order of 

 things? . . . More than fifteen hundred species of fossil fishes, 

 which I have learned to know, tell me that species do not pass 

 insensibly one into another, but that they appear unex- 

 pectedly, without direct relations to their precursors ; ... All 

 these species have a fixed epoch of appearance and disappear- 

 ance; their existence is even limited to an appointed time. 

 And yet they present, as a whole, numerous affinities more or 

 less close, a definite coordination in a given system of organization 

 which has intimate relations with the mode of existence of each 



