INCONSISTENCY OF AGASSIZ, 6 7 
something like himself, and so makes man in his own image. 
The end of all the history of creation is thus arrived at 
and the series of revolutions of the earth is closed. Man, 
the child and image of God, gives him so much to do, causes 
him so much pleasure and trouble, that he is wearied no 
longer, and therefore need not undertake a new creation. 
It is clear that if, according to Agassiz, we once assign 
to the Creator entirely human attributes and qualities, and 
regard his work of creation as entirely analogous to human 
creative activity, we are necessarily obliged to admit such 
utterly absurd inferences as those just stated. 
The many intrinsic contradictions and perversities in 
Agassiz’s view of creation—a view which necessarily led 
him to the most decided opposition to the Theory of 
Descent—must excite our astonishment all the more be- 
cause, in his earlier scientific works, he had in many 
respects actually paved the way for Darwin, especially 
by his researches in Paleontology. Among the numerous 
investigations which created general interest in the then 
young science of Paleontology, those of Agassiz, especially 
his celebrated work on “ Fossil Fish,” rank next in import- 
ance to Cuvier’s work, which formed the foundation of the 
science. The petrified fish, with which Agassiz has made 
us acquainted, have not only an extremely great import- 
ance for the understanding of all groups of Vertebrate 
animals, and their historical development, but we have 
arrived through them at a sure knowledge of important 
general laws of development, some of which were first 
discovered by Agassiz. He it was who drew special atten- 
tion to the remarkable parallelism between the embryonal 
and the paleontological development—between ontogeny 
