150 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. 



Ill Professor Agassiz we have lost a uian of kindred powers, whose 

 life was spent in a different though hardly less conspicuous field of 

 action. 



Few lives were ever so sincerely and entirely devoted to the highest 

 and best aims of science. I was led to appreciate this by a remark 

 which Professor Agassiz made to me several years ago, which is, I 

 believe, the key to his own career, and deserves to be remembered by 

 all who would follow in his footsteps. His remark was that he had 

 made it the rule of Ms life to abmidon any intellectual pursuit the moment 

 it became commercially valuable. 



He knew that others would utilize what he discovered ) that when he 

 brought down the great truths of science to the level of commercial 

 values, a thousand hands would be ready to take them and make them 

 valuable in the markets of the world. Since then I have thought of 

 him as one of that small but elect company of men who dwell on the 

 upj)er heights, above the plane of commercial values, and who love and 

 seek truth for its own sake. Such men are indeed the prophets, the 

 priests, the interpreters of nature. Few of their number have learned 

 more, at first hands, than Professor Agassiz ; and few, if any, have sub- 

 mitted their theories to severer tests. 



It was a great risk for the astronomer to announce that the perturba- 

 tions of the solar system could only be accounted for by a planet as yet 

 unknown, and to predict its size and place in the solar system, trusting 

 to the telescope to confirm or explode his theory. But iierhaps Profes- 

 sor Agassiz took even a greater risk thiin this. Who does not remem- 

 ber the letter he addressed to Professor Peirce, of the Coast Survey, 

 just before he set out on the Hassler expedition, predicting in detail 

 what evidences of glacial action he expected to find on the continent of 

 South America, and what species of marine animals he expected to dis- 

 cover in the deep-sea soundings along that coast ? He risked his own 

 reputation as a scientific man on the predictions then committed to 

 writing. 



What member of this board will forget the lecture he delivered here 

 after his return, detailing the discoveries he had made, and showing 

 how completely his predictions had been verified? 



While he was the prince of scholars, and a recognized teacher of man- 

 kind, yet he alwaj'S preserved that childlike spirit which made him the 

 most amiable of men. He studied nature with a reverence born of his 

 undoubting faith. He believed that the universe was a cosmos, not a 

 Chaos ; and that throughout all its vast domains there were indubitable 

 evidences of creative i^ower and supreme wisdom. 



We have special cause for regret that his early death has deprived 

 this community and the world of a series of lectures which were to 

 have been delivered here this winter, on subjects of the deepest interest 

 to science. His death will be deplored in whatever quarter of the globe 



