328 The Critics of Evolution. [May, 
by Harvey, ever believed in that discovery. Why did they not 
believe in it? Because it was not in accord with their inherited 
prejudices, with the experience of their lives, and their personal 
pride scouted at the discovery, by a young man, of valuable facts 
that they ought themselves to have seen long ago, were they true. 
Thus it was with Agassiz, who ought to have seen the truth of 
evolution long ago, for he contributed a large body of material 
for the verification of the theory. His embryological discoveries 
offer conclusive evidence of its truth. This his pupils saw, but 
their master, blinded by his Cuvierian education and belief in dis- 
tinct specific creations, could never reach the truth, though dissat- 
isfied with the hypothesis of creation as recorded in Genesis. He 
publishedatheory of distinct creations in many separate geographi- 
cal centers, and was, therefore, quite heretical. The doctrine of 
evolution covers all this ground more satisfactorily, and his theory 
is disregarded. Why was this master in research incapable of 
impressing his views upon his pupils, with whom he was person- 
ally so popular? Because young and unprejudiced they sought 
truth for its own sake, and loved it better than even they did their 
_ admired teacher. His opposition to Darwinism, they now openly | 
assert, served to make them more careful in their scrutiny into 
its weak points as described or imagined by him, and he was thus 
of real service in training his pupils for the adoption of the doc- 
trine of evolution. “Of all the younger brood of naturalists 
whom Agassiz educated, every one—Morse, Shaler, Verrill, 
Niles, Hyatt, Scudder, Putnam, even his own son—has accepted 
evolution.” (Popular Science Monthly, Feb., 1880.) 
In direct opposition to paleontological experience, that many 
species of organic beings have continued unchanged through 
successive periods of the earth’s history, while others have existed 
during only a small portion of such a period, Agassiz maintained 
that one and the same species never occurs in two different 
periods, but that each individual period is characterized by spe- 
cies peculiar thereto and belonging to it exclusively. In this he 
shares Cuvier’s opinion that all the inhabitants of successive geo- 
logical formations were annihilated by the revolutions which 
divide two periods of the earth’s palzontological history, and 
that a new and specifically different assemblage of organisms was 
created and suddenly placed upon the earth in large numbers by 
the Creator. “Pines,” says Agassiz, “have originated in forests, 
