in the government of sublunary things. Liebnitz, the 

 great mathematician, rejected the law of gravitation. 

 La Place denied the modulatory theory of light. Lord 

 Brougham ridiculed Young, who demonstrated that theo- 

 ry twenty years before it was generally accepted. The 

 Edinburgh Review denounced him as a dreamer, though 

 Tyndall now declares him one of the most remarkable 

 men England ever produced. The reality of witch mira- 

 cles was affirmed for several centuries, after investigation 

 by some of the ablest men and the law courts of every 

 European country. The belief in the power of the king's 

 touch to cure scrofula flourished in the most brilliant pe- 

 riods of English history, after numerous public experi- 

 ments. It was asserted by the privy council, the bish- 

 ops of two religions, the general voice of the clergy in the 

 palmiest days of the English Church and the University 

 of Oxford. It survived, Leckey asserts, the reformation 

 of Bacon, Milton, Hobbes and Locke. 



These facts and every page of history teach the same 

 lesson, — the fallibility of the human understanding, — the 

 weakness of human judgment, — the strength of human 

 prejudice and, above all, the wisdom, justice and necessi- 

 ty of liberal tolerance of opinion. Humanity advances 

 alike in its knowledge of natural and moral law. It mis- 

 takes and corrects — blunders and revises — stumbles and 

 rises — yet falls forward, and advances. The Spanish In- 

 quisition and the Ptolmaic theory are together buried. 

 The misery and mischief which grew out of the endeaver 

 to enforce them by dogma and persecution are warnings 

 to both scientists and theologians. 



Any notice of the life of Agassiz, however brief, would 

 be incomplete without some reference to his glacial theory. 

 His name is identified with it, not because he alone origi- 

 nated it, for De Sausure, Rendu, Forbes, Charpentier, and 

 others were engaged in glacial investigation, before or co- 

 temporary with him. He went upon the glaciers him- 

 self, lived upon one for three weeks, crawled into its crev- 



