AGASSIZ. 



A short time before his death Prof. Agassiz, speak- 

 ing of the laborious work of the naturalist, said, " I have 

 devoted pay whole life to the study of nature, and yet a 

 single sentence may express all that I have done." New- 

 ton thought of himself as a child gathering shells on the 

 ocean shore. La Place, whose learning was encyclopae- 

 dic, said in his last moments, " what we do know is of 

 small amount ; what we do not know is immense." And 

 many a brave, great heart, nearing the end, after a life- 

 time of intellectual labor and research, has sighed to 

 think how scanty the result of all its toil ; how vast and 

 complex the problems, how brief the time in which to 

 solve them. The delver into the arcana of nature is ap- 

 palled as he advances, and he who goes farthest, is most 

 oppressed with a sense of his own insignificance. Pro- 

 found humility is always the result of profound research 

 of nature, and he who stands meekest before her majesty 

 is he who has-penetrated deepest into her mystery. 



The -world will not accept Agassiz's estimate of .his 

 life-work. It is not necessary to indulge in fulsome eu- 

 logy, or to ignore bis mistakes, to reckon him among the 

 great. Emerson says, "I count him a great man who 

 inhabits a higher sphere of thought, into which other men 

 rise with labor and difficulty." 



Tried by this definition, few will deny Agassiz a place 

 among the great. Gal ton in his "' Hereditary Genius " 

 estimates that but two hundred and fifty men out of every 

 million attain eminence for unquestioned, native ability. 

 When then the volume of life of a great man is closed, it 

 is well to studv its lessons. How is the world better for 



