﻿In Memoriam — Louis Agassiz. 



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go, for the thread of life is but weak at best, and so, at last, came 

 the end. On December 14 (the day on which Washington died), 

 1873, the busy hand, the eloquent tongue, the mighty brain, were 

 stilled in death. 



"As a naturalist," says Prof. Bliss, "Prof. Agassiz was un- 

 wearied in his devotion to his favorite pursuits. He worked early 

 and late, often denying to himself the most necessary rest and rec- 

 reation, and his remarkably strong constitution sustained him 

 under a strain that would quickly have proved fatal to a man of 

 less vigor." 



"In the operation of his mind," says Whipple, the eminent 

 critic, "there is no predominance of any single power, but the in- 

 tellectual action of what we feel to be a powerful nature. When 

 he observes, his whole mind enters into the act of observation, just 

 as when he reasons, his whole mind enters into the act of reason- 

 ing. . . . He possesses not merely the talent of observation, 

 but its genius, and hence his ability to perform the enormous tasks 

 which he imposes on his industry. . . . He is not merely a scien- 

 tific thinker; he is a scientific force ; and no small portion of the im- 

 mense influence he exerts is due to the energy, intensity and geniality 

 which distinguish the nature of the man. In personal intercourse 

 he inspires as well as informs; communicates not only knowledge, 

 but the love of knowledge. . . . He is at once one of the 

 most dominating and one of the most sympathetic of men, having 

 the qualities of leader and companion combined in singular har- 

 mony. . . . Everybody feels that the indefatigable observer 

 and thinker, who declined a lucrative lecture invitation because, he 

 said, he could not zvaste his time in making money, has no other 

 than public ends in his eager demands for public cooperation in his 

 scientific schemes." 



Agassiz was a firm believer in the diversity of origin of the 

 human race. Says Prof. Bliss: "While denying the unity of ori- 

 gin of the races of mankind, he by no means denies their essential 

 unity as one brotherhood. He regards all races of men as possess- 

 ing in common the moral and intellectual attributes of humanity 

 which raise them above the brutes. But intellectual relationship 

 does not imply community of origin." 



