26 



Louis Agassiz. 



This movement of Agassiz may be considered 

 one of the epochs in his eventful career. He was 

 like a swelling seed ready to develop and produce 

 the perfect plant upon the application of the right 

 stimulus, and this came in the association at Munich 

 with some of the most brilliant specialists of the 

 day. Agassiz thus referred to this in later years : 



^' I cannot review my Munich life without deep 

 gratitude. The city teemed with resources for the 

 student in arts, letters, philosophy, and science. It 

 was distinguished at that time for activity in public 

 as well as in academic life. The King seemed liberal ; 

 he was the friend of poets and artists, and aimed at 

 concentrating all the glories of Germany in his new 

 university. I thus enjoyed for a few years the ex- 

 ample of the most brilliant intellects, and that 

 stimulus which is given by competition between men 

 equally eminent in different spheres of human 

 knowledge. Under such circumstances a man either 

 subsides into the position of a follower in the ranks 

 that gather around a master, or he aspires to be a 

 master himself." He daily met kindred spirits, men 

 who were not slow in recognising the slumbering 

 genius. Here were Gruithuisen the brilliant astrono- 

 mer, Fuchs the mineralogist, Oken, Martins the 

 botanist, Schubert, whose name as a zoologist still 

 lives, Starke, Seiber, Dollinger, and others. From 

 each he drew some inspiration, and often referred in 

 after years to these old instructors, giving this or 

 that one the credit of instilling into his mind the 

 germs that produced such rich results. Dollinger 

 was the professor of anatomy and physiology, re- 



