i88 



Louis Agassiz. 



to have some simple and easy solution of the fact 

 that we live. 



I confess that there seems to me to be a repulsive 

 poverty in this material explanation, that is contra- 

 dicted by the intellectual grandeur of the universe ; 

 the resources of the Deity cannot be so meagre, that, 

 in order to create a human being endowed with 

 reason, he must change a monkey into a man. This 

 is, however, merely a personal opinion, and has no 

 weight as an argument ; nor am I so uncandid as 

 to assume that another may not hold an opinion 

 diametrically opposed to mine in a spirit quite as 

 reverential as my own. But I nevertheless insist 

 that this theory is opposed to the processes of nature, 

 as far as we have been able to apprehend them ; 

 that it is contradicted by the facts of Embryology 

 and Paleontology, the former showing us forms of 

 development as distinct and persistent for each group 

 as are the first types of each period revealed to us 

 by the latter; and that the experiments upon 

 domesticated animals and cultivated plants, on 

 which its adherents base their views, are entirely 

 foreign to the matter in hand, since the varieties 

 thus brought about by the fostering care of man are 

 of an entirely different character from those observed 

 among wild species. And while their positive evi- 

 dence is inapplicable, their negative evidence is 

 equally unsatisfactory ; since, however long and 

 frequent the breaks in the geological series may be 

 in which they would fain bury their transition types, 

 there are many points in the succession where the 

 connection is perfectly distinct and unbroken, and 



