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Louis Agassiz. 



In Professor Agassiz we have lost a man of kin- 

 dred powers, whose Hfe was spent in a different 

 though hardly less conspicuous field of action. 



Few lives were ever so sincerely and entirely de- 

 voted to the highest and best aims of science. I 

 was led to appreciate this by a remark which Pro- 

 fessor Agassiz made to me several years ago, which 

 is, I believe, the key to his own career, and deserves 

 to be remembered by all who would follow in his 

 footsteps. His remark was that he had made it the 

 rule of his life to abandon any intellectual pursuit the 

 moment it became commercially valuable. 



He knew that others would utilise what he dis- 

 covered ; that when he brought down the great 

 truths of science to the level of commercial values, 

 a thousand hands would be ready to take them and 

 make them valuable in the markets of the world. 

 Since then I have thought of him as one of that 

 small but elect company of men who dwell on the 

 upper heights, above the plane of commercial values, 

 and who love and seek truth for its own sake. Such 

 men are indeed the prophets, the priests, the inter- 

 preters of nature. Few of their number have 

 learned more, at first hands, than Professor Agassiz ; 

 and few, if any, have submitted their theories to 

 severer tests. 



It was a great risk for the astronomer to announce 

 that the perturbations of the solar system could 

 only be accounted for by a planet as yet unknown, 

 and to predict its size and place in the solar system, 

 trusting to the telescope to confirm or explode his 

 theory. But perhaps Professor Agassiz took even a 



