32 



The Naturalist. 



men."^ It would gratify a good deal of curiosity if the learned doctor 

 had informed his readers from what ranks this " large class of scientific 

 men " who disbelieve in the unity of the human race is receiving so 

 many recruits ; for it seems to appear on the face of almost all recent 

 works scientifically treating the subject of vegetable or animal life, 

 that the question of the day is not only whether the human races are of 

 common origin, but whether the whole animal kingdom may not have 

 descended in unbroken lines from one progenitor. 



On this point Agassiz held very decided opinions. His searching 

 and comprehensive inquisitions into nature led him to the belief of 

 distinct types of the animal kingdom, and to the belief of specific 

 creations of those distinct types ; and the theories of Darwin have had 

 no opponent so able and thoroughly scientific as he. I will quote 

 from him a passage which sums up his views. In 1863 he wrote as 

 follows : — " One important truth already assumes great significance in 

 the history of the growth of animals ; namely, that whatever the 

 changes may be through which an animal passes, and however different 

 the aspect of these phases at successive periods may appear, they are 

 always limited by the character of the type to which the animal 

 belongs, and never pass that boundary. Thus, the Radiate begins life 

 with characters peculiar to Radiates, and ends it without assuming 

 any feature of a higher type. The Mollusk starts with a character 

 essentially its own, in no way related to the Radiates, and never shows 

 the least tendency to deviate from it, either in the direction of the 

 Articulate or Vertebrate types. This is equally true of the Articulates 



[and] emphatically true of the Vertebrates These 



results are of the highest importance at this moment, when men of 

 authority in science are attempting to renew the theory of a general 

 transmutation of all animals of the higher types out of the lower ones. 

 If sach views are ever to deserve serious consideration, and be acknow- 

 ledged as involving a scientific principle, it will only be when their 

 supporters shall have shown that the fundamental plans of structure 

 characteristic of the primary groups of the animal kingdom are trans- 

 mutable, or pass into one another, and that their different modes of 

 development may lead from one to the other. Thus far embryology 

 has not recorded one fact on which to base such doctrines."^ 



The argument is here somewhat mis-stated. Darwin's principal 

 point is to prove that each of these types has developed into its various 



5 Systematic Theology, Vol. II., pp. 77. 



6 Methods of Study in Natural History, by G. L. Agassiz, Boston, 1871, pp. 

 302, 304. 



