50 



The Naturalist. 



One mark of Agassiz's greatness was in his freedom from all vain 

 ostentation, all pretence of learning, to secure attention to himself. 

 The cause of truth was infinitely dear to him ; and he saw such 

 boundless wealth in the storehouses of the universe that his mind 

 always kept the attitude of a humble learner and a patient inquirer of 

 nature's manifold and majestic meanings. It was the candour, 

 modesty, simplicity, and perennial freshness of spirit in connection 

 with his massive intellect, which enabled him to pursue with such 

 eagerness and success the studies that have rendered his name 

 immortal. The frame of mind in which he lived was suited to the 

 happiest prosecution of his chosen labours, to the search for and the 

 recognition of the wondrous truths of na,ture. It was enough for him 

 to find what the record of creation said, and in the presence of the 

 august revelation he was lowly and docile as a child. 



And this leads me to mention one more feature of his character, 

 which, blended with the others, expressed his nobleness, — and that is, 

 his reverent spirit. He realised deeply the grandeur and the uses of 

 life. All that related to man's interests and place upon the earth was 

 sacred to him. In his investigations of this mysterious frame of 

 things he felt that he was searching out the thoughts of God. There 

 was constantly before him what (to him) was evidence, drawn from 

 purely scientific sources, of the Almighty's creative wisdom ; and I 

 could quote to you paragragh upon paragraph from aU his works in 

 which he adduces testimony wherein he sees the manifestation of a 

 mind as powerful as it is prolific, the acts of an intelligence as 

 sublime as it is provident, the marks of goodness as infinite as wise, 

 the palpable dem_onstration of the existence of an author of all things, 

 ruler of the universe. Indeed it is but truth to say that the whole of 

 his works might be called, with justice, treatises upon the highest 

 forms of evidence given by zoology to the doctrine that God, the 

 Creator, is a mind, a thinking and self-conscious Intelligence. This 

 doctrine is, in Agassiz's view, the only foundation upon which an 

 intelligent study of zoology can be grounded. With him the aim of 

 science is something more than the grouping of facts under a general 

 formula. This may be obtained by empiricism, in some cases more 

 successfully than by science. The aim of science is to detect the 

 thoughts of the Creative Mind. To the school of Positive Philosophy 

 the knowledge of the processes or laws of nature is the only subject 

 worthy of investigation, and the school thinks it very unscientific to 

 assume that thinking is not a function of the brain, and that there is 

 an essential difference, an impassable gu]f, between inorganic matter 



