Williams : Louis Agassiz. 



51 



and living thinking beings. " But," says Agassiz, " I shall not be 

 prevented by any such pretensions of a false philosophy from 

 expressing my conviction that, as long as it cannot be shown that 

 matter or physical forces do actually reason, I shall consider any 

 manifestation of thought as evidence of the existence of a thinking 

 being as the author of such thought, and shall look upon an intelligent 

 and intelligible connection between the facts of nature as distinct proof 

 of the existence of a thinking God, as certainly as man exhibits the 

 power of thinking when he recognises their natural relations." ^ Again 

 and again, too, he maintains that classification is a philosophical study 

 of the highest importance, since it is an attempt to understand the 

 Infinite Wisdom. ^ His pervading principle is, that a natural system 

 must have an actual existence in nature, but that it consists not simply 

 in actual differences of physical manifestation, but in the intangible 

 differences of plan or conception in the Creative Mind.^*^ He main- 

 tained for Natural History that it shows the whole creation is the 

 expression of thought, and not the product of physical agents ; and that, 

 regarded in that light, it gives scientific evidence of God's working in 

 nature. ^1 This is what he read in the disclosures of the sciences; 

 and testimony such as his m.ust have enormous weight. His 

 daily thought was all vital with the consciousness of the Infinite 

 Supreme. So he lived face to face with the glorious and solemn facts 

 of a present Deity. Reading so constantly the records of the divine 

 wisdom, and penetrated so deeply with a sense of life's object and 

 possibilities, he bore about with him a spirit of reverential awe,— -a 

 recognition of God that was both an inspiration and a joy. In such 

 •a habit of life his heart could never grow old. 



The poetical tribute which Longfellow addressed to him on his 

 fiftieth birthday so vividly pourtrays his beautiful career, that it will 

 form a fitting conclusion to this paper: — 



^' It was fifty years ago, 



In the pleasant month of May, 

 In the beautiful Pays de Yaud 

 A child in its cradle lay. 



8 See the First Chapter in the Essay on Classification in Natural History of the 

 United States. 



9 See Second Chapter in Essay on Classification, Ibid. 



1 0 Agassiz also referred the phenomena both of the origin and the distribution 

 of species of plants and animals directly to the Divine Will ; but his theory 

 here, as Professor Gray observes, " may be said to be theistic to excess." 



1 1 See Tour to Lake Superior, pp. 144, 146. 



