ern coast of South America, reached the 
Galapagos (at the Equator, 600 miles 
off the coast of Ecuador) on June 10, 
1872, and finally docked at San Fran- 
cisco on August 24. 
A possible solution to the enigma of 
Agassiz’s silence immediately suggests 
itself. The Galapagos are pretty much 
“on the way” along Agassiz’s route. Per- 
haps the Hassler only stopped for provi- 
sions — just passing by. Perhaps the cruise 
was so devoted to deep-sea dredging and 
Agassiz’s observations of glaciers in the 
southern Andes that the Galapagos pro- 
vided no special interest or concern. 
This easy explanation is clearly incor- 
rect. In fact, Agassiz planned the Has- 
sler voyage as a test of evolutionary 
theory. The dredging itself was not de- 
signed merely to collect unknown crea- 
tures but to gather evidence that Agas- 
siz hoped would establish the continuing 
intellectual validity of his lingering crea- 
tionism. In a remarkable letter to Peirce, 
written just two days before the Hassler 
set sail, Agassiz stated exactly what he 
expected to find in the deep dredges. 
Agassiz believed that God had or- 
dained a plan for the history of life at 
the beginning and then proceeded to 
create species in the appropriate se- 
quence throughout geological time. God 
matched environments to the precon- 
ceived plan of creation. The fit of life to 
environment does not record the evolu- 
tionary tracking of changing climates by 
organisms but rather the construction of 
environments by God to fit the precon- 
ceived plan of creation: “the animal 
world designed from the beginning has 
been the motive for the physical 
changes which our globe has under- 
gone,” Agassiz wrote to Peirce. He then 
applied this curiously inverted argu- 
ment to the belief, then widespread but 
now disproved, that the deep oceans 
formed a domain devoid of change or 
challenge — a cold, calm, and constant 
world. God could only have made such 
an environment for the most primitive 
creatures of any group. The deep oceans 
would therefore harbor living represent- 
atives of the simple organisms found 
fossil in ancient rocks. Since evolution 
demands progressive change through 
time, the persistence of these simple and 
early forms will demonstrate the bank- 
ruptcy of Darwinian theory. (I don’t 
think Agassiz ever understood that the 
principle of natural selection does not 
predict global and inexorable progress 
but only adaptation to local environ- 
ments. The persistence of simple forms 
in a constant deep sea would have satis- 
fied Darwin’s evolutionary theory as 
well as Agassiz’s God. But the depths 
are not constant, and their life is not 
primitive.) 
The letter to Peirce displays that mix- 
ture of psychological distress and intel- 
lectual pugnacity so characteristic of 
Agassiz’s opposition to evolution in his 
later years. He knows that the world will 
scoff at his preconceptions, but he will 
pursue them to the point of specific 
predictions nonetheless — the discovery 
of “ancient” organisms alive in the deep 
sea: 
I am desirous to leave in your hands a 
document which may be very compromis- 
ing for me, but which I nevertheless am 
determined to write in the hope of showing 
within what limits natural history has ad- 
vanced toward that point of maturity when 
Until his death in 1873, Louis Agassiz argued against the theory of evolution. 
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