n he
joined the scientific deduction which he had already been led to draw,
that the animal species of each geological age, or even stratum, were
different from those preceding and following, and also unconnected by
natural derivation. And his very last published works reiterated his
steadfast conviction that "there is no evidence of a direct descent of
later from earlier species in the geological succession of animals."
Indeed, so far as we know, he would not even admit that such "thoughts
of the Creator" as these might have been actualized in the natural
course of events. If he had accepted such a view, and if he had himself
apprehended and developed in his own way the now well-nigh assured
significance of some of his early and pregnant generalizations, the
history of the doctrine of development would have been different from
what it is, a different spirit and another name would have been
prominent in it, and Agassiz would not have passed away while fighting
what he felt to be--at least for the present--a losing battle. It is
possible that the "whirligig of time" may still "bring in his revenges,"
but not very probable.

Much to his credit, it may be said that a good share of Agassiz's
invincible aversion to evolution may be traced to the spirit in which
it was taken up by his early associate, Vogt, and, indeed, by most of
the German school then and since, which justly offended both his
scientific and his religious sense. Agassiz always "thought nobly of
the soul," and could in no way approve either materialistic or
agnostic opinions. The idealistic turn of his mind was doubtless
confirmed in his student days at Munich, whither he and his friend
Braun resorted after one session at Heidelberg, and where both
devotedly attended the lectures of Schelling--then in his later
glory--and of Oken, whose "Natur-Philosophie" was then in the
ascendant. Although fascinated and inspired by Oken's _a priori_
biology (built upon morphological ideas which had not yet been
established, but had, in part, been rightly divined) the two young
naturalists were not carried away by it, probably because they were
such keen and conscientious observers, and were kept in close
communion with work-a-day nature. As Agassiz intimates, they had to
resist "the temptation to impose one's own ideas upon nature, to
explain her mysteries by brilliant theories rather than by patient
study of the facts as we find them," and that "overbearing confidence
i