like Huxley, the way may seem clear. However, even Darwin declares that it is not easy, and that he was constantly troubled by hesitation, and even doubts. Agassiz was perhaps too cautious, but no true naturalist will blame him, and the position he took in the controversy has been fully justified.

All branches of natural history, except mineralogy, are now in a transitory state, and our ignorance on many most important points is very great. In fifty years, our successors will be in a better position to form a judgment. The records of a Cuvier and of an Agassiz, with their admirable works on classification, comparative anatomy, palæontology, embryology, glacial doctrine, can await the test of time.

By way of résumé, we may say that at present the theory of descent as set forth by Lamarck and Darwin has not been established by incontestable facts and observations. Agassiz was unwilling to abandon the method of exposition of facts which he had found established in science, and to substitute in its place metaphysics and hypotheses; he clung to observation and experiment. Man has not yet found the secret of creating species; it is true, man has the power of destroying species, as he has already shown by the extermination of several species of animals. But the question of mutability of species and the method of effecting it are still reserved for future observers; and not until we possess unquestionable proof of their soundness will transformism and descent be accepted in science. Notwithstanding all that has been advanced as to predestined evolution, by Naudin, Minart, Koeliker, and

others, the bold assertions of Haeckel,1 the natural selection of Darwin and Wallace, are hypotheses insufficient to prove the reality of the origin and descent of species.

De Candolle insists that transformism is no longer an hypothesis, but a proved fact, and that the only hypothesis lies in the explanation of the process of variation of species and their propagation. Herein is the whole difficulty. Agassiz has proved that each individual, in his embryologic development, passes through forms analogous to those of species which have existed in geological times. If the Darwinists can replace their hypothesis of process of variations

1 Haeckel's attacks upon Agassiz's character, calling him an "hypocrite and a charlatan," are happily unusual in natural history. At all events, they do not prevent him from making use of Agassiz's discoveries, as it is proved by Alpheus Hyatt, who says: "Therefore, while the law of correlation of the stages of development and those of the evolution of the phylum may, if one chooses, be called a law of biogenesis, it is more accurate to consider it a law of correlation in bioplantology; or, better still, the law of palingenesis, or regular repetition of ancestral characters, which very nearly expresses what the discoverer, Louis Agassiz, saw and described. The fact that Agassiz was wrong in his theory, not believing in evolution and not recognizing the meaning of his laws in this sense, does not absolve those who profit by his labours from recognizing his discovery of the facts, and his obviously full acquaintance with the law and its applications to the explanation of the relations of organisms. It is Agassiz's law, not Haeckel's" ("Philogeny of an Acquired Characteristic," by Alpheus Hyatt; "Proceed. Amer. Philosophical Society," Vol. XXXII., p. 390; Philadelphia, 1894).

Ernst Haeckel is trying to play — in the origin of species — the rôle of a Mahomet, and like him is very intolerant against all those who do not accept his “creed” and use his method of doubt on the problem of life, as his last work, "Monism. The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science," London, 1894, sufficiently proves. His preconceptions on matters which fall within the provinces of research and discovery are anything but scientific.

of forms, by proofs based on observations easily repeated and accessible to every one who studies species, then we shall understand the origin of species by accidental transformation, which they want us to believe. The theory of the followers of Cuvier does not differ so much from that of the transformists as is generally supposed. The plan of both is the same; in both, intermediate species have always been recognized, and the discovery of links between past forms and new ones is mainly due to the researches of Cuvier, Agassiz, Owen, and others. But it is the part played by accident, as a sort of mechanical process constantly made use of by Darwin and his school, which fails to explain an enormous amount of palæontological and biological facts, which are all left to be accounted for by pure hypothesis. Suppress all hypotheses, if possible, and then the two schools of immutability and mutability of species will unite. But as long as hypotheses are the main factors in the problem, it will remain a problem, and not a final solution.

If natural selection or other expedients proposed by Darwin and his school will account for the origin of species, the mechanical process resorted to should not be difficult to get at. Laboratories for biological research exist now in great numbers, in both hemispheres, and if it is as simple as Darwin, Wallace, and Haeckel are inclined to think, we shall before long have new species to add to the catalogues of plants and animals. If, on the contrary, no new species is produced, we shall be obliged to have re

course, in some way or other, to the " Supreme Will and Power," according to Lyell's phraseology, or to the creation or at least sudden appearance of organized being, which Cuvier and his school have maintained as the only rational hypothesis. "Nous verrons!"

CHAPTER XIX.

1858-1864 (continued).

"THE PHILOSOPHERS' CAMP" IN THE ADIRONDACKS

-THE SATURDAY CLUB DEATH OF PROFESSOR CORNELIUS C. FELTON SOCIAL RELATIONS WITH MR. GEORGE TICKNOR AND MRS. JULIA WARD Howe ACCLIMATIZATION OF AMERICAN MARINE ANIMALS ON THE COAST OF FRANCE · ENLISTMENT IN THE ARMY OF SEVERAL OF AGASSIZ'S PUPILS - A GRANT OF TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS BY THE LEGISLATURE OF MASSACHUSETTS IN 1863-LECTURING TOUR IN THE WEST DURING THE WINTER OF 1863-1864—COLLECTIONS OF FOSSIL CRINOIDS AT BURLINGTON, Iowa -DR. GEORGE ENGELMANN OF ST. LOUIS — THE TITLE OF HIS MUSEUM-GLACIAL EXPLORATION IN MAINE.

DURING all these years social life was at its height with Agassiz. In August, 1858, the "Saturday Club" made a summer expedition to the Adirondacks, under the leadership of the poet-afterward diplomatist — James Russell Lowell, who was the youngest and the most energetic of the "philosophers' camp." A roughly built shelter, with a roof of fir bark, on the shore of Follansbee Pond, a small lake in the Raquette Mountains, not far from Keeseville on Lake Champlain, served as tent for the whole party, which was composed of Agassiz, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lowell, John Holmes, Dr. E. Howe, Judge Hoar, A. Binney, Jeffries Wyman, and a few others. The life was rather rough; all were in flannel shirts, red or blue, and slept wrapped