As a matter of observation, no case of a development of one species
from another has ever been noted, and the evidence for it is precisely
analogous to that adduced by Agassiz, "that it is in accordance
with the working of our minds," still further illuminated by the
side-lights which science has thrown on it since Agassiz died. The
ultimate decision in the individual mind will be according to the bias
for or against the "conscious mind" or automatic creation; and it must
not be forgotten that one of the most powerful arguments for a large
evolution was the discovery by Agassiz that the embryo of the highest
organizations passes through an evolution similar to that of the
animal creation. Professor Martins--a leading French scientist and an
evolutionist--says of Agassiz: "Another of these precursors of modern
science is Louis Agassiz. The oldest fossil forms have a simpler
organization than the later ones, and represent some stage of the
embryonic development of the latter. This truth, established by
Agassiz, has, more than any other, enlightened the history of
creation, and prepared for the generalization by which the whole may
be comprehended. The oldest fishes known are all more or less related
to the sharks and skates; their teeth and scales only, with small
portions of the skeleton, have been preserved. Their form, widely
different from that of the living species, recalls that of the embryo
of our living fishes. This is a truth which Louis Agassiz was the
first to proclaim to the scientific world."[1]

[Footnote 1: _De l'Origine du Monde organique_.]

But, beyond this question as to the evidence of mutability of species
which Agassiz did not find, he took the position "that the hypothesis
of the method of creation by evolution exceeded physical science and
became theology, which belonged to the province of theology, into
which he had no intention of venturing." That was his statement to me
during the interval between the two attacks of brain trouble from
the latter of which he died. Science, to his understanding, was
observation and classification, arrangement, and it had no function
in investigating the causes or _modus operandi_ through which things
became what they were.

Amongst the evolutionists whom I have known there have been several
who did not accept without modification the theory of natural
selection, and supplemented it by design, amongst whom I may mention
the great American botanist, Asa Gray,--