but hardly more so
than in private talk. I recall walks we took with him to study natural
objects and especially the striated rocks, which, as he had detected,
bore plain evidence that the configuration of the region had been
shaped by glaciers. He was charmingly affable, encouraging our
questions, and unwearied in his demonstration. "Professor," I said
once, "you teach us that in creation things rise from high to higher
in the vast series until at last we come to man. Why stop with man?
why not conclude that as man surpasses what went before, so he in turn
will be surpassed and supplanted by a being still superior;--and so on
and on?" I well recall the solemnity of his face as he replied that
I was touching upon the deepest things, not to be dealt with in an
afternoon ramble. He would only say then that there could be nothing
higher than a man with his spirit.

Whether Agassiz was as broad-minded as he was high-minded may be
argued. The story ran that when the foundations of the Museum of
Comparative Zooelogy were going on in Divinity Avenue, a theological
professor encountering the scientist among the shadows the latter was
invading, courteously bade him welcome. He hoped the old Divinity Hall
would be a good neighbour to the pile rising opposite. "Yes," was the
bluff reply, "and I hope to see the time when it will be turned into
a dormitory for my scientific students." They were quickly spoken,
unmeditated words without intention of rudeness, but wrapped in his
specialty he was rather careless as to what he might shoulder out.
Again, we had in our company a delicate, nervous fellow who turned
out to be a spiritualistic medium, and who was soon subjected to an
investigation in which professors took part, which was certainly rough
and ready. Agassiz speedily came to the conclusion that the young
man was an impostor and deserved no mercy. Some of us felt that
the determination was hasty. There was a possibility of honest
self-deception; and then who could say that the mysteries had been
fathomed that involved the play of the psychic forces? Possibly a
calmer and more candid mood might have befitted the investigation.
At any rate in these later days such a mood has been maintained by
inquirers like William James and the Society for Psychical Research.
These are straws, but it is hardly a straw that when Darwinism emerged
upon the world, winning such speedy and almost universal adherence
among scientific men and revoluti