Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1874-01-15
Agassiz on DarWinlsm.

PROF. AGAssIZ has long been known
as an unbelie7er in Darwinism, and the I'M
compromising enunciation of his views,
which is to appear in the January AttG71-
tic, although it defines his position more
clearly, will surprise no student of his
works. In this essay, Professor Agassiz
gave a synopsis of his reasons for not
holding the Darwinian doctrines, prepare
tory to more detailed statement which
he intended to make in future numbers of
the magazine. This sketch the great
naturalist will never complete, and to its
scientific value is added the melancholy
interest of being the last finished work
from the hand to which the students and
lovers of natural science owe so much.
It begins by saying that "The law of
evolution, so far as its working is under
stood, is a law controlling development
and keeping types within appointed
cycles of growth, which revolve forever
upon themselves, returning at appointed
intervals to the same starting-point, and
repeating through a succession Of phases
the same course. These cycles have
never been known to oscillate or to pass
into each other; indeed, the only struc-
tural difference known between individ-
uals of the same stock are mOnsuosities,
or peculiarities pertaining to sex, and the
latter are as abiding and permanent as
type itself" His next assertion is that
no primary division of the animal king
dom will stand which will not bear the
test applied by Cuvier to his four great
groups, Radiate, Mollusks, Articulates
and Vertebrates; that is to say, the test of
a distinct plan of structure for each.
The article then briefly reviews the
different books published by Darwin, and
says that "Pangenesis" in which the
whole theory is summarized, 'does but
prove more conclusively what was already
known-namely, that all domesticated
animals and cultivated plants are tracea-
BILE to distinct species, and that the do
INVESTIGATED pigeons which furnish so
large a portion of the illustration are,
Notwithstanding their great diversity I'M
der special treatment, no exception to
this rule" The review closes with the
! assertion that the greater part OF the ar
gument, both with Darwin and his fol
lowers, is purely negative, and rests partly
upon the assumption that, "ln the sue
cession of ages, just those transition
types have dropped out from the geologl-
cal record which would have proved the
Darwinian conclusions, had these types
DtSh pItSSINGu, anu Iudt, IL S44S AAfo
| animal, the process of transition is too
subtle for detection, thus throwing off the
responsibility of proof with respect to
embryonic growth and geological success
sion"
Concerning the famous discovery
made by Kowalevsky, of the presence IN
the Ascidians of string of cells CORE
spending to the dorsal cord in Vertebrates,
the article says that the existence OF this
string of cells was previously known to
naturalists, and that he himself had IN
| tended to say something of their nature
| and position had he not been anticipated
| by Won Baer, who has recently published
pamphlet upon the development OF the
Ascidians as compared with the Verte-
brates, in which pamphlet he shows that
/ the string of cells runs along the ventra
side of the body of the Ascldlans, ana
| that their development has no true homol-
ogy with that of the Vertebrates. TO
say that the first Vertebrates or their pro
genitors carried their backbones in this
manner" said Professor Agasslz, Is
about as reasonable as to say that they
walked on their heads"
The doctrine of Hackel, that starhshes
are compound animals, made up, as II