Under this new
influence an army of young men took up every promising line of
scientific investigation in every land. Epoch-making books appeared
in all the great nations. Spencer, Wallace, Huxley, Galton,
Tyndall, Tylor, Lubbock, Bagehot, Lewes, in England, and a phalanx
of strong men in Germany, Italy, France, and America gave forth
works which became authoritative in every department of biology. If
some of the older men in France held back, overawed perhaps by the
authority of Cuvier, the younger and more vigorous pressed on.
One source of opposition deserves to be especially mentioned--Louis
Agassiz.
A great investigator, an inspired and inspiring teacher, a noble
man, he had received and elaborated a theory of animated creation
which he could not readily change. In his heart and mind still
prevailed the atmosphere of the little Swiss parsonage in which he
was born, and his religious and moral nature, so beautiful to all
who knew him, was especially repelled by sundry evolutionists, who,
in their zeal as neophytes, made proclamations seeming to have a
decidedly irreligious if not immoral bearing.
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