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 revolutionising in general the thought of the world as to the method of creation, Agassiz stood almost solitary among authorities rejecting evolution and clinging to the doctrine of a special calling into being of each species.  His stand against the new teaching was definite and bold, but can it be called broad-minded?  This is but the limitation that makes human a greatness which the world regards with thorough and affectionate reverence.  Fortunate are those in whose memories live the voice and countenance of Louis Agassiz.

Those whose privilege it was to know both father and son will be slow to admit that the elder Agassiz was the greater man.  Alexander (to his intimates he was always, affectionately, Alex), was a teacher only transiently, and I believe never before a class showed the enkindling power which in the father was so marked a gift.  His attainments, however, were probably not less great, and it remains to be seen whether his discoveries were not as epoch-making.  He possessed, moreover, a versatility which his father never showed (perhaps because he never took time to show it), standing as a brilliant figure among financiers and captains of industry.  Finally, in a high sense, Alexander was a philanthropist, and his benefactions were no more munificent than they were wisely applied; for he watched well his generous hand, guiding the flow into channels where it might most effectually revive and enrich.  While possibly in the case of the elder Agassiz, the recognition of truth was sometimes unduly circumscribed, that could never be said of Alexander.  He was eminently broad-minded, estimating with just candour whatever might be advanced in his own field, and outside of his field, entering with sympathetic interest into all that life might present.