ASA GRAY. 341 



His influence as an exponent of Darwinism was due partly to the 

 admirable clearness and candor of his reviews, and his interesting way 

 of putting things; for his fertile imagination was constantly discovering 

 apt similes to illustrate otherwise dry arguments. It was also due in part 

 to his known caution and conservatism, and his professed Christian faith. 

 If an avowed accepter " of the creed commonly called the Nicene " saw 

 nothing in Darwinism which implied atheism, or was opposed to the idea 

 of design on the part of the Creator, surely one might, at least, listen 

 to his account of the development theory with safety. To his hearers 

 at New Haven, in 1880, he said: "Natural selection by itself is not an 

 hypothesis, nor even a theory. It is a truth, — a catena of facts and 

 direct inferences from facts. . . . There is no doubt that natural selec- 

 tion operates ; the open question is, what do its operations amount to. 

 The hypothesis based on this principle is, that the struggle for life and 

 survival of only the fittest among individuals, all disposed to vary and 

 no two exactly alike, will account for the diversification of the species 

 and forms of vegetable and animal life, — will even account for the rise, 

 in the course of countless ages, from simpler and lower to higher and 

 more specialized living beings." He gave it as his opinion that natural 

 selection is, on the whole, a good working hypothesis, but does not ex- 

 plain how wholly new parts are initiated, even if the new organs are 

 developed little by little. He repeated over and over again in differ- 

 ent reviews his belief that natural selection could not account for varia- 

 tion, and he stated the case particularly forcibly in his " Evolutionary 

 Teleology " : " Natural selection is not the wind which propels the 

 vessel, but the rudder which, by friction, now on this side and now 

 on that, shapes the course. The rudder acts while the vessel is in 

 motion, effects nothing when it is at rest. Variation answers to the 

 wind. ... Its course is controlled by natural selection. This proceeds 

 mainly through outward influences. But we are more and more con- 

 vinced that variation ... is not a product of, but a response to, the 

 action of the environment. Variations are evidently not from without, 

 but from within." 



But how do variations arise? According to Gray, by virtue of some 

 inherent power imparted in the beginning by Divine agency. That 

 granted, natural selection would in great part account for the present 

 condition and distribution of life, so that one could be a Darwinian and 

 Deist at the same time. Gray further believed that variation is apt 

 to follow in certain more or less regular directions, and particularly in 

 beneficial directions. Here he differed very widely from Darwin. The 

 one saw design where the other could not, and it must be confessed 



