ASA GRAY. 781 



aptsimilcs to illustrate otherwise dry argumeuts. It was also due in part 

 to his kuowu cautiou and conservatism, and his professed Christian faith. 

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

 uothing 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 his 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 di- 

 rect inferences from facts. - - - There is no doubt that natural se- 

 lection 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 uew 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 pro- 

 ceeds mainly through outward infiueiices. But we are more and more 

 convinced 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 

 that Gray was treading on delicate ground, scientifically if not theo- 

 logically speaking, when he affirmed tlie direction of variation in bene- 

 ficial lines. For what is meant by beneficial? Beneficial to whom? 

 Beneficial for what purpose? In one sense, any variation which tends 

 to enable a living being to survive in the struggle for existence is bene- 

 ficial* and to say that any being or structure has survived is tiie same 

 as saying that the variation from which it sprang was beneficial. But 



