Asa Gray: His Life and Work. 361 



affixed that to their names, Professor Gray with characteristic 

 modesty signed his name simply "Asa Gray," although he could 

 almost have filled the page with the initials of his honorary and 

 other degrees as well as those of the learned Societies to which 

 he belonged. 



When questioned in the most elementary facts of botany by 

 l>eople not familiar with that science, he would patiently explain 

 the matter to them with evident pleasure. The contrast between 

 him and a number of other prominent members of the Associa- 

 tion, who had been seen by Dr. Eccles snubbing honest but ill- 

 posted inquirers after facts, was pronounced and startling. 

 During the trip to Ottawa he disclosed how he reconciled his 

 Presbyterianism and Evolution, the subject being raised by 

 reference to a discussion on Darwinism the day preceding in the 

 Biological Section. He pointed out that in the growth of a plant 

 or tree from its seed to full maturity a struggle for existence 

 among its cells, buds, leaves, branches, flowers, etc., is incessantly 

 going on. In spite of this warfare every seed produces a tree or 

 herb after its kind. Like playing with loaded dice that must turn 

 up the proper sides every time in spite of shaking, in the 

 molecular warfare the winning party is invariably pre-destined 

 in its very structure. In the warfare among organisms and in 

 society the same conditions are found. "Fitness" may be 

 diabolical, or it may be beneficent. Somehow in the great average 

 it always comes out beneficent. Evolution is God's will made 

 manifest in matter. The side championed by right and good 

 always wins in the end. 



Dr. Gray was a most voluminovis writer. A list of the titles 

 and headings of his books and magazine contributions has been 

 published, and forms a pretty large octavo volume in itself. 

 Darwin was indebted for much, and perhaps for a majority of his 

 most telling botanical facts, to Dr. Gray. A great deal of the 

 material in his "Climbing Plants," was the work of the latter. 

 The Compositae are the most difficult plants a botanist can study. 

 Here Gray was monarch and peerless. In his contributions to 

 plant distribution he showed himself at once a master botanist, a 

 pliilosopher and a naturalist. Others had walked blindly over 

 the same facts and fields and did not see that every flower told 

 the tale of its own past history, and the history of its kind, by the 

 ])lace where it is found. Where plants of a common or kindred 

 kind are now, tells of their past wanderings when the facts are 

 all considered. Dr. Gray made this discovery. To Gray Darwin 

 first imparted his idea of Natural Selection. Dr. Eccles thought 

 it strange that the essayist of the evening forgot to mention this, 

 the most important fact in a course of lectures on Evolution in 

 connection with his life. Especially important is it because of its 

 bearings on the history of tlie doctrine of Natural Selection. 

 Darwin and Wallace each claimed priority in advocating this 

 principle, and these rival claims were forever set to rest by a 

 letter from Darwin to Gray that was read at a meeting of the 

 Linnaean Society when the two champions first gave forth their 

 ideas publicly. This was on July 1st, 1858. Darwin's letter was 

 written a year before. But even this celebrated epistle was not 

 the first. On July 20th, 1856, Darwin wrote to Gray : 



