1888. | BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 183 
little to do with the cause or causes of variation. He inti- 
mated that botanists were formulating some new concep- 
tions, but did not indicate what these might be. 
ow, I have no idea that Prof. Ward will have left any- 
thing unsaid in reference to Gray and Darwinism, for no one 
1s more competent to handle the subject fully and thoroughly ; 
and if I venture, in closing, on a few thoughts which naturally 
grow out of this my last meeting with Dr. Gray, it is with a 
feeling that perhaps my able predecessor may not do full 
Justice to the design side of the question. 
e opening of our civil war witnessed the beginning of 
a discussion which, in its effects on the thought and civiliza- 
tion of the future, will be as far-reaching as the contest which 
eventually led to the abolition of slavery in our land. From 
the time of the appearance of the ‘‘ Origin of Species sg Gray 
fought for and Agassiz against the theory of natural selection 
and of the derivation of species from pre-existing species. 
The cause of freedom has not more completely conquered in 
the intervening time than has the cause of evolution. The 
names of Gray and Agassiz will ever stand in our history as 
typical of the opposing ideas on this question, as those of 
Grant and Davis will of the ideas that divided the North and 
South. What more striking illustration of the completeness 
Institution ! 
as more of a theist than at the close of his life, and his wo 
in evolution may be said to have rendered his views more 
design, and saw in evolution only greater reason 
he an intelligent cause. To use his own oft-quoted wort, 
r.Wwas ‘ Scientifically, and in his own fashion, a Darvnees 
P hilosophically a convinced theist, and religiously 40 4 
ted words, 
for believing 
