DAEWIN'S DEBT TO HUXLEY 26 



Darwin also sent^ Asa Gray's defence of the 

 Origin to Sir Charles Lyell, whom he was 

 extremely anxious to convince of the truth of 

 evolution. Asa Gray's religious convictions 

 prevented the full acceptance of Natural Selection, 

 He was ever inclined to believe in the Providen- 

 tial guidance of the stream of variation. He also 

 apparently differed from Darwin in the extent to 

 which he was inclined to interpret instincts as 

 inherited habits.^ 



The same close intimacy and mutual help begun 

 in the preparation of the Origin was continued in 

 Darwin's later botanical works. Thus Darwin 

 owed his Climbing Plants to the study of a paper 

 by Asa Gray, and he dedicated his Forms of 

 Flowers to the American botanist ' as a small 

 tribute of respect and affection'. Concerning 

 some of the researches which afterwards appeared 

 in this book, Darwin wrote : — 



' I care more for your and Hooker's opinion than for that 

 of all the rest of the world, and for Lyell's on geological 

 points.' ' 



Another great name, that of Huxley, is 

 especially associated in our minds with the 

 defeat of those who would have denied that the 

 subject was a proper one for scientific investiga- 

 tion. In the strenuous and memorable years 

 that followed the appearance of the Origin, the 

 mighty warrior stands out as the man to whom 



1 More Letters, i. 169. " Life and Letters, iii. 170. 



= Ibid., 300. 



