198 Asa Gray. . 



my experience makes me cautions and slow about building too 

 much on analogies ; and until I see further and clearer I 

 must continue to think there is an essential difference between 

 kinds of animals or plants and kinds of matter. 



" How far we may safely reason from the one to the other is 

 the question. If we may do so even as far as you do, might 

 not Agassiz (at least plausibly) say that as the species Iron was 

 created in a vast number of individuals over the whole earth, 

 so the presumption is that any given species of plants or ani- 

 mals was originated in as many individuals as there are now, 

 and over as wide an area ; the human species under as great 

 diversities as it now has, barring historical intermixture ; thus 

 reducing the question between you to insignificance ? because, 

 then, the question whether men are of one or of several species 

 would no longer be a question, or of much consequence. You 

 may answer him from another starting point, no doubt ; but he 

 may still insist that it is a legitimate carrying out of your 

 principle." 



In the same letter Gray prophesies as follows, — from actual 

 knowledge, it now appears : " You may be sure that before 

 long there must be one more resurrection of the development 

 theory in a new form, obviating many of the. arguments against 

 it, and presenting a more respectable and more formidable ap- 

 pearance than it ever has before." 



The Origin of Species was out in November, 1859. Gray 

 received an early copy of it from Darwin, and therefore his 

 very valuable review was ready for this Journal early in I860.* 



With regard to the sufficiency of the argument brought 

 forward in Darwin's work, Gray says that " To account upon 

 these principles for the gradual elimination and segregation of 

 nearly allied forms — such as varieties, sub-species and closely 

 related or representative species — and also for their geograph- 

 ical association and present range, is comparatively easy, is 

 apparently within the bounds of possibility, and even of proba- 

 bility." But as to the formation of genera, families, orders and 

 classes by natural selection, Gray simply states Darwin's 

 arguments on the subject, and some objections on a few weak 

 points, without expressing further his own views. He 



*It occupies 32 pages in the March number, vol. xxbc, pp. 153 to 184. 



