Asa Gray. 199 



concludes with some remarks on the religious bearing of 

 a theory that refers creation to natural law and declares rightly, 

 in accordance with his firm faith to the end, that " Natural 

 law is the human conception of continued and orderly Divine 

 action." 



Darwin, in a letter to Gray written during the following 

 summer, having in view Gray's article in this Journal, and 

 another discussion of his published in the Proceedings of the 

 American Academy, says, " I declare that you know my book 

 as well as I do myself, and bring to the question new lines of 

 illustration and argument in a manner which excites my 

 astonishment and almost my envy." " As Hooker lately said 

 in a note to me, you are, more than any one else, the thorough 

 master of the subject." 



Gray's " Darwiniana," published in 1876," is composed of a 

 number of his essays and reviews, from this Journal, the "Na- 

 tion" and the " Atlantic Monthly," together with a closing chap- 

 ter, written for the volume, entitled " Evolutionary Teleology." 

 The last chapter brings out Gray's adherence to the doctrine 

 of Natural Selection, and also his divergence from true Darwin- 

 ism. These divergences are thus expressed : 



" We are more and more convinced that variation, and there- 

 fore the ground of adaptation, is not a product of, but a 

 response to, the action of the environment. Variations, in 

 other words the differences between individual plants and 

 animals, however originated, are evidently not from without, 

 but from within ; not physical, but physiological." And 

 elsewhere he has said that the variation in a species is apt to 

 take place in particular directions and make linear ranges of 

 varieties, as often exemplified among plants ; which accords 

 with the preceding conclusion, pp. 386. 



Again, speaking of the forms of Orchids and their connec- 

 tion with, and relation to, insect fertilization, he says : " We 

 really believe that these exquisite adaptations have come to 

 pass in the course of nature, and under Natural Selection, but 

 not that Natural Selection alone explains or in a just sense 

 originates them. Or, rather, if this term is to stand for 

 sufficient cause and rational explanation, it must denote or 

 include that inscrutable something which produces, as well aa 

 that which results in the survival of, ' the fittest,' " p. 388. 



