Asa Gray

“ And there is Switzerland always within reach. Happy mortals, who can reach the Alps within forty-eight hours, and with only a narrow, though proverbially nasty, bit of water to cross! But what we hope to gain from this upturning is to see you over here. When Mr. Horner returns (we have heard nothing since they vanished in the West) he will tell you it is no formidable matter even to cross the continent. At least you can come and see us, make us a long visit, and be as quiet here as in a Swiss wayside inn, and sally forth upon an excursion when you like. ”

“ The botanists of Goethe's day could not see any sense, advantage, or practical application, to be made of the proposition that the parts of a blossom answer to leaves; and so the study of homologies had long to wait. Until lately it appeared to be of no consequence whatever (except, perhaps, to the insects) whether Drosera and Sarracenia caught flies or not; and even Dionaea excited only unreflecting wonder as a vegetable anomaly. As if there were real anomalies in Nature, and some one plant possessed extraordinary powers denied to all others, and (as was supposed) of no importance to itself! ”

“ It is not a year since I told Henry that he should have either Agassiz or Wyman at Washington, but that we must have one of them at Cambridge. Beyond all expectation we have them both!
Henry gave me—I know not what led to it—a full detailed account of his life from early boyhood, which was full of curious interest and suggested much matter for reflection. In the evening we fell to discoursing on philosophical topics, and Henry threw out great and noble thoughts, and as we both fell to conversing with much animation my headache disappeared entirely. ”

“ Protoplasm is the common name of that plant-stuff in which life essentially resides. All growth depends upon it; for it has the peculiar power of growing and multiplying and building up a living structure,—the animal no less than the vegetable structure, for it is essentially the same in both. Indeed, all the animal protoplasm comes primarily from the vegetable, which has the prerogative of producing it; and the protoplasm of plants furnishes all that portion of the food of animals which forms their flesh and living fabric. ”

“ The summit of Mont Ventoux, which we have had in full sight since twelve o’clock, is covered with snow, its brilliant whiteness contrasting finely with the craggy brown mountains of lesser elevation, as with the green fields and tender foliage of the valleys. There is nothing very grand in the scenery of the Rhone from Lyons to this place. The upper portion is very much like the Hudson between New York and the Highlands, but I think scarcely as fine, if you make due allowance for the effect of the old villages, etc. ”

“ I can under such circumstances see no reason to doubt that the swiftest and slimmest wolves would have the best chance of surviving, and so be preserved or selected—provided always that they retained strength to master their prey at this or at some other period of the year, when they might be compelled to prey on other animals. I can see no more reason to doubt this than that man can improve the fleetness of his greyhounds by careful and methodical selection, or by that unconscious selection which results from each man trying to keep the best dogs without any thought of modifying the breed. ”

“ Reached the summit at four o’clock; enjoyed a fine view of Mont Blanc and its attendant peaks from top to bottom, or rather at top and bottom, for there was a belt of cloud about the middle,—a most superb and complete view, Mer de Glace and all.
Quite satisfied without going to Chamouni, so returned to Martigny at eight P.M.; another good day’s work, particularly as I walked both up and down the worst part of the road, being merciful to the beast. On my descent obtained a splendid view of the Bernese Alps. ”

“ When you unscientific people take up a scientific principle you are apt to make too much of it, to push it to conclusions beyond what is warranted by the facts. But, because a particular race has persisted in Egypt, how do you know that it is the only race capable of perpetuating itself?
If there had been a large infusion of different people in Egypt, and if they had exterminated the old race, do you not suppose this would have established itself, perpetuated itself, and that its particular adaptations to the climate would have been different from that of the present race? ”

“ Let me now trace these principles as sources of action in Darwin's work or theory. Let us see how much there is of design acting to produce a foreseen end, and thus proving a reasoning and self-conscious Creator; and how much of mere blind power acting without rational design, or without a specific purpose or conscious foresight. Mr. Darwin has specified in a most clear and unmistakable manner the operation of his three great powers, or rather, the three great laws by which the organic power of life acts in the formation of an eye. ”

“ The mountains, lakes, and valleys were all distinct, but looked cold. At length{244} a blast from a wooden trumpet (a better instrument than you would think) announced sunrise, and the sun appeared between two strips of cloud, lighting up first the distant and high peaks and glaciers of the Bernese Alps, the Jungfrau, the Finster-Aarhorn, the Titlis, highest of all,—the white glaciers shining like burnished silver. Soon the serrated ridge of the gloomy Pilatus is lighted up; the dark valleys become more distinct ”

“ Taking Nature as exhibiting thought for my guide, it appears to me that while human thought is consecutive, Divine thought is simultaneous, embracing at the same time and forever, in the past, the present and the future, the most diversified relations among hundreds of thousands of organized beings, each of which may present complications again, which to study and understand even imperfectly—as for instance man himself— mankind has already spent thousands of years. ”

“ May not those naturalists who, knowing far less of the laws of inheritance than does the breeder, and knowing no more than he does of the intermediate links in the long lines of descent, yet admit that many of our domestic races have descended from the same parents—may they not learn a lesson of caution, when they deride the idea of species in a state of nature being lineal descendants of other species? ”

“ What a struggle between the several kinds of trees must here have gone on during long centuries, each annually scattering its seeds by the thousand; what war between insect and insect—between insects, snails, and other animals, with birds and beasts of prey—all striving to increase, and all feeding on each other or on the trees, or their seeds and seedlings, or on the other plants which first clothed the ground and thus checked the growth of the trees! ”

“ We cling to a long-accepted theory, just as we cling to an old suit of clothes. A new theory, like a new pair of breeches (the Atlantic still affects the older type of nether garment) , is sure to have hard-fitting places; or, even when no particular fault can be found with the article, it oppresses with a sense of general discomfort. New notions and new styles worry us, till we get well used to them, which is only by slow degrees. ”

“ We here claim only that some beings other than men design, and that the adaptations of means to ends in the structure of animals and plants, in so far as they carry the marks of purpose, carry also the implication of having been designed. Also, that the idea or hypothesis of a designing mind, as the author of Nature—however we came by it—having possession of the field, and being one which man, himself a designer, seemingly must needs form, cannot be rivaled except by some other equally adequate for explanation, or displaced except by showing the illegitimacy of the inference. ”

“ In following these indications, watching opportunities, and breeding only from those individuals which vary most in a desirable direction, man leads the course of variation as he leads a streamlet—apparently at will, but never against the force of gravitation—to a long distance from its source, and makes it more subservient to his use or fancy. He unconsciously strengthens those variations which he prizes when he plants the seed of a favorite fruit, preserves a favorite domestic animal, drowns the uglier kittens of a litter, and allows only the handsomest or the best mousers to propagate. ”

“ It is a truly wonderful fact—the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from familiarity—that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to group, in the manner which we everywhere behold—namely, varieties of the same species most closely related together, species of the same genus less closely and unequally related together, forming sections and sub-genera, species of distinct genera much less closely related, and genera related in different degrees, forming sub-families, families, orders, sub-classes, and classes. ”

“ If he cannot recognize design in Nature because of evolution, he may be ranked with those of whom it was said, "Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe." How strange that a convinced theist should be so prone to associate design only with miracle!
All turns, however, upon what is meant by this Nature, to which it appears more and more probable that the being and becoming—no less than the well-being and succession—of species and genera, as well as of individuals, are committed. ”

“ In all candor we must at least concede that such considerations suggest a genetic descent from the drift period down to the present, and allow time enough—if time is of any account— for variation and natural selection to work out some appreciable results in the way of divergence into races, or even into so-called species. Whatever might have been thought, when geological time was supposed to be separated from the present era by a clear line, it is now certain that a gradual replacement of old forms by new ones is strongly suggestive of some mode of origination which may still be operative. ”