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Darwiniana

by Asa Gray

By Asa Gray · Science · Public domain

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Darwiniana is a public-domain classic of science by Asa Gray.

The complete text is on this page and the chapter pages below — all 4 chapters, about 106,855 words (~9 hours of reading), free to read online with no signup. Chapters include “Part Iii.--Theories Contrasted.--Early Arguments Against”, “Part I.--Do Varieties in Plants Wear Out, or Tend to Wear Out?--the Question”, “Part Ii.--Do Species Wear Out, and, If Not, Why Not?--Implication of the”, and more.

Darwiniana at a glance

Author
Asa Gray
Length
106,855 words · about 9 hours to read
Chapters
4
Price
Free — public domain

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Part Iii.--Theories Contrasted.--Early Arguments Against

Darwinism.--Philosophical and Theological Objections--Theory may be theistic.--Final Cause not excluded.--Cause of Variation unknown.--Three Views of Efficient Cause compatible with Theism.--Agassiz's Objections of a Philosophical Nature.--Minor Objections.--Conclusion

ARTICLE IV

SPECIES AS TO VARIATION, GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION, AND SUCCESSION

Alphonse De Candolle's Study of the Oak Genus.--Variability of the Species.--Antiquity.--A Common Origin probable.--Dr. Falconer on the Common Origin of Elephants--Variation and Natural Selection distinguished.--Saporta on the Gradation between the Vegetable Forms of the Cretaceous and the Tertiary.--Hypothesis of Derivation more likely to be favored by Botanists than by Zoologists.--Views of Agassiz respecting the Origin, Dispersion, Variation, Characteristics, and Successive Creation of Species contrasted with those of De Candolle and others--Definition of Species--Whether its Essence is in the Likeness or in the Genealogical Connection of the Individuals composing a Species

ARTICLE V

SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY: THE RELATIONS OF NORTH AMERICAN TO NORTHEAST ASIAN AND TO TERTIARY VEGETATION

Age and Size of Sequoia.--Isolation.--Decadence.--Related Genera.-- Former Distribution.--Similarity between the Flora of Japan and that of the United States, especially on the Atlantic Side.--Former Glaciation as explaining the Present Dispersion of Species.--This confirmed by the Arctic Fossil Flora of the Tertiary Period.--Tertiary Flora derived from the Preceding Cretaceous.--Order and Adaptation in Organic Nature likened to a Flow.--Order implies an Ordainer

ARTICLE VI

THE ATTITUDE OF WORKING NATURALISTS TOWARD DARWINISM

General Tendency to Acceptance of the Derivative Hypothesis noted.--Lyell, Owen, Alphonse De Candolle, Bentham, Flower, Ailman.-- Dr. Dawson's "Story of the Earth and Man" examined.--Difference between Scientific Men and General Speculators or Amateurs in the Use of Hypotheses

ARTICLE VII

EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY

Writings of Henslow, Hodges, and Le Conte examined.--Evolution and Design compatible.--The Admission of a System of Nature, with Fixed Laws, concedes in Principle all that the Doctrine of Evolution requires.--Hypotheses, Probabilities, and Surmises, not to be decried by Theologians, who use them, perhaps, more freely and loosely than Naturalists.--Theologians risk too much in the Defense of Untenable Outposts

ARTICLE VIII

"WHAT IS DARWINISM?"

Dr. Hodges Book with this Title criticised.--He declares that Darwinism is Atheism, yet its Founder a Theist.--Darwinism founded, however, upon Orthodox Conceptions, and opposed, not to Theism, but only to Intervention in Nature, while the Key-note of Dr. Hedge's System is Interference.--Views and Writings of St. Clair, Winchell, and Kingsley adverted to

ARTICLE IX

CHARLES DARWIN: SKETCH ACCOMPANYING A PORTRAIT IN "NATURE"

Darwin's Characteristics and Work as a Naturalist compared with those of Robert Brown.--His Illustration of the Principle that "Nature abhors Close Fertilization. "--His Impression upon Natural History exceeded only by Linnaeus.--His Service in restoring Teleology to Natural History

ARTICLE X

INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS

Classification marks Distinctions where Nature exhibits Gradations.-- Recovery of Forgotten Knowledge and History of what was known of Dionzea, Drosera, and Sarracenia.

ARTICLE XI

INSECTIVOROUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS

Review of Darwin's Two Works upon these Subjects--No Absolute Marks for distinguishing between Vegetables and Animals.--New observations upon the Sundews or Droseras.--Their Sensitiveness, Movements, Discernment of the Presence and Appropriation of Animal Matter.--Dionaea, and other Plants of the same Order.--Utricularia and Pinguicula.--Sarracenia and Nepenthes.--Climbing Plants; the Climbing effected through Sensitiveness or Response to External Impression and Automatic Movement.--Capacities inherent in Plants generally, and apparently of no Service to them, developed and utilized by those which climb.--Natural Selection not a Complete Explanation

ARTICLE XII

DURATION AND ORIGINATION OF RACE AND SPECIES

Part I.--Do Varieties in Plants Wear Out, or Tend to Wear Out?--the Question

considered in the Light of Facts, and in that of the Darwinian Theory.--Conclusion that Races sexually propagated need not die of Old Age.--This Conclusion inferred from the Provisions and Arrangements in Nature to secure Cross-Fertilization of Individuals.-- Reference to Mr. Darwin's Development of this View

Part Ii.--Do Species Wear Out, and, If Not, Why Not?--Implication of the

Darwinian Theory that Species are unlimited in Existence.--Examination of an Opposite Doctrine maintained by Naudin.--Evidence that Species may die out from Inherent Causes only indirect and inferential from Arrangements to secure Wide Breeding--Physiological Import of Sexes--Doubtful whether Sexual Reproduction with Wide Breeding is a Preventive or only a Palliative of Decrepitude in Species.-- Darwinian Hypothesis must suppose the Former

ARTICLE XIII

EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY

The Opposition between Morphology and Teleology reconciled by Darwinism, and the Latter reinstated--Character of the New Teleology.--Purpose and Design distinguished--Man has no Monopoly of the Latter.--Inference of Design from Adaptation and Utility legitimate; also in Hume's Opinion irresistible--The Principle of Design, taken with Specific Creation, totally insufficient and largely inapplicable; but, taken with the Doctrine of the Evolution of Species in Nature, applicable, pertinent, and, moreover, necessary.--Illustrations from Abortive Organs, supposed Waste of Being, etc.--All Nature being of a Piece, Design must either pervade or be absent from the Whole.--Its Absence not to be inferred because the Events take place in Nature--Illustration of the Nature and Province of Natural Selection.--It picks out, but does not originate Variations; these not a Product of, but a Response to, the Environment; not physical, but physiological--Adaptations in Nature not explained by Natural Selection apart from Design or Final Cause--Absurdity of associating Design only with Miracle--What is meant by Nature.--The Tradition of the DIVINE in Nature, testified to by Aristotle, comes down to our Day with Undiminished Value

PREFACE

These papers are now collected at the request of friends and correspondents, who think that they may be useful; and two new essays are added. Most of the articles were written as occasion called for them within the past sixteen years, and contributed to various periodicals, with little thought of their forming a series, and none of ever bringing them together into a volume, although one of them (the third) was once reprinted in a pamphlet form. It is, therefore, inevitable that there should be considerable iteration in the argument, if not in the language. This could not be eliminated except by recasting the whole, which was neither practicable nor really desirable. It is better that they should record, as they do, the writer's freely-expressed thoughts upon the subject at the time; and to many readers there may be some advantage in going more than once, in different directions, over the same ground. If these essays were to be written now, some things might be differently expressed or qualified, but probably not so as to affect materially any important point. Accordingly, they are here reprinted unchanged, except by a few merely verbal alterations made in proof-reading, and the striking out of one or two superfluous or immaterial passages. A very few additional notes or references are appended.

To the last article but one a second part is now added, and the more elaborate Article XIII is wholly new.

If it be objected that some of these pages are written in a lightness of vein not quite congruous with the gravity of the subject and the seriousness of its issues, the excuse must be that they were written with perfect freedom, most of them as anonymous contributions to popular journals, and that an argument may not be the less sound or an exposition less effective for being playful. Some of the essays, however, dealing with points of speculative scientific interest, may redress the balance, and be thought sufficiently heavy if not solid.

To the objection likely to be made, that they cover only a part of the ground, it can only be replied that they do not pretend to be systematic or complete. They are all essays relating in some way or other to the subject which has been, during these years, of paramount interest to naturalists, and not much less so to most thinking people. The first appeared between sixteen and seventeen years ago, immediately after the publication of Darwin's "Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," as a review of that volume, which, it was then foreseen, was to initiate a revolution in general scientific opinion. Long before our last article was written, it could be affirmed that the general doctrine of the derivation of species (to put it comprehensively) has prevailed over that of specific creation, at least to the extent of being the received and presumably in some sense true conception. Far from undertaking any general discussion of evolution, several even of Mr. Darwin's writings have not been noticed, and topics which have been much discussed elsewhere are not here adverted to. This applies especially to what may be called deductive evolution--a subject which lay beyond the writer's immediate scope, and to which neither the bent of his mind nor the line of his studies has fitted him to do justice. If these papers are useful at all, it will be as showing how these new views of our day are regarded by a practical naturalist, versed in one department only (viz., Botany), most interested in their bearings upon its special problems, one accustomed to direct and close dealings with the facts in hand, and disposed to rise from them only to the consideration of those general questions upon which they throw or from which they receive illustration.

Then as to the natural theological questions which (owing to circumstances needless now to be recalled or explained) are here throughout brought into what most naturalists, and some other readers, may deem undue prominence, there are many who may be interested to know how these increasingly prevalent views and their tendencies are regarded by one who is scientifically, and in his own fashion, a Darwinian, philosophically a convinced theist, and religiously an acceptor of the "creed commonly called the Nicene," as the exponent of the Christian faith. "Truth emerges sooner from error than from confusion," says Bacon; and clearer views than commonly prevail upon the points at issue regarding "religion and science" are still sufficiently needed to justify these endeavors.

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