From Asa Gray 22–30 March 1863
Cambridge [Massachusetts]
22. March ’63
My Dear Darwin
Argyle’s article on the Supernatural—to which you called my attention a long while ago,1 I never happened to see till to-day—when I have read it through. It is quite clever—not deep, but clear, and I think useful I see no occasion for finding fault with him—except in his attempts now and then to direct a little odium against you—which is unhandsome—for his main points are those I hammered out in Atlantic. &c—indeed I see signs of his having read the same.2 But it is hardly fair of him, after expressing his complete conviction that where the operation of natural causes can be clearly traced, the implication of design—upon its appropriate evidence—is not thereby rendered less certain or less convincing.—to go on to speak of derivation-doctrines in a way that implies the contrary.3
Of course we believers in real design, make the most of your frank and natural terms, ‘contrivance, purpose”, &c”—and pooh-pooh your endeavors to resolve such contrivances into necessary results of certain physical processes, and make fun of the race between long noses and long nectaries!4
23d March.
Dr. Wyman5—who is a sharp fellow tells me that—on the authority of the historian Prescott,—the Incas of Peru for—no one knows how long—married their sisters—to keep the perfect purity of the blood.6 Quere. How did this strong case of close-breeding operate? Did they run out thereby? Wyman thinks there is no evidence of it.
If it is true—and the Incas stood it for a long course of generations, you must look to it—for it will bear hard against your theory of the necessity of crossing.7
If they run out, you will have a good case.
P.S. 30 March.
I hear from Hooker that you are poorly,—am very sorry to hear it.—8 hope it is something very temporary. I have been laid up two or three days with a sort of influenza and a bad throat,—now much better.
I have sent to Silliman extracts from Bates’ paper, embracing almost all about mimetic analogy,—8 or 10 pages. My only fear is Silliman will demur to printing it.9
You think Lyell too non-comittal and timid. Well Huxley makes up for it, I should think!10
Ever dear Darwin | Yours cordially | Asa Gray
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Bates, Henry Walter. 1861. Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley. Lepidoptera: Heliconidæ. [Read 21 November 1861.] Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 23 (1860–2): 495–566.
[Campbell, George Douglas.] 1862. [Review of Orchids and other works.] Edinburgh Review 116: 378–97.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
DSB: Dictionary of scientific biography. Edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie and Frederic L. Holmes. 18 vols. including index and supplements. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1970–90.
Orchids: On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1862.
Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.
Prescott, William Hickling. 1847. History of the conquest of Peru, with a preliminary view of the civilization of the Incas. 2 vols. London: Richard Bently.
Summary
Discusses the Duke of Argyll’s article on the supernatural [Edinburgh Rev. 116 (1862): 378–97].
Has heard that the Incas married their sisters; this may be worth investigating as a case of inbreeding.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4056
- From
- Asa Gray
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Cambridge Mass.
- Source of text
- DAR 165: 131
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4056,” accessed on 31 August 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4056.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 11