charles_darwin

Biographies
works on the subject. The best-known work was his four-volume
Histoire generale et particuliere des anomalies de l’organisation chez
l’homme et les animaux: ouvrage comprenant des recherches sur les
caracteres, la classification, l’influence physiologique et pathologique, les
rapports generaux, les lois et les causes des monstruosites, des varietes
et vices de conformation ou Traite deteratologie [General and Particular
History of the Organizational Anomalies in Humans and Animals:
A Work consisting of Research on the Nature, Classification, Physiological
and Pathological Influence, General Relationships, Laws and
Causes of these Monstrosities, the Diversity and Corruption of Structure,
or Treatise on Teratology] (1823–1837).
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Asa Gray (18 November 1810–30 January 1898)
Asa Gray was an important confidant of Darwin’s while he
developed his theory of evolution by natural selection. Gray was one
of the first three people with whom Darwin shared his theory.
Darwin sent Gray an outline of the theory as an enclosure in a letter
dated September 5, 1857; a copy of this letter was used by Charles
Lyell and Joseph Hooker to prove that Darwin had been working on
a theory about natural selection before Alfred Russel Wallace. And it
was Gray who provided Darwin with an important piece of evidence
to support a theory of evolution: the close affinity between the flora
of North America and Japan.
After the publication of The Origin of Species, Gray was the
most prominent endorser of Darwin’s theory in the United States.
Gray argued that Darwinism was compatible with Christian theology
in Natural Selection not Inconsistent with Natural Theology. A Free Examination
of Darwin’s Treatise on the Origin of Species, and of its American
Reviewers (1861), a reprint of three articles published in the
journal Atlantic Monthly in 1860, and Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews
Pertaining to Darwinism (1876).
Gray was the leading American botanist of the nineteenth century.
Gray and Darwin’s mutual interest in the geographical distribution
of plants had led to their initial correspondence. Gray’s work
with his mentor John Torrey (1796–1873) on the classification of
species by affinity helped to establish botany as a systematic scientific
discipline in the United States. A Flora of North America: Containing
Abridged Descriptions of all Known Indigenous and Naturalized
Plants Growing North of Mexico; Arranged according to the Natural
System (1838–1843) was Gray’s best-known book on the subject and
was published in numerous editions during and after Gray’s life.