Dr. Asa Gray as Compared with Darwin and Huxley.

Mr. Joseph Cook, the eminent lecturer, recently made the following comparison regarding the religious views of three of the most distinguished scientists of this century-Dr. Asa Gray, Darwin and Huxley. It will doubtless be of interest to all from the fact that Dr. Gray was, before his death, so intimately connected with all religious movements in the college:-

Only a short time ago we laid to rest a leader in science who declared himself to be at the same time an evolutionist, a theist and a believer in the Nicene creed. Gray was like Darwin in respect to the religious use which he made of evolution. The judgment of our soundest minds is that theism is to suffer at the hands of evolution, not destruction, but reconstruction. Darwin admitted that no one understood the philosophy of evolution better than the late great botanist. Gray had stronger grasp on philosophy than Darwin. Gray was gifted with a clearer insight into the laws of the physical world. Darwin lost himself in the mazes of the first truths. Darwin had agnostic companions while Asa Gray had theistic companions. Huxley has been more influenced by Darwin than Darwin by Huxley. Huxley rejoiced to call himself an agnostic. So did Darwin, although Darwin at times leaned toward theism. Our great teachers at Harvard have been great theists, and no doubt Gray was greatly influenced by his companions. The theistic form of evolution seems never to have disturbed Asa Gray's faith. I wish to say that through his whole life Asa Gray was a student of theology; but Darwin said he had no time for studying religious truths. Gray observed Sunday; Darwin did not. As to the growth of the soul in old age these men stand in great contrast. Darwin was a mighty river, but ran on one side of the island and could not run on the other. He was one-sided. Asa Gray retained, on the whole, a better grasp of modern thought.

The philosophy of evolution concerns a question of progress. What we wish is that Darwinism shall account not merely of the survival of the fittest, but also for the arrival of the fittest, and that it has not given us yet. Asa Gray said years ago that the survival of the fittest did not explain that inscrutable something which causes the fittest to appear. We are all here to demand loyalty to the self-evident truths on which science rests. The unsearchable wisdom of God in the source of all forms. It is safest for you to look to Germany and Scotland for fundamental philosophical truths. England is a pigmy compared with Scotland and Germany on these truths. I advise you, kneeling on Asa Gray's grave, to repeat his creed word for word, namely the Nicene creed.