Abstract

A river of beneficial variations: Asa Gray’s theistic evolution This paper presents the american botanist Asa Gray’s «theistic evolution», founded on the idea of the compatibility between natural selection and natural theology, as it emerges from his writings on the darwinian themes and from his correspondence with Darwin. To the «orthodox presbyterian» Gray, the variations on which natural selection works, whose origin Darwin defined as «accidental», have been led «along beneficial lines» by God, the author of the design of nature.