Science Quote by Asa Gray

There is a quiet, strategic humility baked into Gray's sentence: he isn't asking to be believed so much as to be treated fairly while he says something he knows will land awkwardly. For a scientist writing in the 19th century, "assent" is the gold standard, but Gray settles for "charitable judgment" because he understands the terrain. When your work rubs against powerful priors - religious, philosophical, institutional - demanding agreement can trigger defensive refusal. Asking for charity, by contrast, frames dissent as potentially honorable: you can disagree with me and still be decent.

The syntax does a lot of political work. "Upon much that I may have to say" widens the blast radius beyond a single claim; he's preparing the reader for a sequence of provocations. "I expect rather" is both modest and shrewd, lowering the bar in a way that makes dismissal feel ungenerous. Then he sharpens the emotional core: "those whose approbation I could most wish to win". That phrase admits a personal stake, but it also signals the intended audience: peers, patrons, theologians, the educated gatekeepers whose approval confers legitimacy. Gray isn't pandering; he's acknowledging that science is social, and that consensus is not just evidence but permission.

Context matters: Gray was a key American defender of Darwin, trying to reconcile natural selection with a theistic worldview. The line reads like a preemptive peace offering to readers who might feel threatened. Its intent is not to soften the science, but to keep the conversation open long enough for the evidence to do its slow, unromantic work.