accepted natural selection." In her article, Appel makes a case for Wyman as a proponent of philosophical anatomy at Harvard, along with Louis Agassiz and Asa Gray. Philosophical anatomy, also known as transcendental anatomy, was the "search for ideal patterns of structure in nature." This search did not prevent Wyman and Gray in accepting evolution, although Agassiz never did. However, unlike Gray, Wyman could not accept natural selection as the method of evolution, believing instead in evolution as "directed by the Creator." When On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, Wyman's one-time mentor, Richard Owen came out against the book, while his colleague Asa Gray supported it. In 1860, Darwin went to Gray to enlist Wyman's support due to Wyman's work on higher apes and anatomy. Wyman wrote to Darwin agreeing that "progressive development is a far more probable theory than progressive creations", and the two men corresponded between 1860 and 1866, with Darwin writing at one point "I know hardly anyone whose opinions I should be more inclined to defer to." Personal life Wyman was married in 1850 to Adeline Wheelwright, with whom he had two daughters, Mary and Susan. Wheelwright died in 1855 and in 1861, he married Annie Williams Whitney, with whom he had a son, Jeffries Wyman, Jr. Whitney died in 1864, the year of their son's birth. In 1978, the Peabody Museum published Dear Jeffie, a collection of letters and sketches that Wyman had written to his son from 1866 to 1874 (the year of his own death) when he was doing field work in the states and abroad. His brother Dr. Morrill Wyman was a respected Cambridge doctor; their father Dr. Rufus Wyman was the first director of the McLean Asylum. Ironically, Dr. George Parkman had sought the directorship of the asylum, another connection between Parkman and the Wymans. His grandson, also named Jeffries Wyman (1901–1995), was a molecular biologist and biophysicist, and he was also a professor at Harvard. Notes References Appel, Toby A. "Jeffries Wyman, Philosophical Anatomy, and the Scientific Reception of Darwin in America" in Journal of the History of Biology 1988 21(1), pages 69–94. Appel, Toby A. "Wyman, Jeffries"; http://www.anb.org/articles/13/13-01864.html; American National Biography Online February 2000 Bemis, George. Report of the Case of John W. Webster. CC Little and J Brown, 1850. Dupree, A. Hunter. "Jeffries Wyman's Views on Evolution" in Isis 1953 44(3), pages 243-246. Dupree, A.