Natural Selection Is Not The Wind Which

Agassiz, When I Saw Him Last, Had Read But A Part Of Origin Of Species. He Says It Is Poor-very Poor!!. The Fact Is, He Is Very Much Annoyed By It.

We Have Really, That I Know Of, No Philosophical Basis For High And Low. Moreover, The Vegetable Kingdom Does Not Culminate, As The Animal Kingdom Does. It Is Not A Kingdom, But A Common-wealth; A Democracy, And Therefore Puzzling And Unaccountable From The Former Point Of View.

Indeed Upon Much That May Have To Say, I Expect Rather The Charitable Judgment Than The Full Assent Of Those Whose Approbation I Could Most Wish To Win.

It Was Always Understood That Plants And Animals, Though Completely Contrasted In Their Higher Representatives, Approached Each Other Very Closely In Their Lower And Simpler Forms. But They Were Believed Not To Blend.

We May Take It To Be The Accepted Idea That The Mosaic Books Were Not Handed Down To Us For Our Instruction In Scientific Knowledge, And That It Is Our Duty To Ground Our Scientific Beliefs Upon Observation And Inference, Unmixed With Considerations Of A Different Order.