Agassiz, When I Saw Him Last, Had

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.

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.

I Am Sufficiently Convinced Already That The Members Of A Profession Know Their Own Calling Better Than Anyone Else Can Know It.

The Former Conviction That These Two Kingdoms Were Wholly Different In Structure, In Function, And In Kind Of Life, Was Not Seriously Disturbed By The Difficulties Which The Naturalist Encountered When He Undertook To Define Them.

It Was Implicitly Supposed That Every Living Thing Was Distinctively Plant Or Animal; That There Were Real And Profound Differences Between The Two, If Only They Could Be Seized.