...for The Shield May Be As Important

I Trust And Believe That The Time Spent In This Voyage ... Will Produce Its Full Worth In Natural History; And It Appears To Me The Doing What Little We Can To Increase The General Stock Of Knowledge Is As Respectable An Object Of Life, As One Can In Any Likelihood Pursue.

An American Monkey, After Getting Drunk On Brandy, Would Never Touch It Again, And Thus Is Much Wiser Than Most Men.

I Cannot Persuade Myself That A Beneficient And Omnipotent God Would Have Designedly Created...that A Cat Should Play With Mice.

The Assumed Instinctive Belief In God Has Been Used By Many Persons As An Argument For His Existence. But This Is A Rash Argument, As We Should Thus Be Compelled To Believe In The Existence Of Many Cruel And Malignant Spirits, Only A Little More Powerful Than Man; For The Belief In Them Is Far More General Than In A Beneficent Deity.

How So Many Absurd Rules Of Conduct, As Well As So Many Absurd Religious Beliefs, Have Originated, We Do Not Know; Nor How It Is That They Have Become, In All Quarters Of The World, So Deeply Impressed On The Minds Of Men; But It Is Worthy Of Remark That A Belief Constantly Inculcated During The Early Years Of Life, While The Brain Is Impressionable, Appears To Acquire Almost The Nature Of An Instinct; And The Very Essence Of An Instinct Is That It Is Followed Independently Of Reason.