Asa Gray Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“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.”

“It remains to consider what attitude thoughtful men and Christian believers should take respecting them, and how they stand related to beliefs of another order.”

“I am sufficiently convinced already that the members of a profession know their own calling better than anyone else can know it.”

“In short, the animal and vegetable lines, diverging widely above, join below in a loop.”

“The best opinion now is, that there are multitudinous forms which are not sufficiently differentiated to be distinctively either plant or animal, while, as respects ordinary plants and animals, the difficulty of laying down a definition has become far greater than ever before.”

“But it was soon ascertained that this quaternary matter of the animal body was chemically the same in the plant, was elaborated there, and only appropriated by the animal.”

“I accept extinction as best explaining disjoined species. I see that the same cause must have reduced many species of great range to small, and that it may have reduced large genera to so small, and of families.”

“I know some people who never have any difficulties to speak of. The moment I understood your premisses, I felt sure you had a real foundation to hold on.”

“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.”

“There is a class, moreover, by whom all these scientific theories, and more are held as ascertained facts, and as the basis of philosophical inferences which strike at the root of theistic beliefs.”