We have happy days, remember good dinners.

There is no fundamental difference between humans and the higher mammalsin their mental faculties

I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of Spencer's excellent expression of 'the survival of the fittest.' This, however, had not occurred to me till reading your letter. It is, however, a great objection to this term that it cannot be used as a substantive governing a verb; and that this is a real objection I infer from H. Spencer continually using the words, natural selection.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

Freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follows from the advance of science.

Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.

I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can.