Language is an art, like brewing or baking.... It certainly is not a true instinct, for every language has to be learnt.

A celebrated author and divine has written to me that he has gradually learned to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that he created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that he required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of his laws.

The moral faculties are generally and justly esteemed as of higher value than the intellectual powers.

Your words have come true with a vengeance that I shd [should] be forestalled ... I never saw a more striking coincidence. If Wallace had my M.S. sketch written out in 1842 he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as Heads of my Chapters.

... probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed.

I agree with Agassiz that dogs possess something very like conscience.

It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance.