The resources of the Deity cannot be so meagre, that, in order to create a human being endowed with reason, he must change a monkey into a man.

It is better to have a few forms well known than to teach a little about many hundred species. Better a dozen specimens thoroughly studied as the result of the first year's work, than to have two thousand dollars' worth of shells and corals bought from a curiosity-shop. The dozen animals would be your own.

The resources of the Deity cannot be so meagre, that, in order to create a human being endowed with reason, he must change a monkey into a man.

I will frankly tell you that my experience in prolonged scientific investigations convinces me that a belief in God-a God who is behind and within the chaos of vanishing points of human knowledge-adds a wonderful stimulus to the man who attempts to penetrate into the regions of the unknown.

There is no part of the country where in the summer you cannot get a sufficient supply of the best specimens. Teach your children to bring them in for themselves. Take your text from the brooks, not from the booksellers.

I may say that here, as in most cases where the operations of nature interfere with the designs of man, it is not by a direct intervention on our part that we may remedy the difficulties, but rather by a precise knowledge of their causes, which may enable us, if not to check, at least to avoid the evil consequences.

The office of science is not to record possibilities; but to ascertain what nature does ... As far as Darwinism deals with mere arguments of possibilities or even probabilities, without a basis of fact, it departs from the true scientific method and injures science, as most of the devotees of the new ism have already done.