Agassiz, When I Saw Him

We Have Really, That I Know Of, No Philosophical Basis For High And Low. Moreover, The Vegetable Kingdom Does Not Culminate, As The Animal Kingdom Does. It Is Not A Kingdom, But A Common-wealth; A Democracy, And Therefore Puzzling And Unaccountable From The Former Point Of View.

We Have Spoken Of Beings So Low In The Scale That The Individuals Throughout Their Whole Existence Are Not Sufficiently Specialized To Be Distinctively Plant Or Animal: Yet These Are Definite Life In Simpler Shape.

The Former Conviction That These Two Kingdoms Were Wholly Different In Structure, In Function, And In Kind Of Life, Was Not Seriously Disturbed By The Difficulties Which The Naturalist Encountered When He Undertook To Define Them.

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.