Asa Gray

Is it philosophical, is it quite allowable, to assume without evidence from fossil plants that the family or any of the genera was once larger and wide spread? and occupied a continuous area? ”

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. ”

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. ”

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. ”

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. ”

I proceed with the proper subject of this discourse; namely, the further changes in scientific belief, which have occurred within my own recollection, even since the time when I first aspired to authorship, now forty- five years ago. ”