Brute Quotes (3)
Brutes by their natural instinct have produced many discoveries, whereas men by discussion and the conclusions of reason have given birth to few or none.
Novum Organum, LXXIII
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.
Letter to Asa Gray (22 May 1860). In Charles Darwin and Francis Darwin (ed.), Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters (1892), 236.
See also: | Belief (37) | Chance (33) | Conclusion (24) | Content (6) | Design (12) | Detail (7) | Dog (6) | Hope (14) | Inclination (2) | Intellect (47) | Law (134) | Mind (116) | Nature Of Man (3) | Sir Isaac Newton (82) | Profound (5) | Result (25) | Result (25) | Satisfaction (5) | Universe (138) | Wonder (16)
The wise are instructed by reason; ordinary minds by experience; the stupid, by necessity; and brutes by instinct.
In Charles Simmons, A Laconic Manual and Brief Remarker (1852), 273.
See also: | Experience (57) | Instinct (13) | Instruction (7) | Mind (116) | Necessity (16) | Ordinary (4) | Reason (69) | Stupid (6) | Wise (3)
