You must let me thank you for the pleasure which the Introduction to the Aristotle book [Parts of Animals] has given me. I have rarely read anything which has interested me more, though I have not read as yet more than a quarter of the book proper. From quotations which I had seen, I had a high notion of Aristotle’s merits, but I had not the most remote notion what a wonderful man he was. Linnaeus and Cuvier have been my two gods, though in very different ways, but they were mere schoolboys to old Aristotle.
Throughout all our efforts, in every dramatic struggle between old and new views, we recognize the eternal longing for understanding: the ever-firm belief in the harmony of our world, continuously strengthened by increasing obstacles to comprehension.
