“What I like about the historical – or I might better say, the evolving – view of vital phenomena, is that it does not lead to self-satisfaction, but to a bracing discontent. On the purely humanistic score, it leaves us no sneaking hope that because we are next in rank to the angels we are predestined as a race to salvation. Rather it reminds us how new we are. It gives us, if not certainly free will, the opportunity to impose our will upon the future – the opportunity, and the fateful responsibility for so doing. On the biologic side, instead of closing the subject it opens up questions. This, the aim of all science, is the bane of all dictatorships, whether hierarchical, political, or pedantic.”
-Donald Culross Peattie, An Almanac for Moderns