On Perfection and Plato
"... 'perfection' is a notion which haunts human imagination. It cannot be ignored. But its naive attachment to the realm of forms is entirely without justification. How about the form of mud, and the forms of evil, and other forms of imperfection? In the house of forms, there are many mansions."
On the Positivist Taint
"... the observation of insects on flowers dimly suggests some congruity between the nature of insects and flowers, and thus leads to a wealth of observation from which whole branches of science have developed. But a consistent positivist should be content with the observed facts, namely insects visiting flowers. It is a fact of charming simplicity. There is nothing further to be said on the matter, according to the doctrine of a positivist. At present the scientific world is suffering from a bad attack of muddle-headed positivism, which arbitrarily applies its doctrine and arbitrarily escapes from it. The whole doctrine of life in nature has suffered from this positivist taint. We are told that there is the routine described in physical and chemical formulae, and that in the process of nature there is nothing else."
