We have really, that I know of, no philosophical basis for high and low. Moreover, the vegetable kingdom does not culminate, as the animal kingdom does. It is not a kingdom, but a common-wealth; a democracy, and therefore puzzling and unaccountable from the former point of view.
Asa Gray, Letters of Asa Gray V2
analogy, animals, charles-darwin, darwin, democracy, kingdom, philosophy, plants, science, species, vegetables