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David Douglas
(25 Jun 1799 - 12 Jul 1834)
Scottish botanist who was one of the founding fathers of British forestry. He scoured North America for plants, and introduced many to Britain.
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Science Quotes by David Douglas (1 quote)
Plate 2 - David Douglas
There are two kinds of equality, one potential and the other actual, one theoretical and the other practical. We should not be satisfied by merely quoting the doctrine of equality as laid down in the Declaration of Independence, but we should give it practical illustration. We have to do as well as to be. If we had built great ships, sailed around the world, taught the science of navigation, discovered far-off islands, capes, and continents, enlarged the boundaries of human knowledge, improved the conditions of man’s existence, brought valuable contributions of art, science, and literature, revealed great truths, organized great states, administered great governments, defined the laws of the universe, formulated systems of mental and moral philosophy, invented railroads, steam engines, mowing machines, sewing machines, taught the sun to take pictures, the lightning to carry messages, we then might claim, not only potential and theoretical equality, but actual and practical equality.
— David Douglas
From Speech (16 Apr 1889) delivered to the Bethel Literary and Historical Society, Washington D.C., 'The Nation’s Problem'. Collected in Philip S. Foner, Yuval Taylor (eds.), Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings (2000), 731.
Quotes by others about David Douglas (1)
In [David] Douglas's success in life ... his great activity, undaunted courage, singular abstemiousness, and energetic zeal, at once pointed him out as an individual eminently calculated to do himself credit as a scientific traveler.
In 'Extracts from A Brief Memoir of the Life of David Douglas' (1834), in W.F. Wilson (ed.), David Douglas, Botanist at Hawaii (1919), 12.
See also:
- 25 Jun - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Douglas's birth.
- David Douglas - Extracts from A Brief Memoir (1919)
- Biography of David Douglas - The Botanical Collector, from True Tales of Travel and Adventure, Valour and Virtue (1884).
- The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Northwest, by Ann Lindsay Mitchell and Syd House. - book suggestion.
- David Douglas: Explorer and Botanist, by William Moorwood. - book suggestion.
- Olla-Piska: Tales of David Douglas, by Margaret J. Anderson (for ages 9-12). - book suggestion.
- Traveler in a Vanished Landscape, The Life & Times of David Douglas, by William Moorwood. - book suggestion.
- Booklist for David Douglas.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
