True cosmical views are the result of observation and ideal combination, and of a long-continued communion with the external world; nor are they a work of a single people, but the fruits yielded by reciprocal communication, and by a great, if not general, intercourse between different nations.

Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe (Volume 2), Physical Contemplation of the Universe (p. 116), Harper & Brothers. 1869