evolution can produce a workman who wants no more space than a snail, and no more light than an owl.
 G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World (1910). copy citation

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Author G. K. Chesterton
Source What's Wrong with the World
Topic evolution owls
Date 1910
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1717/1717-h/1717-h.htm

Context

“It will be easy for the scientific plutocrat to maintain that humanity will adapt itself to any conditions which we now consider evil. The old tyrants invoked the past; the new tyrants will invoke the future evolution has produced the snail and the owl; evolution can produce a workman who wants no more space than a snail, and no more light than an owl. The employer need not mind sending a Kaffir to work underground; he will soon become an underground animal, like a mole. He need not mind sending a diver to hold his breath in the deep seas; he will soon be a deep-sea animal.” source