Robert Louis Stevenson

“ Huge are your sins, Huge as a whole caraffe. Clockmaker, I defy you. Your cruelty is greater than a vase upon the chimney piece, And round as the face of the clock. You are strong, you boast yourself; You are cunning and contrive timepieces; Vain are your strength and cunning! Let but one right-minded animalculae look you in the face, You are confounded in the midst of your instruments. You grow pale and conceal yourself in back shop. ”

“ Many generations rose and perished in the night; the tradition of a sun grew faint, so that pessimists despaired of its return; and the moon, which was then at the full, deceived some of the wisest. It was not till the sixth long solar year, that an animalculae of unrivalled intellect arose, overthrew former science, and bequeathed a heritage of disputation. ”

“ Life implied water, thought implied water. No one not living in water could conceive the idea of time, how much less of a clock! Examine your hypothesis (said the Clockmakerists) and it comes to this; a creature that lives in water living out of water! Can reasonable animalculae amuse themselves with such absurdities? And granting the impossible--granting (for the sake of argument) that life and thought exist beyond the walls of the caraffe--why does not the Clockmaker declare himself?. It would be easy for him to communicate with animalculae ”