Thomas Henry Huxley and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“ When another half-century has passed, curious readers of the back numbers of Nature will probably look on our best, "not without a smile;" and, it may be, that long after the theories of the philosophers whose achievements are recorded in these pages, are obsolete, the vision of the poet will remain as a truthful and efficient symbol of the wonder and the mystery of Nature. ”

“ Her mechanism has few springs—but they never wear out, are always active and manifold.
The spectacle of Nature is always new, for she is always renewing the spectators. Life is her most exquisite invention; and death is her expert contrivance to get plenty of life. ”

“ She creates needs because she loves action. Wondrous! that she produces all this action so easily. Every need is a benefit, swiftly satisfied, swiftly renewed.—Every fresh want is a new source of pleasure, but she soon reaches an equilibrium. ”

“ She rewards herself and punishes herself; is her own joy and her own misery. She is rough and tender, lovely and hateful, powerless and omnipotent. She is an eternal present. Past and future are unknown to her. ”

“ To none is she altogether miserly; but she has her favourites, on whom she squanders much, and for whom she makes great sacrifices. Over greatness she spreads her shield.
She tosses her creatures out of nothingness, and tells them not whence they came, nor whither they go. It is their business to run, she knows the road. ”

“ Every instant she commences an immense journey, and every instant she has reached her goal.
She is vanity of vanities; but not to us, to whom she has made herself of the greatest importance. She allows every child to play tricks with her; every fool to have judgment upon her; thousands to walk stupidly over her and see nothing ”

“ She is complete, but never finished. As she works now, so can she always work. Everyone sees her in his own fashion. She hides under a thousand names and phrases, and is always the same. She has brought me here and will also lead me away. ”

“ She is the only artist; working-up the most uniform material into utter opposites; arriving, without a trace of effort, at perfection, at the most exact precision, though always veiled under a certain softness. ”

“ If we consider the high achievements by which all the phenomena of Nature have been gradually linked together in the human mind; and then, once more, thoughtfully peruse the above essay, from which we started, we shall, not without a smile, compare that comparative, as I called it, with the superlative which we have now reached, and rejoice in the progress of fifty years. ”

“ She loves herself, and her innumerable eyes and affections are fixed upon herself. She has divided herself that she may be her own delight. She causes an endless succession of new capacities for enjoyment to spring up, that her insatiable sympathy may be assuaged. ”

“ She is incessantly speaking to us, but betrays not her secret. We constantly act upon her, and yet have no power over her.
The one thing she seems to aim at is Individuality; yet she cares nothing for individuals. She is always building up and destroying ”

“ We obey her laws even when we rebel against them; we work with her even when we desire to work against her.
She makes every gift a benefit by causing us to want it. She delays, that we may desire her ”