by William Thomson

“ We are all out of our depth when we approach the subject of life. The scientific man, in looking at a piece of dead matter, thinking over the results of certain combinations which he can impose upon it, is himself a living miracle, proving that there is something beyond that mass of dead matter of which he is thinking. His very thought is in itself a contradiction to the idea that there is nothing in existence but dead matter. Science can do little positively towards the objects of this society. ”

“ If some form or some part of the life at present existing came to this earth, carried on some moss-grown stone perhaps broken away from mountains in other worlds; even if some part of the life had come in that way—for there is nothing too far-fetched in the idea, and probably some such action as that did take place, since meteors do come every day to the earth from other parts of the universe;—still, that does not in the slightest degree diminish the wonder, the tremendous miracle, we have in the commencement of life in this world. ”

“ It seems to me that even physical science absolutely demonstrates the scientific truth of these words. We feel that there is no possibility of things going on for ever as they have done for the last six thousand years. In science, as in morals and politics, there is absolutely no periodicity. One thing we may prophesy of the future for certain—it will be unlike the past. Everything is in a state of evolution and progress. ”