Lectures on Evolution

We live in and form part of a system of things of immense diversity

and perplexity, which we call Nature; and it is a matter of the

deepest interest to all of us that we should form just conceptions of

the constitution of that system and of its past history. With relation

to this universe, man is, in extent, little more than a mathematical

point; in duration but a fleeting shadow; he is a mere reed shaken

in the winds of force. But as Pascal long ago remarked, although a

mere reed, he is a thinking reed; and in virtue of that wonderful

capacity of thought, he has the power of framing for himself a

symbolic conception of the universe, which, although doubtless

highly imperfect and inadequate as a picture of the great whole, is

yet sufficient to serve him as a chart for the guidance of his

practical affairs. It has taken long ages of toilsome and often

fruitless labour to enable man to look steadily at the shifting scenes

of the phantasmagoria of Nature, to notice what is fixed among her

fluctuations, and what is regular among her apparent irregularities;

and it is only comparatively lately, within the last few centuries,

that the conception of a universal order and of a definite course of

things, which we term the course of Nature, has emerged.