Thomson's views on the recent age of the world have been for some time one of my sorest troubles.

It is not the biggest, the brightest or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest.

Building a better mousetrap merely results in smarter mice.

It strikes me that all our knowledge about the structure of our Earth is very much like what an old hen would know of the hundred-acre field in a corner of which she is scratching.

Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress.

For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.

The most energetic workers I have encountered in my world travels are the vegetarian miners of Chile.