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.