Man's Place In Nature.

The Known Is Finite, The Unknown Infinite; Intellectually We Stand On An Islet In The Midst Of An Illimitable Ocean Of Inexplicability. Our Business In Every Generation Is To Reclaim A Little More Land, To Add Something To The Extent And The Solidity Of Our Possessions.

The Doctrine Of Transmigration… Was A Means Of Constructing A Plausible Vindication Of The Ways Of The Cosmos To Man; … None But Very Hasty Thinkers Will Reject It On The Grounds Of Inherent Absurdity.

Mix Salt And Sand, And It Shall Puzzle The Wisest Of Men, With His Mere Natural Appliances, To Separate All The Grains Of Sand From All The Grains Of Salt; But A Shower Of Rain Will Effect The Same Object In Ten Minutes.

The Improver Of Natural Knowledge Absolutely Refuses To Acknowledge Authority, As Such. For Him, Skepticism Is The Highest Of Duties; Blind Faith The One Unpardonable Sin.

Next To Being Right In This World, The Best Of All Things Is To Be Clearly And Definitely Wrong, Because You Will Come Out Somewhere. If You Go Buzzing About Between Right And Wrong, Vibrating And Fluctuating, You Come Out Nowhere; But If You Are Absolutely And Thoroughly And Persistently Wrong, You Must, Some Of These Days, Have The Extreme Good Fortune Of Knocking Your Head Against A Fact, And That Sets You All Straight Again.