Passages

“It is preposterous to suppose that the people of one generation can lay down the best and only rules of government for those who are to come after them, and under unforeseen contingencies. At the time of the framing of the Constitution the only physical forces that had been subdued and made to serve man and do his labor, were the currents in the streams and the air we breathe. Rude machinery, propelled by water power, had been invented; sails to propel ships upon the waters had been set to catch the passing breeze—but the application of steam to propel vessels against both wind and current, and machinery to do all manner of work had not been thought of. The instantaneous transmission of messages around the world by means of electricity would probably at that day have been attributed to witchcraft or a league with the Devil.” —U. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, 1885

“The question of questions for mankind—the problem which underlies all others and is more deeply interesting than any other —is the ascertainment of the place which man occupies in nature and of his relations to the universe of things. Whence our race has come; what are the limits of our power over nature and of nature's power over us; to what goal we are tending; are the problems which present themselves anew and with undiminished interest to every man born into the world.” -Thomas Huxley