"There is grandeur in this view of life... that... from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

Charles Darwin, On The Origin of Species

"I like to think of the possible shape of the future brooding in mice, just as it brooded once in a rather ordinary mousy insectivore who became a man. It leaves a nice fine indeterminate sense of wonder that even an electronic brain hasn't got, because you know perfectly well that if an electronic brain changes, it will be bacause of something man has done to it. A certain scale of time and a ghostly intangible thing called change are ticking in him. Powers and potentials like the oak in the seed, or a red and awful ruin. Either way, its impressive; and the mouse has it too."

Loren Eiseley, "The Bird and the Machine" in The Star Thrower