QUOTE : a mechanical cosmos: There is a – let us say – a machine. It evolved itself (I am severely scientific) out of a chaos of scraps of iron and behold! – it knits. I am horrified at the horrible work and stand appalled. I feel it ought to embroider – but it goes on knitting … And the most withering thought is that the infamous thing has made itself; made itself without thought, without conscience, without foresight, without heart. It is a tragic accident … It knits us in and it knits us out. It has knitted time, space, pain, death, corruption, despair and all the illusions – and nothing matters. I’ll admit however that to look at the remorseless process is sometimes amusing.35 Later he wrote: The machine is thinner than air and as evanescent as a flash of lightning … The ardour for reform, improvement, for virtue, for knowledge, and even for beauty is only a vain sticking up for appearances … Life knows us not and we do not know life – we don’t even know our own thoughts … Faith is a myth and belief shifts like mists on the shore.