George Gabriel Stokes > Quotes

“But we have reason to think that the annihilation of work is no less a physical impossibility than its creation, that is, than perpetual motion.”
― George Gabriel Stokes

“[E]volution is not a cause, but the description of a process … Can we in any way explain the origin of species? Are we to suppose that each species, or what we regard as a species, originated in the fiat of an almighty power? Or are we to suppose that we are to go indefinitely backwards, and affirm that a chain of secondary causation is to be continued indefinitely backwards? … The treatment of evolution as a cause, capable of leading us on indefinitely, tends to shut out the idea of a First Cause; its treatment as a possible mode of sequence, leading us a step or two onwards, still leaves the mind directed towards a First Cause, though ‘Clouds and darkness are round about Him.’ [cf. Psalm 97] … Remember, Evolution does not mean a cause.”
― George Gabriel Stokes, Memoir and Scientific Correspondence of the Late Sir George Gabriel Stokes, Bart;, Sc; D., LL. D., D. C. L., Past Pres; R. S, Vol. 2