| The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. |
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| NUMBER: | 47667 |
| QUOTATION: | An extra-terrestrial philosopher, who had watched a single youth up to the age of twenty-one and had never come across any other human being, might conclude that it is the nature of human beings to grow continually taller and wiser in an indefinite progress towards perfection; and this generalisation would be just as well founded as the generalisation which evolutionists base upon the previous history of this planet. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), British philosopher, mathematician. A Free Man’s Worship and Other Essays, ch. 6 (1976). |
| BIOGRAPHY: | Columbia Encyclopedia. |
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| | | The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press. |
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