We can trace back our existence almost to a point. Former time presents us with trains of thoughts gradually diminishing to nothing. But our ideas of futurity are perpetually expanding. Our desires and our hopes, even when modified by our fears, seem to grasp at immensity. This alone would be sufficient to prove the progressiveness of our nature, and that this little earth is but a point from which we start toward a perfection of being.

The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart....: Memoirs of the life of Sir Humphry Davy, by his brother, John Davy (ed. 1839)