Humans “very existence is an accident, their story a brief and transitory episode in the life of one of the meanest of planets [comment Brian Cox?]… famine, disease, and mutual slaughter, fit nurses of the future lords of creation, have gradually evolved, after infinite travail, a race with conscience enough to feel that it is vile and intelligence enough to know that it is insignificant”:

Arthur J Balfour, Foundations of Belief (1895)