“Hutton became very critical of a system where appointments depended not on merit but on the support of those in power. Of one possible opening for Watt he wrote, ‘I think it only needs to have a man properly bestir himself but that is what few political people do unless to serve themselves.”

Source: Ages in Chaos (2003), Chapter 11, “The power of heat is unlimited” (p. 105)

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Stephen Baxter55

author 1957

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