“But nature could not and cannot ever be constrained into self-improvement by sporadic or even endemic or epidemic cases of slow or swift suicide and slaughter, so long as the premature extinction of the whole human race was not and is not seriously threatened. Threaten this seriously, and she will forthwith become our most obedient humble servant. This is the forcible plan of "strikes" by labour against capital, applied in its utmost extension by man against nature; as you have already mere trades'-unions, organise a universal Man-union, and threaten, if all your demands are not immediately granted, to "strike" living, to "turn out" of human existence, and you will at once bring- the everlasting employer to reason.”

— James Thomson (B.V.)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part VII, p. 92
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

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James Thomson (B.V.) 26

Scottish writer (1834-1882) 1834–1882

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“Cromwell: You don't seem to appreciate the seriousness of your position.
More: I defy anyone to live in that cell for a year and not appreciate the seriousness of his position.
Cromwell: Yet the State has harsher punishments.
More: You threaten like a dockside bully.
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More: Like a Minister of State, with justice!
Cromwell: Oh, justice is what you're threatened with.
More: Then I'm not threatened.”

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“No honest historian can take part with — or against — the forces he has to study. To him even the extinction of the human race should be merely a fact to be grouped with other vital statistics.”

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“Experience, the interpreter between formative nature and the human race, teaches how that nature acts among mortals; and being constrained by necessity cannot act otherwise than as reason, which is its helm, requires her to act.”

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James Thomson (B.V.) 26

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