He that would enjoy life and act with freedom must have the work of the day continually before his eyes. Not yesterday’s work, lest he fall into despair; nor tomorrow’s, lest he become a visionary not that which ends with the day, which is a worldly work; nor yet that only which remains to eternity, for by it he cannot shape his actions.
Happy is the man who can recognize in the work of today a connected portion of the work of life
and an embodiment of the work of Eternity. The foundations of his confidence are unchangeable, for he has been made a partaker of Infinity. He strenuously works out his daily enterprises because the present is given him for a possession.
Thus ought Man to be an impersonation of the divine process of nature, and to show forth the union of the infinite with the finite, not slighting his temporal existence, remembering that in it only is individual action possible; nor yet shutting out from his view that which is eternal, knowing that Time is a mystery which man cannot endure to contemplate until eternal Truth enlighten it.
– James Clerk Maxwell, paper communicated to Frederic Farrar (1854)