APRIL QUERY: Wonder and Deep Sea Diving

So far as we can tell from our present knowledge, life has come into existence only twice in all the cosmos-- upon Mars and upon the Earth. The latter was a momentous occasion and of infinitely greater import to us than any other-- except one.

This exception I call the First Wonderer; and it has become very real to me since I saw the expression on the face of a man, sculptured in bronze, squatting in the center of the great drawing room of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. He is half-seated, half-crouched, and with two flints he has just struck a spark. But the expression in his face is not amazement at the flash, not astonishment at something new, not mental adumbration of future possible uses-- but a struggling wonder at the half-realization that he knows he is wondering.

From "Thoughts on Diving" by William Beebe, as published by Harper's Monthly Magazine in April, 1933.