“This day I completed my thirty first year… I reflected that I had yet done but little, very little indeed, to further the happiness of the human race, or to advance the information of the succeeding generation.

I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now sorely feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended.”

He resolved: ”In future, to live for mankind, as I have heretofore lived for myself.”