Even if a case can be made for the claim that the world had a beginning in time, we are not entitled to infer that it was created. For it might have begun spontaneously. It may seem odd that it should have done so; 'but there is no law of nature to the effect that things which seem odd to us must not happen'.
--Redacted from A History of Philosophy by Frederick Copleston, Volume 8, pages 481-482. The quote is from Bertrand Russell's The Scientific Outlook, 1931, page 122.
