PART II: Classic Quotations COMPILED by CONNIE BARLOW
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PART II: Classic Quotations COMPILED BY CONNIE BARLOW PRE 1950 live; a sense of wonder over the magnitude 1970’s and duration of the biotic enterprise.” “Does organized existence, and per- — ALDO LEOPOLD, 1949 “‘Look,’he said, waving a hand toward haps all material existence, consist of one A Sand County Almanac the street,‘every culture in the world has Proteus principle of life capable of grad- a built-in clock, but in what other culture ual circumstance-suited modifications and than ours has time been discovered to aggregations, without bound under the contain novelty? In what other culture solvent or motion-giving principle,heat or 1950’s & 1960’s would leaves, these yellow falling leaves, light? There is more beauty and unity of be said to be emergent and not eternal?’ design in this continual balancing of life “Is evolution a theory, a system, or a ‘Evolutionary time,’ I added, ‘the time of to circumstance, and greater conformity hypothesis? It is much more: it is a gener- the world-eaters—ourselves.’” to those dispositions of nature which are al condition to which all theories, all LOREN EISELEY, 1970 manifest to us, than in total destruction hypotheses, all systems must bow and The Invisible Pyramid and new creation.” which they must satisfy henceforward if — PATRICK MATTHEW, 1831 they are to be thinkable and true. Naval Timber and Arboriculture Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow.” “There is a grandeur in this view of — PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, life, with its several powers, having been 1955/59 originally breathed into a few forms or The Phenomenon of Man into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed “As a result of a thousand million years law of gravity, from so simple a beginning of evolution, the universe is becoming endless forms most beautiful and most conscious of itself, able to understand wonderful have been, and are being, something of its past history and its pos- evolved.” sible future. This cosmic self-awareness is — CHARLES DARWIN, 1859 being realized in one tiny fragment of the The Origin of Species,first edition universe — in a few of us human beings. Perhaps it has been realized elsewhere “Educationalists in general agree that too, through the evolution of conscious imagination is important, but they would living creatures on the planets of other have it cultivated as separate from intelli- stars. But on this our planet, it has never gence, just as they would separate the lat- happened before.” ter from the activity of the hand.They are — JULIAN HUXLEY, 1957 the vivisectionists of the human personal- New Bottles for New Wine ity. In the school they want children to learn dry facts of reality, while their imag- “For the first time in four billion years a ination is cultivated by fairy tales, con- living creature had contemplated himself cerned with a world that is certainly full and heard with a sudden, unaccountable of marvels, but not the world around loneliness, the whisper of the wind in the “In the beginning there was light; them in which they live. On the other night reeds. Perhaps he knew,there in the then a dark cloud appeared, and made hand,by offering the child the story of the grass by the chill waters,that he had before the sun and earth. The earth grew universe, we give him something a thou- him an immense journey. Perhaps that warmer; its body exhaled moisture and sand times more infinite and mysterious same foreboding still troubles the hearts of gases; water collected on the surface; to reconstruct with his imagination, a the those who walk out of a crowded soon the first molecules struggled across drama no fable can reveal.” room and stare with relief into the abyss of the threshold of life. Some survived; oth- — MARIA MONTESSORI, 1948 space so long as there is a star to be seen ers perished; and the law of Darwin To Educate the Human Potential. twinkling across those miles of emptiness.” began its work.The pressures of the envi- — LOREN EISELEY, 1957 ronment acted ceaselessly, and the forms “It is a century now since Darwin gave The Immense Journey of life changed and became more com- us the first glimpse of the origin of species. plex. Until today, when humans stand on We know now what was unknown to all “The universe is an evolving product the earth.Intelligent,self-aware,we alone the preceding caravan of generations: that of an evolutionary process. It is not an among all creatures on earth have the [people] are only fellow voyagers with accident; it is an enterprise.” curiosity to ask: How did I come into other creatures in the odyssey of evolu- — THEODOSIUS DOBZHANSKY, 1966 being? What forces created me? And,guid- tion. This new knowledge should have Zygon 1 (4) ed by our scientific knowledge, we come given us, by this time, a sense of kinship- to the realization that we were created with fellow creatures; a wish to live and let out of all that came before us. In a fifteen- Spring 1998 1 Our Heritage billion-year drama, the Universe has the story provides the proper setting for things. We shall gain a wider, integrated evolved from its fiery formless begin- the teachings of all traditions, showing the knowledge of stars and galaxies, plants nings into a complex tapestry inhabited true magnitude of their central truths.” and animals, air, land, and sea. In particu- by beings able to contemplate their long — “THOMAS” IN BRIAN SWIMME, 1984 lar, we shall learn how living organisms cosmic history.” The Universe Is a Green Dragon evolved the expertise to invade the land, — ROBERT JASTROW, 1977 generate language, create culture, devise Until the Sun Dies “We cannot produce ourselves and science, explore space, and even study must value the system that has. But the themselves. In short, we are now striving “The evolutionary epic is probably the systemic source cannot reflectively evalu- to frame a heritage—a cosmic heritage— best myth we will ever have.” ate what it has produced; only we can. In a sweeping structure of understanding — EDWARD O. WILSON, 1978 humans, an evolutionary ecosystem based on events of the past, an intellectu- On Human Nature becomes conscious of itself.” al road map identified and embraced by — HOLMES ROLSTON III, 1986 humans of the present, indeed a virtual “A new creation story has evolved in Philosophy Gone Wild blueprint for survival if adopted by our the secular scientific community, the descendants of the future.” equivalent in modern times to the cre- “Can the materialistic evolutionary — ERIC CHAISSON, 1987 ation stories of antiquity. This creation epic—in its mythic dimension—restore a The Life Era story differs from the traditional Eurasian sense of at-homeness and human signifi- creation stories much more than these cance? The purpose of myth is not just to “A principal characteristic of human differ from each other. It seems destined provide a so-called objective understand- life is that it develops into biography. In to become the universal story taught to ing of ourselves and the world we live in; that sense, humans do not want their val- every child who receives formal educa- it is also to provide a sense of personal ues in nature, any more than they want tion in the modern form anywhere in the meaning and worth, moral direction, other goods in life, to come seriatum, like world. By means of this story the new morale in periods of life crises, and moti- beads on a string—intrinsic goods with- paradigm of the human is established. vation and power to overcome the worst out meaningful interconnection. Humans With its support we can awaken in the in us and realize the best. Can scientific want a storied residence in nature where morning and know where we are.We can materialism—as myth—do this?” the passage of time integrates past, pre- answer the questions of our children. We — KARL PETERS, 1986 sent, and future in a meaningful career.… can interpret suffering, integrate knowl- Zygon 21 (3) The evolutionary epic … is now consum- edge,guide education. We can have a con- mated in environmental ethics.” text in which life can function in a mean- — HOLMES ROLSTON III, 1988 ingful way.” Environmental Ethics — THOMAS BERRY, 1978 Teilhard Studies (1) “We have a new story of the universe. Our own presence to the universe depends on our human identity with the entire cosmic process. In its human 1980’s expression the universe and the entire range of earthly and heavenly phenomena “We are the local embodiment of a celebrate themselves and the ultimate Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have mystery of their existence in a special begun to contemplate our origins: exaltation. Science has given us a new starstuff pondering the stars; organized revelatory experience. It is now giving us assemblages of ten billion billion billion a new intimacy with the Earth.” atoms considering the evolution of atoms; — THOMAS BERRY, 1988 tracing the long journey by which,here at The Dream of the Earth least, consciousness arose.” — CARL SAGAN, 1980 “I am convinced that the story of the Cosmos universe that has come out of three cen- turies of modern scientific work will be “The creation story unfurling within recognized as a supreme human achieve- the scientific enterprise provides the fun- ment, the scientific enterprise’s central damental context, the fundamental arena gift to humanity. For the first time in of meaning,for all the peoples of the Earth.