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The Firmament of Time
Loren Eiseley examines what we as a species have become in the late twentieth century. His illuminating and accessible discussion is a characteristically skillful and compelling synthesis of hard scientific theory, factual evidence, personal anecdotes, haunting reflection, and poetic prose.
183 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
63 people are currently reading
804 people want to read
About the author
Loren Eiseley
50 books314 followersLoren Corey Eiseley (September 3, 1907 – July 9, 1977) was a highly respected anthropologist, science writer, ecologist, and poet. He published books of essays, biography, and general science in the 1950s through the 1970s.
Eiseley is best known for the poetic essay style, called the "concealed essay". He used this to explain complex scientific ideas, such as human evolution, to the general public. He is also known for his writings about humanity's relationship with the natural world; these writings helped inspire the modern environmental movement.
Eiseley is best known for the poetic essay style, called the "concealed essay". He used this to explain complex scientific ideas, such as human evolution, to the general public. He is also known for his writings about humanity's relationship with the natural world; these writings helped inspire the modern environmental movement.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
May 22, 2022
The first half of this book every scientist and engineer and proponent of progress and atheist who believes "the books of science will be rewritten identically whereas the books of religion will not" needs to read. Unearned pride and cyclical error define the history of science. The latter half of the book is an astounding exploration of ethics, values, and meaning. I've never read a better writer on nature or science.
June 11, 2025
This is in every way a delightful book. Loren Eiseley takes us from the Medieval mindset where it was thought that the world was created around 6,000 years ago and walks us through all the discoveries in astronomy, geology, and natural sciences almost to the present day (Eiseley died in 1977). The Firmament of Time opens up time from its coffinlike narrowness when people took the scriptures literally to the almost dizzying changes wrought by culture and technology.
What I like about Eiseley's writings is the man's sense of wonder, which he succeeds in passing on to the reader:
What I like about Eiseley's writings is the man's sense of wonder, which he succeeds in passing on to the reader:
Man is not totally compounded of the nature we profess to understand. Man is always partly of the future, and the future he possesses a power to shape. "Natural" is a magician's word -- and like all such entities, it should be used sparingly lest there arise from it, as now, some unglimpsed, unintended world, some monstrous caricature called into being by the indiscreet articulation of worn syllables. Perhaps, if we are wise, we will prefer to stand like those forgotten humble creatures who poured little gifts of flints into a grave. Perhaps there may come to us then, in some such moment, a ghostly sense that an invisible doorway has been opened -- a doorway which, widening out, will take man beyond the nature that he knows.Reading Eiseley's work makes one feel the same way, taking us through that invisible doorway into a strange new world.
February 26, 2009
Loren Eiseley was an anthropologist, educator and natural science writer, who taught at the University of Pennsylvania. This book consists of a series of lectures Eiseley did in 1959 to honor the 100th anniversary of Darwin’s “The Origin of the Species.” They explore evolution and our relationship to time and the natural world, or rather our growing disconnectedness from both. And now, 50 years later, Eiseley's concerns have only become more troublesome. We’re even more isolated, existing in an artificial world.
Since the six lectures were written to be read aloud, they lack the poetry of his other books but they do underscore his mastery of the lecture, something of a dying art form in itself.
On Time: Eiseley laments that we have actually lost time. Lost the time we once had to explore our own thoughts. Not only are we not connected to the environment, we are rarely connected to even ourselves.
“Much of man’s attention is directed exteriorly upon the machines which now occupy most of his waking hours…In America he sits quiescent before the flickering screen in the living room while horsemen gallop across an American wilderness long vanished in the past. In the presence of so compelling an instrument, there is little opportunity in the evenings to explore his own thoughts or to participate in family living in the way that the man from the early part of the century remembers. For too many men, the exterior world with its mass-produced daydreams has become the conqueror.”
And as I sit staring at this computer monitor, I suddenly feel the overwhelming need to go outside and sit on the porch to ponder. We are the first species on our planet to become aware of who we are and our relationship to the rest of the universe and the first species hellbent on destroying ourselves. What does it all say about self-awareness?
Since the six lectures were written to be read aloud, they lack the poetry of his other books but they do underscore his mastery of the lecture, something of a dying art form in itself.
On Time: Eiseley laments that we have actually lost time. Lost the time we once had to explore our own thoughts. Not only are we not connected to the environment, we are rarely connected to even ourselves.
“Much of man’s attention is directed exteriorly upon the machines which now occupy most of his waking hours…In America he sits quiescent before the flickering screen in the living room while horsemen gallop across an American wilderness long vanished in the past. In the presence of so compelling an instrument, there is little opportunity in the evenings to explore his own thoughts or to participate in family living in the way that the man from the early part of the century remembers. For too many men, the exterior world with its mass-produced daydreams has become the conqueror.”
And as I sit staring at this computer monitor, I suddenly feel the overwhelming need to go outside and sit on the porch to ponder. We are the first species on our planet to become aware of who we are and our relationship to the rest of the universe and the first species hellbent on destroying ourselves. What does it all say about self-awareness?
January 8, 2020
Profound, poetic in its prose, and vividly entrancing.
Hearkening from 1960, this collection of essays is stated as stemming from a series of lectures that the author gave as a visiting professor of philosophy at the University of Cincinnati. As the fourth collection of essays by Dr. Eiseley that I've now read, I can say with some confidence that I continue to be thrilled with his subject matter, turn of a phrase, and overall though process which comes through on the page quite vividly.
Yes, the edition that I read is a 'first edition'. I found it in a used bookstore somewhere in the past couple of years.
Hearkening from 1960, this collection of essays is stated as stemming from a series of lectures that the author gave as a visiting professor of philosophy at the University of Cincinnati. As the fourth collection of essays by Dr. Eiseley that I've now read, I can say with some confidence that I continue to be thrilled with his subject matter, turn of a phrase, and overall though process which comes through on the page quite vividly.
Yes, the edition that I read is a 'first edition'. I found it in a used bookstore somewhere in the past couple of years.
November 23, 2024
Loren Eiseley is definitely a talented writer, with great sense of poetics and ability to turn concepts important to human species on every stage of its progress into elegantly flowing essays.
He is, however, terminally poisoned by the Enlightenment era in its North-Western iteration in particular, and while he is very well versed in it, as well as willing to admit the misgivings of this particular era of science, he still reflects the entire span of history and philosophy through this particular lens.
I see how accepting too many ideas from the outside of the main focus area would derail the flow of an essay. Still, presenting them mainly from the Enlightenment point of view is a flaw in my books.
Maybe I'm simply not the designated audience, though.
He is, however, terminally poisoned by the Enlightenment era in its North-Western iteration in particular, and while he is very well versed in it, as well as willing to admit the misgivings of this particular era of science, he still reflects the entire span of history and philosophy through this particular lens.
I see how accepting too many ideas from the outside of the main focus area would derail the flow of an essay. Still, presenting them mainly from the Enlightenment point of view is a flaw in my books.
Maybe I'm simply not the designated audience, though.
October 22, 2011
The Firmament of Time traces man's perception of nature, and his role in it, from before antiquity to the mid-Twentieth Century. Part of a 1959 lecture series at the University of Cincinnati, Eiseley's essays beautifully illustrate the evolution of modern scientific thought and how it has shaped (and continues to shape) our worldview and very human character. Eiseley never demonizes (or glorifies) past figures or schools of thought, nor presses a political agenda; his eloquent objectivism makes his work truly enlightening, begging readers to question what it means to be "natural."
December 9, 2016
Even though I have studied a lot of science and have a degree in engineering, I never really learned much about the development of science and how it has evolved over the centuries. Eiseley shows how scientific thought has evolved and broken through established belief over time. Based on a series of lectures as Visiting Professor of the Philosophy of Science at the U. of Cincinnati in 1959, it was very interesting. I also appreciated Eiseley's acceptance of the two realms of science and religion as opposed to the usual attempt to pit one against the other.
August 6, 2017
This is a short but weighty collection of lectures on nature. Best read slowly and frequently.
September 6, 2020
I am not truly sure how I came across this gem - which book list suggested that I add it some years ago to have it slowly rise to the top of my reading list. But whatever the motivation, it was divinely inspired. Loren Eiseley is a naturalist, but writes as a poet. it is not surprising that this work won the John Burroughs Medal for best publication in the field of writing - back in 1961!. Take the time to consume this brief but special book.
From the closing chapter:
"I am a man who has spent a great deal of his life on his knees, though not in prayer. I do not say this last pridefully, but with the feeling that the posture, if not the thought behind it, may have had some final salutary effect. I am a naturalist and a fossil hunter, and I have crawled most of the way through life. I have crawled downward into holes without a bottom, and upward, wedged into crevices where the wind and the birds scream at you until the sound of a falling pebble is enough to make the sick heart lurch. IN man, I know now, there is no such thing as wisdom. I have learned this with my face against the ground. It is a very difficult thing for a man to grasp today, because of his power; yet in his brain there is really only a sort of universal marsh, spotted at intervals by quaking green islands representing the elusive stability of modern science - islands frequently gone as soon as glimpsed.
It is our custom to deny this; we are men of precision, measurement and logic; we abhor the unexplainable and reject it. This, too, is a green island. We wish our lives to be one continuous growth in knowledge; indeed, we expect them to be. Yet well over a hundred years ago Kierkegaard observed that maturity consists in the discovery that "there comes a critical moment where everything is reversed, after which the point becomes to understand more and more that there is something which cannot be understood."
Highly recommend this book.
From the closing chapter:
"I am a man who has spent a great deal of his life on his knees, though not in prayer. I do not say this last pridefully, but with the feeling that the posture, if not the thought behind it, may have had some final salutary effect. I am a naturalist and a fossil hunter, and I have crawled most of the way through life. I have crawled downward into holes without a bottom, and upward, wedged into crevices where the wind and the birds scream at you until the sound of a falling pebble is enough to make the sick heart lurch. IN man, I know now, there is no such thing as wisdom. I have learned this with my face against the ground. It is a very difficult thing for a man to grasp today, because of his power; yet in his brain there is really only a sort of universal marsh, spotted at intervals by quaking green islands representing the elusive stability of modern science - islands frequently gone as soon as glimpsed.
It is our custom to deny this; we are men of precision, measurement and logic; we abhor the unexplainable and reject it. This, too, is a green island. We wish our lives to be one continuous growth in knowledge; indeed, we expect them to be. Yet well over a hundred years ago Kierkegaard observed that maturity consists in the discovery that "there comes a critical moment where everything is reversed, after which the point becomes to understand more and more that there is something which cannot be understood."
Highly recommend this book.
March 24, 2010
One of the few science books I ever found worth rereading...as much philosophy as science.
September 7, 2012
I read this book 40 years ago and it has left a lasting impression. Loren Eiseley has a web site, people like him well after he has passed away.
June 2, 2017
The first time I read through this book, I only gave it four stars. While I thought the book had lots of good history, I thought it lacked any new ideas to be presented. However, after reading back through it the second time, I realized how wonderful and insightful this book is on the modern human condition. I gave the book five stars this time. The last two chapters of the book sums up the history of the prior chapters in strong philosophical manner. In fact, I would say that the last two chapter are worth reading even if you never read the whole book. Perhaps some of the greatest insight into the modern human conditioins are found are explained in this book.
October 25, 2025
Man is at heart a romantic. He believes in
thunder, the destruction of worlds, the voice out
of the whirlwind. Perhaps the fact that he himself
is now in possession of powers wrenched from the
atom's heart has enhanced the appeal of violence
in natural events. The human generations are
short-lived. We have difficulty in visualizing the
age-long processes involved in the upheaval of
mountain systems, the advance of continental gla-
ciations or the creation of life. In fact, scarcely two
hundred years have passed since a few wary pio-
neers began to suspect that the earth might be
older than the 4004 years B.C. assigned to it by the
theologians.
A little dated, and dense, but still a good exercise for my brain! He rhapsodizes a lot about James Hutton, the founder of geology, so a link to my own passion for how geology opens the mind to the past, present and future.
Three hundred years have passed since Galileo, with the telescope, opened the enormous vista of the night. In those three centuries the phenomenal world, previously explored with the unaided senses, has undergone tremendous alteration in our minds. A misty light so remote as to be scarcely sensed by the unaided eye has become a galaxy. Under the microscope the previously unseen has become a cosmos of both beautiful and repugnant life, while the tissues of the body have been resolved into a cellular hierarchy whose constituents mysteriously produce the human personality.
Man would have vanished long ago if he had been content to exist in the wilderness of his own dreams. Instead he compromised. He accepted a world of reality, a natural, everyday, observable world in which he existed, and whose forces he utilized in order to survive. The other aspect of his mind, the mystical part seeking answers to final questions, clothed this visible world in a shimmering haze of magic. Unseen spirits moved in the wood. Today in our sophistication we smile, but we are not satisfied with the appearances of the phenomenal world around us. We wish to pierce beneath to ask the question, "Why does the universe exist?" We have learned a great deal about secondary causes, about the how of things. The why, however, eludes us, and as long as this is the case, we will have a yearning for the marvelous, the explosive event in history.
A scientist writing around the turn of this century remarked that all of the past generations of men have lived and died in a world of illusions. The unconscious irony in his observation consists in the fact that this man assumed the progress of science to have been so great that a clear vision of the world without illusion was, by his own time, possible. It is needless to add that he wrote before Einstein, before the spread of Freud's doctrines, at a time when Mendel was just about to be discovered, and before advances in the study of radioactivity had made their impact-of both illumination and confusion-upon this century.
Certainly science has moved forward. But when science progresses, it often opens vaster mysteries to our gaze. Moreover, science frequently discovers that it must abandon or modify what it once believed. Sometimes it ends by accepting what it has previously scorned. The simplistic idea that science marches undeviatingly down an ever broadening highway can scarcely be sustained by the historian of ideas. As in other human affairs, there may be prejudice, rigidity, timid evasion and sometimes inability to reorient oneself rapidly to drastic changes in world view.
Hutton, on the other hand, presents us with a quite different system than the biblical catastrophism theory. Instead of beginning with ancient catastrophes postulated upon giant tidal waves, he states with the utmost sobriety that "we are to examine the constructions of the present earth, in order to understand the natural operations of times past. The earth," he says, "like the body of an animal, is wasted at the same time that it is repaired. It has a state of growth and augmentation; it has another state, which is that of diminution and decay. This world is thus destroyed in one part, but it is renewed in another."
Across Hutton's pages pass a series of small natural operations that over long time periods erode mountains, create valleys, and that, if mountain-building processes did not counteract their effect, would bring whole continents down to sea level. He saw the bit of soil carried away by a mountain brook or a spring freshet lodge in and nourish a lower valley; he saw the wind endlessly polishing and eroding stones on the high flanks of the world.
He saw, with the marvelous all-seeing eye of Shakespeare, that "water-drops have worn the stones of Troy and blind oblivion swallowed cities up." He knew about the constant passage of water from sea to land and back again. If a leaf fell he knew where it was bound, and multiplied it mentally by ten thousand leaves in ten thousand, thousand autumns. One has the feeling that he sensed, on his remote Scottish farm, when frost split a stone on a winter night. Or when one boulder, poised precariously on a far mountain side, fell after a thousand years. For him and him alone, the water dripping from the cottagers' eaves had become Niagaras falling through unplumbed millennia.
"Nature," he wrote simply, "lives in motion." Every particle in the world was hurrying somewhere, or was so destined in the long traverse of time.
thunder, the destruction of worlds, the voice out
of the whirlwind. Perhaps the fact that he himself
is now in possession of powers wrenched from the
atom's heart has enhanced the appeal of violence
in natural events. The human generations are
short-lived. We have difficulty in visualizing the
age-long processes involved in the upheaval of
mountain systems, the advance of continental gla-
ciations or the creation of life. In fact, scarcely two
hundred years have passed since a few wary pio-
neers began to suspect that the earth might be
older than the 4004 years B.C. assigned to it by the
theologians.
A little dated, and dense, but still a good exercise for my brain! He rhapsodizes a lot about James Hutton, the founder of geology, so a link to my own passion for how geology opens the mind to the past, present and future.
Three hundred years have passed since Galileo, with the telescope, opened the enormous vista of the night. In those three centuries the phenomenal world, previously explored with the unaided senses, has undergone tremendous alteration in our minds. A misty light so remote as to be scarcely sensed by the unaided eye has become a galaxy. Under the microscope the previously unseen has become a cosmos of both beautiful and repugnant life, while the tissues of the body have been resolved into a cellular hierarchy whose constituents mysteriously produce the human personality.
Man would have vanished long ago if he had been content to exist in the wilderness of his own dreams. Instead he compromised. He accepted a world of reality, a natural, everyday, observable world in which he existed, and whose forces he utilized in order to survive. The other aspect of his mind, the mystical part seeking answers to final questions, clothed this visible world in a shimmering haze of magic. Unseen spirits moved in the wood. Today in our sophistication we smile, but we are not satisfied with the appearances of the phenomenal world around us. We wish to pierce beneath to ask the question, "Why does the universe exist?" We have learned a great deal about secondary causes, about the how of things. The why, however, eludes us, and as long as this is the case, we will have a yearning for the marvelous, the explosive event in history.
A scientist writing around the turn of this century remarked that all of the past generations of men have lived and died in a world of illusions. The unconscious irony in his observation consists in the fact that this man assumed the progress of science to have been so great that a clear vision of the world without illusion was, by his own time, possible. It is needless to add that he wrote before Einstein, before the spread of Freud's doctrines, at a time when Mendel was just about to be discovered, and before advances in the study of radioactivity had made their impact-of both illumination and confusion-upon this century.
Certainly science has moved forward. But when science progresses, it often opens vaster mysteries to our gaze. Moreover, science frequently discovers that it must abandon or modify what it once believed. Sometimes it ends by accepting what it has previously scorned. The simplistic idea that science marches undeviatingly down an ever broadening highway can scarcely be sustained by the historian of ideas. As in other human affairs, there may be prejudice, rigidity, timid evasion and sometimes inability to reorient oneself rapidly to drastic changes in world view.
Hutton, on the other hand, presents us with a quite different system than the biblical catastrophism theory. Instead of beginning with ancient catastrophes postulated upon giant tidal waves, he states with the utmost sobriety that "we are to examine the constructions of the present earth, in order to understand the natural operations of times past. The earth," he says, "like the body of an animal, is wasted at the same time that it is repaired. It has a state of growth and augmentation; it has another state, which is that of diminution and decay. This world is thus destroyed in one part, but it is renewed in another."
Across Hutton's pages pass a series of small natural operations that over long time periods erode mountains, create valleys, and that, if mountain-building processes did not counteract their effect, would bring whole continents down to sea level. He saw the bit of soil carried away by a mountain brook or a spring freshet lodge in and nourish a lower valley; he saw the wind endlessly polishing and eroding stones on the high flanks of the world.
He saw, with the marvelous all-seeing eye of Shakespeare, that "water-drops have worn the stones of Troy and blind oblivion swallowed cities up." He knew about the constant passage of water from sea to land and back again. If a leaf fell he knew where it was bound, and multiplied it mentally by ten thousand leaves in ten thousand, thousand autumns. One has the feeling that he sensed, on his remote Scottish farm, when frost split a stone on a winter night. Or when one boulder, poised precariously on a far mountain side, fell after a thousand years. For him and him alone, the water dripping from the cottagers' eaves had become Niagaras falling through unplumbed millennia.
"Nature," he wrote simply, "lives in motion." Every particle in the world was hurrying somewhere, or was so destined in the long traverse of time.
April 14, 2016
A marvelous writer that takes science, especially evolution and explore it as only a well-informed poet could do.
September 5, 2025
With every truly tremendous book experience, I always feel that complex tug of "that was amazing!" and "why didn't I read this sooner?" Which sums up my recent experience of this book. I have only encountered Eiseley's writings for the first this year, and zoomed through his book "The Immense Journey" in short order. for this book, I tried to go slowly, carefully reading only one essay at time, which was hard.
Eiseley was by formal training an anthropologist. Like any truly great writer, any single label feels disrespectful, maybe ludicrous. He had the naturalists eye as good as any, and an awe and passion for nature that flavors all his writing. In some ways I think of Eiseley as a twentieth century Emerson, older, wiser, sadder. He remains an eminently readable philosopher (which is more than can be said about many philosophers) and his own well-read background infuses his writings.
Perhaps most importantly, he can weave story, fact, and musing with a poetic force that is incomparable. Again, I think of Emerson, but more brooding, more sublime, more Melvillian. like Moby-Dick, passages of this book game me literal shivers (rare, for a reader of my disposition) and Nietzsche- like, I found myself reading sentences or paragraphs over and over, trying to hold them in my mind, wanting to memorize pages.
I see I have not written at all yet about this particular book.
The details are already fuzzy in my mind, but i think it is adapted by the author from a series of lectures he gave. Generally, this book is a history of natural history. Essay titles-How the World Became Natural, How Death Became Natural, How Life Became Natural, How Human is Man? How Natural is "Natural"? In each essay Eiseley elucidates the development of ideas and perspectives, the slow grown awareness that science brought to life. Part social commentary, part disciplinary critique, this book uses phrases and imagery that I didn't know well bred scientists were supposed to use.
Eiseley makes me want to go outdoors to stare inwards, and to hope to see in myself what he saw in the world.
I will read this book again.
Eiseley was by formal training an anthropologist. Like any truly great writer, any single label feels disrespectful, maybe ludicrous. He had the naturalists eye as good as any, and an awe and passion for nature that flavors all his writing. In some ways I think of Eiseley as a twentieth century Emerson, older, wiser, sadder. He remains an eminently readable philosopher (which is more than can be said about many philosophers) and his own well-read background infuses his writings.
Perhaps most importantly, he can weave story, fact, and musing with a poetic force that is incomparable. Again, I think of Emerson, but more brooding, more sublime, more Melvillian. like Moby-Dick, passages of this book game me literal shivers (rare, for a reader of my disposition) and Nietzsche- like, I found myself reading sentences or paragraphs over and over, trying to hold them in my mind, wanting to memorize pages.
I see I have not written at all yet about this particular book.
The details are already fuzzy in my mind, but i think it is adapted by the author from a series of lectures he gave. Generally, this book is a history of natural history. Essay titles-How the World Became Natural, How Death Became Natural, How Life Became Natural, How Human is Man? How Natural is "Natural"? In each essay Eiseley elucidates the development of ideas and perspectives, the slow grown awareness that science brought to life. Part social commentary, part disciplinary critique, this book uses phrases and imagery that I didn't know well bred scientists were supposed to use.
Eiseley makes me want to go outdoors to stare inwards, and to hope to see in myself what he saw in the world.
I will read this book again.
June 15, 2017
At the end of the third lecture, Eiseley gives us a fairly representative burst of prose: “On my office wall is a beautiful photograph of a slow loris with round, enormous eyes set in the spectral face of a night-haunter…Sometimes when I am very tired I can think myself into the picture until I am wrapped securely in a warm coat with a fine black stripe down my spine…At such times a great peace settles on me, and with the office door closed, I can sleep as lemurs sleep tonight, huddled high in the great trees of two continents. Let the storms blow through the streets of cities; the root is safe, the many-faced animal of which we are one flashing and evanescent facet will not pass with us. When the last seared hand has flung the last grenade, an older version of that hand will be stroking a clinging youngster hidden in its fur, high up under some autumn moon.”
I first read The Immense Journey during my sophomore year of college (1970) and was struck by the Gibbon-esque language. I’ve read the monograph a-half-dozen-times since, and decided that I’d try some of his later works. The Firmament of Time is a collection of lectures published three years later. By the fifth lecture, I was beginning to feel that the language was ossifying Eiseley’s concept—not irreparably, but enough to introduce the distraction.
As most cross-discipline professors of his era, Eiseley seems to adhere to a Cultivation of the Intellect educational philosophy. This has allowed him the depth needed to produce remarkable works, but it also allows him to hide in his own prose. The difference between the third and fifth lecture seems to be the service of prose to a living concept. I’ve always enjoyed the interesting concepts of speculative fiction, but never appreciated how important they can be in driving the prose of inspired writers.
I first read The Immense Journey during my sophomore year of college (1970) and was struck by the Gibbon-esque language. I’ve read the monograph a-half-dozen-times since, and decided that I’d try some of his later works. The Firmament of Time is a collection of lectures published three years later. By the fifth lecture, I was beginning to feel that the language was ossifying Eiseley’s concept—not irreparably, but enough to introduce the distraction.
As most cross-discipline professors of his era, Eiseley seems to adhere to a Cultivation of the Intellect educational philosophy. This has allowed him the depth needed to produce remarkable works, but it also allows him to hide in his own prose. The difference between the third and fifth lecture seems to be the service of prose to a living concept. I’ve always enjoyed the interesting concepts of speculative fiction, but never appreciated how important they can be in driving the prose of inspired writers.
December 18, 2024
Another profound book by one of my favorite scientists/philosophers/wordsmiths. This volume explores time and "Nature." Nature in this case is the word used by philosophers, religious leaders, and others to mean that which is common to all, the foundation to living as one should. However, the vocabularic meaning of "Nature" has changed over time; what "Nature" means today is not the same as in times past. Eiseley explores these changes in perspective over time with chapters titled "How the World Became Natural," "How Death Became Natural." "How Life Became Natural," and "How Man Became Natural." To illustrate, the idea that humans evolved from other species rather than as a unique creation of god is "How Man Became Natural."
Eisely then goes on to reflect on "How Human is Man?," and "How Natural is Nature?" I found his essay on "How Human is Man" particularly thought-provoking and well worth more than one re-read.
Caveat: The Firmament of Time was published in 1960. Consequently from time to time in Eislely's writings one comes across scientific views that are outdated. This is not surprising given that by its very nature scientific observations and theories change sometimes fairly rapidly.
Eisely then goes on to reflect on "How Human is Man?," and "How Natural is Nature?" I found his essay on "How Human is Man" particularly thought-provoking and well worth more than one re-read.
Caveat: The Firmament of Time was published in 1960. Consequently from time to time in Eislely's writings one comes across scientific views that are outdated. This is not surprising given that by its very nature scientific observations and theories change sometimes fairly rapidly.
April 6, 2018
Far from the beauty and wonder of Eiseley's book, The Immense Journey, Firmament of Time paints a much darker picture. Eiseley examines man's view of time, through time, and its nature. He points out how man's point of view on the power, existence, and length of time was determined strongly by the beliefs, mostly religious and mostly Christian, of their time and how only a few broke through the necessary barriers. Over time man has learned to stay away from ideas like Eden and even God, but has, since that transition, lost his soul. The very definition of Nature is changing all the time by our outlook on time itself. The more vast Time becomes the more outward man looks, becoming ever more knowledgeable but losing more and more wisdom every step of the way. Is man any longer Natural or does he simply get to determine what that is by belittling miracles simply as Natural. Eiseley was scared for mankind when he wrote this book and the reader will feel it. As in The Immense Journey, Firmament of Time has poetry, a talent Eiseley cannot escape. I recomend this book to science lovers, philosophers, and those who also worry where mankind is heading and why.
February 20, 2021
Forty years after reading this book for the first time I think it meant even more to me this time. Time is a strange and mysterious concept as is this very human existence and there is something very special in how Eiseley merges scientific truth with man’s relationship with the unseen, his grappling with religious tradition and the humanity in the arts. To think that the lectures these writings were based on were given in 1959, the year I was born, is really amazing in that speaks so directly to me right now.
January 31, 2021
I wish this (or at least the first four chapters) had been required reading back in high school. The way the book combines scientific and historical awe with a firm refusal to engage in scientific or historical hero-worship is worthwhile in and of itself, but then, on top of that, Eiseley's writing is just dazzling. The last two essays are less a history of science and more polemic / philosophical. I appreciated them just as much now but I wouldn't recommend them to my high school self.
November 13, 2022
Spectacular! I loved this. Eiselys writing is sublime and mercurial, seamlessly moving between being beautiful and captivating to ethereal and terrifying. He feels like a man who knew too much. Often the writing reminded me of Cormac McCarthy and I feel the two would have got along very well.
There are parts of this book I will return too in the future.
There are parts of this book I will return too in the future.
April 27, 2023
Coming out in 1960 and showing its age in some ways, I think some of what Eiseley says about evolution might be a bit different if written today. But that’s beside the point as the book isn’t really about how evolution operates. What he has to say about the development of scientific thinking regarding the past and where that leaves us today are still timely.
March 12, 2022
This was a hard book to rate. There were parts I really enjoyed but they were sandwiched between pages I had to trudge though. I feel he could’ve said the same things in a long essay instead of a short book.
August 3, 2024
A whole philosophy of being and curiosity is embedded in these lectures, which increase in tempo and actual, honest-to-god grandeur as they progress. Readings that justify the use of the word inspirational. Everything Loren Eiseley has written is worth reading, but these are truly special.
December 3, 2019
About halfway the author discards recalling the collective journey of mankinds scientific discovery and transcends to some absolutely sublime poetic writing.
May 13, 2020
If you don't enjoy this book you might wish to consider not reading at all.
February 9, 2021
"I am the unfolding worm, and mud fish, the weird tree of Igdrasil shaping itself endlessly out of the darkness toward the light."
July 29, 2021
astonishing. going to read portions again to dig deeper
January 30, 2023
Whenever I read Eisley, I learn new things and am entertained at the same time. He uses a combination of Science History, references from other writers and personal experiences. Highly recommended.
May 19, 2023
Nature/philosophy/religion - modern version of Thoreau?
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