Page 6 (1/2)

Part I Of Time And Space Introduction

As we trace the developes, it seelory and victory; of the developof cities and of civilizations; of the triu out to sea and space

But increasing knowledge leads not to conquest only, but to utter defeat as well, for one learns not only of new po tentialities, but also of new limitations An explorer may discover a new continent, but he may also stumble over the world's end

And it is so withspecies by our power over the inaniuished from them also by our abject defeat by the inanimate universe, for we alone have learned of defeat

Consider that no other species (as far as we know) can possess our concept of time An animal may remember, but surely it can have no notion of "past" and certainly not of "future"

No non-hu but the present moment No non-human creature can foresee the inevita bility of its own death Only man is mortal, in the sense that only man is aware that he is mortal

Robert Bums said it better in his poem To a Mouve

He addresses theto it for the disaster he has brought upon it, and re it fatalistically that "The- best-laid scheley"

But then, in a final soul-chilling stanza (too often lost in the glare of the ets to the real nub of the poem and says:

"Still thou art blest compar'd wi' me!

"The present only toucheth thee:

"But oh, I backward cast my e'e

"On prospects drear!

"An' forward tho' I canna see,

"I guess an' fear!"

Soress of evolution frorasped at the notion that so crea ture died at last, our proto-philosopher could not help but notice, and the great realization somehoned upon him that he himself would do so, too If death must come to all life, it must come to himself as well, and ahead of him he saorld's end

We talk often about the discovery of fire, which marked man off from all the rest of creation Yet the discovery of death', is surely just as unique anda force in man's upward climb

The details of both discoveries are lost forever in the shrouded and i of pre-history, but they appear in myths The discovery of fire is celebrated most famously in the Greek myth of Pro race of man