Loren Eiseley's "The Invisible Pyramid"

   

When he died at the age of 69 in 1970, anthropologist, philosopher, and natural science writer Loren Eiseley had already become respected as a twentieth century version of Henry David Thoreau.  Toward the end of his career, he focused increasingly on the impact of human civilization on the world around us—the living nature in which human civilization developed. 

            In 1970, a volume of Eiseley’s essays, The Invisible Pyramid, was published.  One of the essays, “The Time Effacers,” examines Eiseley’s view of the rise of modern science, which he describes as “. . . an increasingly time-conscious, future-oriented society of great technical skill, which has fallen out of balance with the natural world around it.” (p. 70)   He defines the rise of a scientific society as “a society of constant expectations directed toward the upcoming future.  What we have is always second best, what we expect to have is ‘progress.’  What we seek, in the end, is Utopia.” (ibid.)

            As I write this, Eiseley’s work is more than a half-century in the past.  In many ways, the issues he raised in 1970 are still with us, and the impact of our Industrial Revolution—from polluted rivers and air to global climate change—is becoming clearer as its products become intertwined with those of the Technological Revolution that has been underway since before his death.   “In the extravagant pursuit of a future projected by science,” he wrote, “we have left the present to shift for itself.” (p. 71).  Science, “as it leads men further and further from the first world they inhabited, the world we call natural, is beguiling them into a new and unguessed domain.” (ibid.)

He concludes, “When man becomes greater than nature, nature, which gave him birth, will respond.  She has dealt with the locust swarm and she has led the lemmings down to the sea.  Even the world eaters will not be beyond her capacities.  Sila, as the Eskimo call nature, remains apart from mankind “just as long as men do not abuse life.” (p. 80)

Note:  My quotations from The Invisible Pyramid are taken from Volume Two of the Library of America’s Loren Eiseley: Collected Essays on Evolution, Nature, and the Cosmos.

The Constitution as Law

  

 

Heather Cox Richardson recently posted an item about the roots of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Here is a quote from her post:

 

In response, Congress reiterated that the law must treat all men equally. It passed the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution and sent it off to the states for ratification. The states added it to the Constitution in 1868. The Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed that ‘No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’

This amendment protects U.S. citizens from legal abuse.  It ALSO protects “any person” of being deprived “of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. . .”

This is a very important reminder of our nation’s commitment to government that guarantees fair treatment of all people before the law.  Anyone who does not honor the Fourteenth Amendment in this situation is disobeying the Constitution itself—I would call that a serious crime.

The government must require ALL federal employees—including Presidential appointees who lead government agencies—to obey the Constitution and to accept the Constitution as law that applies to all people in the U.S. and to ensure that their employees follow the law as articulated in the Constitution.

A Booksy Start to 2026

 

It was a very booksy Christmas at our house this year. 

I got three history books:

            History Matters, a collection of writing by David McCullough, with a forward by Jon Meacham, that illustrates the importance of history in shaping, as McCullough writes, “what we believe in, what we stand for, and what we ought to be willing to stand up for” (p. 3).  I look forward to reading it.

            A Short History of the World in 50 Failures by Ben Gazur, who looks at failures across history, from ancient times to the modern world, that have shaped history.

            Mark Twain, new 1000+ page biography of one of America’s greatest writers by Pulitzer Prize winning historian Ron Chernow.  

My son gave me the Mark Twain biography and was surprised to get a copy for himself from his uncle.

But the real surprise was “The Greatest Sentence Ever Written.”  I already had a copy, but got a new one from my son.  I also gave one to my brother-in-law; who gave one to my son.

 Let the winter weather rage, I have good books to keep me busy!