GEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE — HAWKINS 257 



period" requires the myopic vision of an archeologist ; it is too near 

 and too small to focus clearly on a geologist's retina. Secondly, the 

 world was a "going concern," with successive waves of prolific popu- 

 lation, for vast periods of time before the appearance of mankind. 

 Thirdly, and perhaps most significantly, throughout the whole 

 sequence of these incalculable ages, physical, chemical, and biological 

 laws have remained the same. A rhythmic orderliness pervades the 

 trivial and ephemeral details of the earth's history — without it all 

 scientific endeavor would be in vain. 



This is a very different view from that prevalent but a few gener- 

 ations ago; and since it is, as far as it goes, demonstrably true, the 

 old ideas must be wrong. They served their purpose in the childhood 

 of mankind ; but now that we are growing into intelligent adolescents, 

 with a glorious prospect of new truths to be learned, they are out of 

 date and must be put away. It is grievously hard to discard a dis- 

 proved theory, but much more difficult to get free from the philo- 

 sophical deductions that sprang from it. When the theory is based on 

 self-esteem, and the philosophy designed to justify conceit, conversion 

 becomes painful in the extreme. Some, blinded by prejudice, employ 

 the childish ruse of denying the truth offhand, in the pathetic hope 

 that truth is destructible. Others, more circumspect but even less 

 respectable, ignore the facts even when they see them, or pretend that 

 they have no bearing on their philosophy of life. Others again, in- 

 tellectually convinced but emotionally hide-bound, strive to force the 

 old beliefs into the new container. 



Most of us believe, and almost all pretend, that the world, and 

 indeed the universe, was devised expressly for our convenience. Per- 

 haps a thief may consider that the trinkets he purloins were made for 

 him to steal ; but was that the jeweler's original intention ? One can 

 but gasp at the effrontery of a person who considers, for example, that 

 the coal measures were laid down in far-seeing preparation for human 

 needs. If for a moment one grants that preposterously egotistic 

 assumption, what is to be said of the millions of tons of coal that 

 were destroyed by denudation long before their rightful owner was 

 ready to use them? Indeed, when arguments of this sort are 

 employed (and they are usually the stock-in-trade of those most seri- 

 ously anxious to give reverence where it is due), the result is a 

 dilemma from which blasphemy affords the sole escape. Philosophy 

 is the clothing of truth ; a baby's vest is inadequate and indecent on 

 an adolescent. 



We must reconcile ourselves, and our philosophies, to the fact that 

 from the world's standpoint we have only just arrived. Although 

 during our brief career we have made an unconscionable mess of parts 

 of its surface, the globe continues to revolve unperturbed, and we 



