{"product_id":"2940015735291","title":"TIME AND TIDE","description":"LECTURE I.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is my privilege to address you this afternoon on a subject in which\u003cbr\u003escience and poetry are blended in a happy conjunction. If there be a\u003cbr\u003epeculiar fascination about the earlier chapters of any branch of\u003cbr\u003ehistory, how great must be the interest which attaches to that most\u003cbr\u003eprimeval of all terrestrial histories which relates to the actual\u003cbr\u003ebeginnings of this globe on which we stand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn our efforts to grope into the dim recesses of this awful past, we\u003cbr\u003ewant the aid of some steadfast light which shall illumine the dark\u003cbr\u003eplaces without the treachery of the will-o'-the-wisp. In the absence\u003cbr\u003eof that steadfast light, vague conjectures as to the beginning of\u003cbr\u003ethings could never be entitled to any more respect than was due to\u003cbr\u003emere matters of speculation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOf late, however, the required light has been to some considerable\u003cbr\u003eextent forthcoming, and the attempt has been made, with no little\u003cbr\u003esuccess, to elucidate a most interesting and wonderful chapter of an\u003cbr\u003eexceedingly remote history. To chronicle this history is the object of\u003cbr\u003ethe present lectures before this Institution.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFirst, let us be fully aware of the extraordinary remoteness of that\u003cbr\u003eperiod of which our history treats. To attempt to define that period\u003cbr\u003echronologically would be utterly futile. When we have stated that it\u003cbr\u003eis more ancient than almost any other period which we can discuss, we\u003cbr\u003ehave expressed all that we are really entitled to say. Yet this\u003cbr\u003econveys not a little. It directs us to look back through all the ages\u003cbr\u003eof modern human history, through the great days of ancient Greece and\u003cbr\u003eRome, back through the times when Egypt and Assyria were names of\u003cbr\u003erenown, through the days when Nineveh and Babylon were mighty and\u003cbr\u003epopulous cities in the zenith of their glory. Back earlier still to\u003cbr\u003ethose more ancient nations of which we know hardly anything, and\u003cbr\u003estill earlier to the prehistoric man, of whom we know less; back,\u003cbr\u003efinally, to the days when man first trod on this planet, untold ages\u003cbr\u003eago. Here is indeed a portentous retrospect from most points of view,\u003cbr\u003ebut it is only the commencement of that which our subject suggests.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor man is but the final product of the long anterior ages during\u003cbr\u003ewhich the development of life seems to have undergone an exceedingly\u003cbr\u003egradual elevation. Our retrospect now takes its way along the vistas\u003cbr\u003eopened up by the geologists. We look through the protracted tertiary\u003cbr\u003eages, when mighty animals, now generally extinct, roamed over the\u003cbr\u003econtinents. Back still earlier through those wondrous secondary\u003cbr\u003eperiods, where swamps or oceans often covered what is now dry land,\u003cbr\u003eand where mighty reptiles of uncouth forms stalked and crawled and\u003cbr\u003eswam through the old world and the new. Back still earlier through\u003cbr\u003ethose vitally significant ages when the sunbeams were being garnered\u003cbr\u003eand laid aside for man's use in the great forests, which were\u003cbr\u003eafterwards preserved by being transformed into seams of coal. Back\u003cbr\u003estill earlier through endless thousands of years, when lustrous\u003cbr\u003efishes abounded in the oceans; back again to those periods\u003cbr\u003echaracterized by the lower types of life; and still earlier to that\u003cbr\u003eincredibly remote epoch when life itself began to dawn on our\u003cbr\u003eawakening globe. Even here the epoch of our present history can hardly\u003cbr\u003ebe said to have been reached. We have to look through a long\u003cbr\u003esuccession of ages still antecedent. The geologist, who has hitherto\u003cbr\u003eguided our view, cannot render us much further assistance; but the\u003cbr\u003ephysicist is at hand--he teaches us that the warm globe on which life\u003cbr\u003eis beginning has passed in its previous stages through every phase of\u003cbr\u003ewarmth, of fervour, of glowing heat, of incandescence, and of actual\u003cbr\u003efusion; and thus at last our retrospect reaches to that particular\u003cbr\u003eperiod of our earth's past history which is specially illustrated by\u003cbr\u003ethe modern doctrine of Time and Tide.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe present is the clue to the past. It is the steady application of\u003cbr\u003ethis principle which has led to such epoch-making labours as those by\u003cbr\u003ewhich Lyell disclosed the origin of the earth's crust, Darwin the\u003cbr\u003eorigin of species, Max Müller the origin of language. In our present\u003cbr\u003esubject the course is equally clear. Study exactly what is going on at\u003cbr\u003epresent, and then have the courage to apply consistently and\u003cbr\u003erigorously what we have learned from the present to the interpretation\u003cbr\u003eof the past.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThus we begin with the ripple of the tide on the sea-beach which we\u003cbr\u003esee to-day. The ebb and the flow of the tide are the present\u003cbr\u003emanifestations of an agent which has been constantly at work. Let that\u003cbr\u003epresent teach us what tides must have done in the indefinite past.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47146363420912,"sku":"2940015735291","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940015735291","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}