Man and Nature
Hall, Leonard
Man and Nature TH E ENDURING PATTERN, by Hal Borland. Simon & Schuster. 247 pp. $5. Reviewed by Leonard Hall PRIMARY DIFFERENCE between man A and all other living creatures on our planet—and...
...Thus Hal Borland is not the first writer nor The Enduring Pattern the last book to examine the nature of life and the meaning of the universe...
...LEONARD HALL is a naturalist, lecturer, and writer...
...At the top of this last category, by his own account and not without some evidence to support his contentions, stands man...
...he asks...
...It is now, today...
...Man came along a mere million years ago, compared with 300 million for such still-existing forms as spiders...
...Because his brain developed—and quite rapidly in evolutionary terms—man replaced many of his instincts with learned skills, began to remember, think, and talk...
...a world filled with wonders and with creatures that have aparently successfully solved the problems of survival, since they have continued almost unchanged for as long as 300 million years...
...The section, "Life—the Green World," explores the universe of plants: grass, flowers, trees, and the parasitic fungi...
...A word of commendation to the publisher should be added for the book's design and typography and appropriate drawings by Milton Glaser...
...What time is it...
...and now it will find a place on a long shelf of much-thumbed volumes that are favorite companions...
...It is also a book for biologists and other scientists whose points of view may have narrowed with their specialities or whose sense of philosophy may have atrophied...
...MELVIN FRIEDMAN teaches modern literature at the University of Wisconsin...
...he also does not hesitate to probe the deeper meanings of these facts and the almost unanswerable questions and problems which they pose...
...A great deal of the best writing in this whole field of natural history has always been done by those who are, strictly speaking and from a formal scientific standpoint, amateurs...
...The purpose of The Enduring Pattern is to examine certain fundamental questions that have always intrigued the intelligent man...
...bees and ants that have long since lost all individuality in the social life of the colony or hive...
...Where did he come from and what environment makes his existence possible...
...He sits upon his wooded hillside in Connecticut, after having lived widely and broadly throughout America, and observes the nature of life about him and ponders its meaning...
...In "A Place to Live" Borland examines time, the land, the water, the air, and fire ("the flame of creation...
...The Enduring Pattern is a book written for the layman whose knowledge of biology and natural history need renewing or was perhaps neglected...
...The reason Borland would have to agree is that he is himself one of the most inquisitive of men...
...Reviewed by Leonard Hall PRIMARY DIFFERENCE between man A and all other living creatures on our planet—and I am sure Hal Borland would agree with me in this— is that man speculates constantly about life and its meaning...
...Without the others he could not be here and so owes a debt to all of them...
...Many of them have been extremely skilled as writers—Virgil of the "Georgics," Gilbert White of Selbourne, Thoreau of Walden Pond, John Muir, Audubon, Joseph Wood Krutch, and a host of others...
...the attempt by one more human individual to cast one more ray of light into the shadowed reaches of the universe...
...Man and Nature TH E ENDURING PATTERN, by Hal Borland...
...His newest book, The Enduring Pattern, is a direct result of this contemplation...
...For Borland not only looks at facts...
...And because Borland observes closely and accurately, thinks deeply, and is an extremely articulate fellow, the book is both informative and delightful...
...The questions include: Who and what is man...
...The day still lies ahead, for man at least...
...The organization of The Enduring Pattern is scientifically sound and flows with the ease of good narrative...
...Life—the Pygmy Hordes" deals with the exo-skeletal world of spiders, insects, moths, and butterflies...
...The Enduring Pattern is a book for everyone who has ever asked those fascinating questions about man and the meaning of life...
...butterflys that lay eggs which hatch into caterpillars that spin cocoons from which hatch butterflies again—mysteries beyond man's power to understand...
...Here are spiders whose webs THE REVIEWERS HORACE M. GRAY is professor of economics at the University of Illinois and is co-author, with Walter Adams, of "Monopoly in America...
...It is a book to read once and talk about as you go, then read again to savor its full philosophy...
...How old is he and where does he stand in the life-time scale on our planet...
...On that I can rest, believing that life does have meaning, that life does have pattern, that life is worth whatever span of time is mine or any man's to know, to feel, to think, to learn, to participate in this amazing thing, life itself...
...Finally, there are the creatures of "Flesh and Blood"—from the fish that developed the first backbone on down to man...
...In each case the thing that makes the effort worthwhile is that this is the approach of one man...
...In between—and, strangely, never quite disappearing as new forms develop and take off in new directions—are the amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals...
...he lives in Missouri and wrote the recent book, "Stars Upstream...
...EDWIN YOUNG is professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin and is resident coordinator of the University of Wisconsin-Gad ja Mada University of Indonesia project to teach economics and train economists...
...For man it is not much after dawn...
...I hope you enjoy it as much as I have...
...So here is our earth, says Borland, which has been spinning around the sun for 3,000 million years with the earliest life appearing perhaps 1,500 million years ago...
...are many times stronger than steel...
Vol. 24 • January 1960 • No. 1
