Of Man and the Stream of Time
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Of Man and the Stream of Time∗
‘Of Man and the Stream of Time’ is the text of a talk that Rachel Carson gave to graduating students from a very well known women’s college in the US, Scripps College, in June 1962. This talk was delivered only 5 days before her influential book Silent Spring was published. Carson took a flight across the US at a time when she was already very ill and battling advanced cancer to speak to young women, a group very close to her heart. She spoke to the students about the fact that we, as human beings, have largely viewed nature either as something that we can conquer with technology and reshape to serve our needs, or something to protect because of the benefits nature provides for us. Carson argued that we should treat nature like nature treats us – with care, and respect, integrating ourselves as part of the natural system. This essay was delivered soon after space travel had just begun. In a particularly interesting section, Carson describes how the first views of Planet Earth from outer space reminds humanity of the limits of the Earth. Like most of her work, it is clear to see how this essay springs from her heart, and it is a powerful testament to her capacity to combine deep scientific knowledge with a powerful imaginative, philosophical quality of writing.
Harini Nagendra Email: [email protected]
c Reproduced from Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. Copyright 1962 by Rachel L. c Carson, Copyright renewed 1990 by Roger Christie. Reprinted by permission.
∗ Vol.25,
No.11, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-020-1080-1
RESONANCE | November 2020
1637
CLASSICS
Of Man and the Stream of Time (Scripps College, Claremont, California, June 12, 1962)
RACHEL CARSON
As i was carried here so swiftly across the continent by a jet airliner, it occurred to me that I have really been on the way for ten years, for it was that long ago that your President first invited me to come to Scripps College. Through the intervening years, he has renewed that invitation with infinite patience and courtesy. Now at last circumstances have allowed me to accept, and I am very happy to be here. Had I come ten years ago, I am not certain what I would have talked about. But as I have lived and, I hope, learned, as I have reflected upon the problems that crowd in upon us today, one stands out in my mind as having such vast importance that I want to discuss it with you now. I wish to speak today of man’s relation to nature and more specifically of man’s attitude toward nature. A generation ago this would perhaps have been an academic subject of little interest to any but philosophers. Today it is a subject of immediate and sometimes terrifying relevance. The word Nature has many and varied connotations, but for the present theme I like this definition: “Nature is the part of the world that man did not make.” You who have spent your undergraduate years here at Scripps have been exceptionally fortunate, living in the midst of beauty and comforts and conveniences that are creations of man—yet always in the back
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