Unitarian theologian Charles Hartshorne was also a serious amateur ornithologist. As an ornithologist, he was perhaps best known for his 1973 book Born To Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Bird Song (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), in which he investigates the evolutionary importance of bird song. Most of the book will be of little interest unless you’re something of a field biology geek and your idea of a good time is reading a book with statistical analysis, long tables of data, commentary on evolutionary theory, spectrograms, etc.
However, the last paragraph of Born To Sing is, I think, of interest to anyone who is interested in the relationship between humankind and other species. Written before people thought of degenderizing language, it takes the form of a theologically liberal reflection:
“Nature apart from man [sic] is basically good. So is man, although he has unique capacities for evil as well as good. This is because every increase in freedom increases the dangers inherent in freedom. Man is the freest, hence most dangerous, of terrestrial animals. He needs to meditate upon this elementary but not trivial truth much more than he has. The Greek fear of human conceit, hubris, was entirely justified. We need to recover from that fear. Technology makes man loom large in this solar system, but among the galaxies and island universes he is as small as ever. Science, given a balanced interpretation, fully justifies the old values of reverence and love toward what is other than, and in its encompassing aspect incomparably greater than, man and all his works, actual or potential.” [p. 229]
I’ve cast this in the form of a degenderized responsive reading, which appears after the jump….
Nature apart from humankind is basically good.
So is humankind, although we have unique capacities for evil as well as good. This is because every increase in freedom increases the dangers inherent in freedom.
Human beings are the freest, hence most dangerous, of terrestrial animals.
We need to meditate upon this elementary but not trivial truth much more than we have. The Greek fear of human conceit, hubris, was entirely justified. We need to recover from that fear.
Technology makes humankind loom large in this solar system, but among the galaxies and island universes we are as small as ever.
Science, given a balanced interpretation, fully justifies the old values of reverence and love toward what is other than — and in its encompassing aspect incomparably greater than — humankind and all our works, actual or potential.
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