Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
48
TIME'S ARROW, TIME'S CYCLE
to the human life-span for time's arrow)—"a new dress of nature . . . more
beautiful than the fairest spring" (246); or, especially, the
annus magnus
or
"great year" of geological time. The twin themes of time's cycle are
revolution and restoration.
The Resolution of Advancing Cycles
These two discussions seem to mark an irreconcilable conflict. How could
Burnet exalt both the necessity of an arrow to identify history (see page 32 on
the vector of erosion) and a cycle to record divine superintendence (see page
46 on the necessity of restitution, the very point apparently denied in
describing the vector of erosion).
Burnet's own resolution
8
of this dilemma, and his union of these two
superficially contrary themes, begins by describing the dilemma that a purely
cyclical view, without arrows, entails. Attacking the ancient Greek notion of
exact cyclic repetition, he states: "They made these revolutions and
renovations of nature, indefinite or endless: as if there would be such a
succession of deluges and conflagrations to all eternity" (249). Burnet
recognizes that such a vision destroys the very possibility of history—"this
takes away the subject of our discourse," he states (43)—for no event can be
placed into narrative if each occurred before and must happen again. This
dilemma—the incomprehensibility of infinity—was beautifully expressed by
Jorge Luis Borges in "The Book of Sand." In this story, Borges trades his
precious Wycliffe Bible for an amazing, infinite book. One cannot find its
beginning, for no matter how furiously you flip the pages, there are always
just as many between you and the front cover; the topic has no end for the
same reason. It contains small illustrations, two thousand pages apart, but
none is ever repeated, and Borges soon fills his notebook with a list of their
forms, coming no closer to any termination. Finally, Borges realizes
8. Burnet did not invent this argument. He presents here the traditional resolution,
favored both before his time (as I shall discuss in the last chapter on medieval
iconography) and after (as in the Hegelian, and later Marxist, conception of cycles
moving onward—negation of negation to new, not merely repetitive, states).
Search WWH ::
Custom Search