In the middle of the eighteenth century, occidental scientists began to examine how the earth came into extence, how long its history was, and when life first appeared an earth. Up to this time, the history of the earth in the Occident had been calcul ...
In the middle of the eighteenth century, occidental scientists began to examine how the earth came into extence, how long its history was, and when life first appeared an earth. Up to this time, the history of the earth in the Occident had been calculated according to the Bible. Therefore people blieved that the earth was about 6000 years old. But in the late eigteenth century, it was realized that there is a difference between the age of the earth and that of humanity. There were also doubts arising about the story of creation described in the book of Genesis. Despite the rejection of the theologians of the time, the French naturalist George Buffon postulated in 1778, that the earth was actually 168000 years old. In the divelopment of geology, paleontology and minealogy played an important role in calculating the age of the earth. When the geological strata and fossils were diacoverd, the geologists used them to survey the history of the earth. Georges Cuvier, considered a pioneer of paeontology, proposed the history of 'catastrophism'. According to this theory, natural catastrophes caused periodically the exinction of most living beings an esrth. The new creatures of the following geological era were the descendants of the surving species. Charles Lyell claimed that the history of the earth was a sequence of events that could be explained by the same physical laws that are operating today. As his theory soon became the dominant doctrine, Cuvier's catastrophism gradually lost credibility. On the occasion of the Lisbon earthquake in 1755, the philosopher Immanuel Kant pronounced that natural disasters of this kind are common geological phenomena. Thus he corrected the anthropocentric interpretation of natural events and caused a reflection on man's narcissism. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, an 18th-centry physicist in Goettingen, who had discovered that the evoution of earth took place over an extremely long period of time, equally rejected an anthropocentric view of nature. Friedrich Nietsche, who announced the end of mankind at the end of earth, strongly criticized the narcissism of man who sees himself as the most intelligent and pre-eminent creature on earth. In 1917, Sigmund Freud mentioned three factors that hurt the self-love of man: 1. the heliocentric world system of Copernicus, 2. the Darwinian theory of evolution, 3. the rise of psychology. The American paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould in 1987 pointed to another factor resulting from the newly discovered age of the earth: the violation of man by the fact that compared to the immeasurably long period of time in which the earth had existed without human beings, the history of mankind is only a small part of history of the earth. Due to the flourishing developmennnnnt of geology from the late 18th century to the mid-19th centry, scientist and philosophers formulated a new wordview which strongly influenced also the wirters. In the poem "The Mergelgrube(Die Mergelgrube)"(1844), the author Anette von Droste-Huelshoff points out according to Cuvier's theory of catastrophism, that man, like the other creatures on earth, came into the world as a result of large geological transformation. At the same time, she indicates that man will be completely disappeared one day because earth is continuously changing. The narrative of Max Frisch "Man appears in the Holocene(Der Mensch erscheint im Holozaen"(1979) describes the activity and the thoughts of the hero, Mr. Geiser, connected with the geological theme of human destiny on earth. Because of the mental facilities of man, Frisch wants to insist on the anthropocentric position. Whillle Mr Geiser experiences the raging nature during bad weather and recognizes the importance of nature, which surpasses human history, he spesks the follwing words: "Man oniy knows catastrophes if he survives them; nature knows no catastrophes". Just after that the title of the narrative is quoted: "man appers in the Holocene". This sentence emphasizes that whereas nature has gone though many changes during the long history of the earth and is still existing, as if nothing had happened, man in the history of the earth is only an incidental phenomenon considering that the Holocene is only ten thousand years old. In Peter Handke's novel "Slow Homecoming(Langsame Heimkehr)"(1979), the hero Sorger, a giologist, explores the giological layers and the landscape in Alask far away from the civilized society. In his research he learns a lot about the long history of the earth. By sketching and surveying the schape of the earth, he wants to recognize himself. But his attemt to discover in the space of geological thinking the meaning of his existence fails, finally he wants to return home. Even on his way home, as a giologist he is still convinced that the humanity in a shirt time will be out. These three workes communicate the message to inform and warn uns regarding that the history of mankind on earth is only an episode and that humanity will soon disappear as result of the continuous change processes of the earth. At the present time, when it is predicated that the glaciers in the arctic region will soon be completely melted, we must think of salvation, whether or not it has any religious signficance. These literary works raise the question of how humanity today can respond to this challenge.