Loren Eiseley, the poetic naturalist and scholarly anthropologist turned scientific historian and Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, has added another gem to his published works with The Firmament of Time. His books, The Immense Journey and Darwin's Century contributed to a literary fame already established by his essays in Harper's Magazine, The American Scholar, Scientific American, and Science. His article, An Evolutionist Looks at Modern Man inaugurated the interesting series entitled The Adventures of the Mind, in The Saturday Evening Post in August, 1959.
Eiseley delivered the lectures that comprise this book while holding a Visiting Professorship of the Philosophy of Science at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in the autumn of 1959. He entitled the lecture series, Man's Quest for Certainty. The lectures were the result of a grant made by the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation of New York, and they followed by a