Hartshorne, Charles

Dr. Haerthorne was the Ashbel Smith Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas. He studied ornithology at the University of Michigan Biological Station. He was a Field Associate of the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology, and author of numerous books on philosophy and articles on ornithology.

Birds are the most instinctively musical of all creatures. Born to Sing, 1973.

 

In many or most cases the tendency to sing is closely correlated with the presence of certain male hormones, and hence is maximal in the breeding season. Ibid.

 

The dominant emotions of birds, still more of croaking frogs or singing crickets,, will of course be widely different from those of man, but not absolutely different or simply incomparable. Ibid.

 

Some songs are so easily described in unmistakable aspects, that seeing the bird adds little to the certainty of identification. Ibid.

 

There seems to be but one bird in North America, the Canyon Wren . . . that, in ringing musical tones, descends the scale in at least seven steps, usually with a slight upward flourish as finale. Ibid.

 

Beauty (and freedom) is always a mean between the classical determinist's supposed world and chaos. Ibid.

 

My conclusion is that the evolution of song has been toward increasing sensitivity to the value of contrast and unexpectedness as balancing the value of sameness and repetition. Ibid.

 

When man emerged on the earth, he inherited a magnificent environment. At first, and locally, he somewhat appreciated this fact, although his admiration and reverence were heavily clouded by fears of other planetary powers, visible and invisible, real and imaginary. Ibid.

 

I salute the astronomers for giving us strong evidence that life on this planet is but a single pebble on the vast cosmic beach fostering animate existence. But even that pebble is not to be dispised. Ibid.