Reviews of The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth

Contemporary Review

The author welcomes and uses the positive information which modern science has to offer about man and the world, but he claims that this new wealth of knowledge has been disastrously misinterpreted. We have taken it (says Mr. Harding) to confirm our current superstition that this planet and star and galaxy of ours are senseless condensations of particles, in which man is a miracle or an accident, an infesting parasite or an invading paratrooper, and a clue only to what the universe is not like. But in fact the new knowledge points in the opposite direction, to a universe-tree that is more and not less alive and intelligent and divine than the human leaves that grow on this particular branch of it, to a cosmic majesty we have ceased even to dream of, to truly angelic heavens that are much nearer to Dante's than Newton's. And the drastic revaluation of our environment is an equally drastic revaluation of man, for they are inseparable. In short, this book is a powerful appeal to the educated reader to reconsider the mystery of himself and of the world in which he has somehow occurred — a call not merely to new intellectual adventure (though it is certainly that) but also to an effort which cannot be much longer delayed if our great inheritance is to be saved and extended.