Human Time and the Great Escape from Nature

The invention of human time liberated humanity from the cyclical monotony of nature, and gave us history: the canvass upon which to realise human agency linked through the past, present and future

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main…
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

John Donne 1623

When Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in his Prologue to the Clerk’s Tale in 1395 that ‘Time and tide wait for no man’, he was right…