Dr. Bradley, after years of geologic and paleontologic study and teaching, abandons his university duties and embarks on a sabbatical to review the 'billion years of living', and to attempt a search for its 'meaning'.

In these eleven chapters, some already having appeared elsewhere, the author undertakes a critical review of the findings and theories of biochemistry, biology, paleontology, sociology, and anthropology. He continually reminds us that homo sapiens, the youngest species in age, has a narcissistic quality not shared by other species, and that 'part of the business of being human is to costume sombre facts in pleasing fancies', or that 'what inferences are drawn depend pretty generally on the motives of those who do the drawing'.

Thus guarded, after a futile search for the origins of life, the