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The Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackleton’s Endurance

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Mensun Bound

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“Man needs peace, not war. Man needs love, not violence. We have been tortured enough with ideas of heroes, war, propaganda, hate, destruction and violence. Science has given us enough destructive power and weapons that if we go living in accordance with the old destructive values then and ideals humanity is finished. The future belongs to the new man, to the intelligent and creative people, not to the soldier. Only love can give us balance. Humanity has lived against love up to now, and that is why there is so much misery, hate, violence and destruction in the world. This is because humanity has lived in a destructive way up to now. Now there are only two alternatives: either humanity changes or this is he end of humanity. The time for the old values and ideals are over. We have to live in accordance with a new life affirmative vision of life.”

“I don't know if anyone's ever told you this", he begins. He doesn't blush, and his eyes don't dart away. Instead I find myself staring into a pair of oceans - one perfect, the other blemished by that tiny ripple. "You're very attractive." I've been complimented on my appearance before. But never in his tone of voice. Of all the things he's said, I don't know why this catches me off guard. But it startles me so much that without thinking I blurt out, "I could say the same about you." I pause. "In case you didn't know." A slow grin spreads across his face. "Oh, trust me. I know.”

“We lived in a mist of half-shared, unreliable perception, and our sense data came warped by a prism of desire and belief, which tilted our memories too. We saw and remembered in our own favour and we persuaded ourselves along the way. Pitiless objectivity, especially about ourselves, was always a doomed societal strategy. We're descended from the indignant, passionate tellers of half truths who in order to convince others, simultaneously convinced themselves. Over generations success had winnowed us out, and with success came our defect, carved deep in the genes like ruts in a cart track – when it didn't suit us we couldn't agree on what was in front of us. Believing is seeing. That's why there are divorces, border disputes and wars, and why the statue of the Virgin Mary weeps blood and the one of Ganesh drinks milk. And that was why metaphysics and science were such courageous enterprises, such startling inventions, bigger than the wheel, bigger than agriculture, human artifacts set right against the grain of human nature. Disinterested truth. But it couldn't save us from ourselves, the ruts were too deep. There could be no private redemption in objectivity.”

“The night sky shouldn't be so dark," Peter had told her. "If the universe is endless, then starlight should fill all the empty spaces. Light doesn't stop until it hits a surface - so why the dark spaces? From where we stand on Earth, all we should see is light." "Maybe the universe isn't limitless, then," Alice had said. "Or the universe is expanding," Peter had said. "And the stars are too young, and all that distant light is still stretching to reach us. And until it does, the night lies dark.”

“Science and faith may do different things along their search for Truth, but like the water that flows between low and high tide, we need them both. To judge one without the other is to forsake half the wonders we are meant to experience.”