The River of Life: Past, Present, and Future
— Partridge, Responsibilities to Future Generations, 1981

“The River of Life: Past, Present, and Future," in Partridge, Ernest, ed., Responsibilities to Future Generations: Environmental Ethics, 123-132. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1981. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37179

A river of life is imagery that can launch critical reflection. Life is a current, a naturally impelled flow that is energetically maintained over time. Life is a continuous and ceaseless stream that transcends the individual. In this processive on rolling we can find a confluence of the actual and the potential, the self and the other, t he human and the natural, t he present and the historical, and the is and the ought.