I am, like you, a seventh generation grandchild. I am also a grandfather. What did Chief Seneca have in mind when he suggested we should consider the needs of the seventh generation grandchildren when we make decisions? He spoke as an adult, an Elder, a decision-maker, and a leader, but his advice was for all. What does that mean to look ahead seven generations? If I look back seven generations, I would see my parents (#1), my grandparents (#2), my great grandparents (#3), my great-grandparents (#4), my great-great-grandparents (#5), my great-great-great-grandarents (#6), and finally my great-great-great-great-grandparents. How many years ago did they live? My parents were in their prime about 60 years ago. Each of their successive parents lived for many years.
So my seven generations looked back from where I stand some 300 years. The early 1700s. Inventions: the mercury thermometer, the flying shuttle, the discovery of oxygen, the steamboat, the circular saw and bifocals. Musicians: Albonini, Bach, Couperin, Handel Hayden, Mozart, Pachelbel, Telemann, Vivaldi. Writers: Austen, Burns, Defoe, Pope, de Sade Schiller, Scott, Voltaire. Philosophers: Bentham, Diderot, Hume, Paine, Rousseau, Wesley. Scientists (although the name didn’t exist then): Banks, Bernouli, Celsius, Faherenheit, Lavoisier, Linneaus, Lomonosov, Malthus, Smith.
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