Man's genius, if he really has
one, can surely find ways to go back over the bruised places,
heal them, and let them sustain his civilization. There isn't
enough unspoiled land left to sustain his old habits. Old habits
could wipe it out in a decade or two; four at most. But that
unspoiled land, that wilderness, wherein the evolutionary force
that put man on this planet still succeeds, can bring meaning
to his civilization as long as wilderness and civilization last.
Wilderness can, that is, if man lets it.
DAVID
R. BROWER
