There Is No Conceivable Human Action Which

In History As It Comes To Be Written, There Is Usually Some Spirit Of The Age Which Historians Can Define, But The Shape Of Things Is Seldom So Clear To Those Who Live Them. To Most Thoughtful Men It Has Generally Seemed That Theirs Was An Age Of Confusion.

It Is Not A Sentimental, But A Grimly Literal Fact That Unless We Share This Terrestrial Globe With Creatures Other Than Ourselves, We Shall Not Be Able To Live On It For Long.

Is It Wholly Fantastic To Admit The Possibility That Nature Herself Strove Toward What We Call Beauty? Face To Face With Any One Of The Elaborate Flowers Which Man's Cultivation Has Had Nothing To Do With, It Does Not Seem Fantastic To Me. We Put Survival First. But When We Have A Margin Of Safety Left Over, We Expend It In The Search For The Beautiful. Who Can Say That Nature Does Not Do The Same?

The Wilderness And The Idea Of Wilderness Is One Of The Permanent Homes Of The Human Spirit.

There Is No Conceivable Human Action Which Custom Has Not At One Time Justified And At Another Condemned.