The wooing of the Earth thus implies much more than converting the wilderness into humanized environments. It means also preserving natural environments in which to experience mysteries transcending daily life and from which to recapture, in a Proustian kind of remembrance, the awareness of the cosmic forces that have shaped humankind.

The word "wilderness" occurs approximately three hundred times in the Bible, and all its meanings are derogatory.

As long as mankind is made up of independent individuals with free will, there cannot be any social status quo. Men will develop new urges, and these will give rise to new problems, which will require ever new solutions. Human life implies adventure, and there is no adventure without struggles and dangers.

To ward off disease or recover health, people as a rule find it easier to depend on healers than to attempt the more difficult task of living wisely.

Man could escape danger only by renouncing adventure, by abandoning that which has given to the human condition its unique character and genius among the rest of living things.

The earth is literally our mother, not only because we depend on her for nurture and shelter but even more because the human sepcies has been shaped by her in the womb of evolution. Our salvation depends upon our ability to create a religion of nature.

Nature always strikes back. It takes all the running we can do to remain in the same place.