| OCR Text |
Show 177. hold as sacred books is removed." In the secular and skeptical aftermath that followed the loss of sacredness of these Books, we find the retreat . . . from metaphysics to aesthetics: man's fictional power to write such books is retained, though the power of any of the books to become a literally sacred text is gone. So giving up the sacredness of the Book of Nature meant a retreat from metaphysics to aesthetics - a retreat from Nature as True, Whole, and Good, to the more limiting view that Nature is only beautiful scenery. That was why Muir willingly pruned, grafted,, and replanted the metaphor of Nature as Book; he wanted to preserve its metaphysical roots. If one approaches the issue from the opposite direction, not from its metaphysical roots, but from its "factual" branches, then the question is: what happens when the Book of Nature is not totally interpretable and complete, according to "empirical facts?" To put this in concrete terms, what is the consequence of Muir's inaccurate view that the glaciers of the Sierra are remnants of the one original Ice Age? Modern geologists have uncovered evidence of at least three major glacial periods in the history of the Sierra, and the glaciers we see today are the remnants of a short and minor glacial period beginning sometime around four thousand years ago. But actual ice is not a final fact; no ice now present was a part of the beginning of any previous glacial age, nor would it be even if these glaciers were remnants of Agassiz's hypothetical |
