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Show 244. delicate i n t e r p e n e t r a t i o n . " And e c o l o g i c a l t h i n k i n g takes cognizance of t h i s i n t e r p e n e t r a t i o n , r e v e a l i n g t h a t "the beauty and complexity of n a t u r e a r e continuous with o u r s e l v e s ." Muir had known t h i s from the beginning of h i s days in C a l i f o r n i a. He was to be a c o n t r i b u t o r to e c o l o g i c a l consciousness, even if not recognized as an e c o l o g i c a l s c i e n t i s t. DARWINISM As a serious student of Nature, Muir found the jungle of Darwinian thought in his path. How different it was from the flora and fauna of the Sierra. It is reported that he condemned, as early as 1864, "the dark chilly reasoning that chance and the survival of the fittest accounted for all things." But even Darwin did not like to think of evolution in such dismal terms. During the 1860's, almost no American scientist became a pure Darwinian, if there was such a thing. But neither could any scientist avoid the tangled implications of The Origin of Species. Muir entered this jungle when he literally walked toward the tropics in his Thousand Mile Walk, but he probably did not start to think about the complexities in accounting for evolution until he came to the Sierra. This is not surprising. Evolution was in the air before The Origin was published, and it was probably in Muir's mind before he thought about it. Just as the process of evolution can be thought of as challenge and response - challenge of the environment met by response of the organism - so the evolution of Muir's |