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Show 523, enlightenment, i t also had i t s own flow and l i f e . Even though he compared i t to Yosemite, he knew that i t was, in real terms, incomparable. And i t had a meaning which reached far beyond his own experience there. Hetch Hetchy was a part of the flow. It was f i l l e d with waterfalls, and was the path of the Tuolumne River. It was the path of ancient g l a c i e r s , and a path new l i f e had taken as i t entered the mountains. And damming i t was an act by men which bespoke t h e i r arrogance. Men who b u i l t dams believed that they could control and harness the flow of Nature. Hetch Hetchy was a l s o a consummation, as a l l the inseparable sections of the flow were. It was not an "exceptional creation," since none of God's gardens were. It was part of a larger whole, and edenic as i t was, i t was not the only edenic valley. Yet when men chose to stop i t s flowing l i f e, and did so not for the farmers of the Central Valley, but for the businessmen of the City of San Francisco, Muir saw in this action c i v i l i z a t i o n ' s willingness to k i l l Nature for i ts own convenience. In theory, for the young Muir certainly, all dams in a l l valleys were arrogant gestures by men. When he insisted that damming Hetch Hetchy was damning Hetch Hetchy, he was seriously pointing to the arrogance of men who pretended that they were gods. It was a wild place, and c i v i l i z e d men preferred to have i t tame and dead. But Hetch Hetchy had gained a c e r t a i n kind of human significance over the years. The names of i t s geographical features bespoke i t s importance to Indians. Above i t , in |