MAN AND THE BIOLOGICAL WORLD 591 



millions of years of photosynthesis and organic cycles) have given him 

 the ability to dominate his environment to an extent never approached 

 by any other species. Thus far, however, he has been more powerful to 

 exploit than able to control or even to realize the consequences of his 

 exploitation. Much of agriculture, forestry, mining, and industry has had 

 consequences that were unforseen or ignored, until eroding farm lands, 

 dust bowls, dwindling forests, floods and droughts, and silted and polluted 

 streams — to say nothing of vanishing fish, game and other wildlife — 

 demonstrated that man is still bound by ecological laws and could con- 

 ceivably arrive at a condition analogous to that of many other animals 

 that, in a much more limited way, have been ecologically too successful 

 for their own long-time good. 



