540 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1962 



Tlie same technique, on a vastly greater scale, can serve us today in 

 recreating an organic landscape, extensive enough to take the patterns 

 of our inventions, as the Greek hills were great enough to take their 

 temples. 



We have to find the way to combine these two ideas, man as a 

 conscious part of his natural background and man the mind apart 

 which uses the lines of truth, of logic, and of power to superimpose 

 a new pattern on the landscape, for both these ideas are aspects of 

 the same universal pattern and subject to the same universal laws. 

 The question of the coexistence of these two elements in the landscape 

 is the counterpart of the current argument of science versus the 

 humanities. The answer to both problems is the same, the apparently 

 opposed ideas are both part of one whole, but just as science is only 

 valuable insofar as it helps humanity to evolve into a state of higher 

 consciousness, so the application of science to the landscape is only 

 viable if it encourages the development of a higher and richer form of 

 organic ecology. 



For example, the use of science and machinery to irrigate a desert 

 is an enrichment of life and of the landscape, but the use of science to 

 apply indiscriminate poisons is an impoverislmaent, even if it results 

 in an immediate cash gain. 



The problem of introducing men's inventions into the natural 

 ecology has only recently become apparent in its full force. As long 

 as a naturally balanced landscape formed the backcloth to man's 

 activities, it was comparatively easy to adjust this natural background 

 to accept man's works, especially while his chief activity was agri- 

 culture, which is only a variation on nature's own theme. But now 

 the fertility of man's inventions has tilted the balance against the 

 organic landscape. It is in any case far harder to find the synthesis 

 between mechanics and the landscape, that is, to fit the inorganic into 

 the pattern of the organic, than to carry out organic changes. Yet 

 the extent of inorganic constructions is constantly growing in relation 

 both to previously untouched natural landscapes and to agriculture. 

 These constructions are no longer incidents seen against an unbroken 

 organic countryside like a single castle on a hill, or a viaduct across 

 a valley. They are sufficient in size and nmnber to wreck a landscape 

 unless they can be assimilated as elements within it. At the same 

 time, the number of men as well as their new mobility is exerting 

 a crushing pressure on the landscape's ecology. This is why it is 

 essential for us to take a more active part in the evolution of the land- 

 scape than men have ever done before. To do this we must first study 

 the biology of the landscape and realize its infinite ramifications. 

 Then we must extend our conception of ecology to include the new 

 complex which we are creating with our inventions and the new 

 numbers of the human element. Finally we must understand our- 



