2] 3 *'^® mystique of the desert 



and an ethic erected upon our knowledge of biology is 

 specifically "metabiological." 



I hope that when in this book I have described some 

 aspect of desert life it has usually been clear that the meta- 

 biology of the desert is one of the things which has inter- 

 ested me most. If it had not interested me, I do not think 

 that I would ever have concerned myself much with either 

 science or technology. Moreover, having said that — and I 

 realize that to say even so much is to condemn myself in the 

 eyes of a certain class of scientist and technician — I must 

 confess to something even worse. I must confess that there 

 are moments when what seems most important of all is 

 something of which the metabiologist may be almost as 

 suspicious as the strict biologist is suspicious of the meta- 

 biological. 



Just as the realm of speculative reason lies beyond the 

 facts of science, so also, beyond the realm of speculative 

 reason, lies the realm of emotion. To me that realm is no 

 less important than the realm of fact or the realm of specu- 

 lative thought, though to discuss what one experiences in 

 the realm of emotion one must e:*ther depreciate it and ex- 

 plain it away, as the pure rationalist does, or one must 

 accept what one can only call the mystique as opposed to 

 the rational of the human being's intercourse with the uni- 

 verse around him. 



Your Philistine never enters this realm of the mystical. 

 When he has read the great poem, looked at the great pic- 

 ture, heard the great music, or even grasped tlie great 

 theory, he always makes the same comments in words 

 which lie halfway between exclamation and question: "So 



