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t great ideas. Thus our region has also been shaped by intellec- tual leaders and it may be worthwhile to look for a moment at some people whose ideas have clashed with the notions that domi- nated 19th century law and policy and who have helped reshape contemporary attitudes. The first great intellectual influence was John Muir, the naturalist, explorer, and author who was voted the single greatest Californian in history by a California Historical Society poll taken in the 1970's. Muir, of course, passionately advocated the preservation of wild lands, and was a driving force in the creation of the wilderness system that now exceeds 80 million acres, or 4% of all land in the country. He believed in the beauty of wildness and was not afraid to talk about beauty for its own sake. He also understood the interrelationship of all natural things and presaged notions of modern resource man- agement. John Muir said, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken to everything else in the universe." Muir held another belief, one with which our society is not yet as comfortable as with Muir's other ideas that we have come to accept. Muir thought that each plant, animal, and mineral depo- sit had its own dignity and its own right to exist. Once, while hiking in the Sierra, he came upon a rare orchid. Muir wrote, "I never saw a plant so full of life; so perfectly spiritual . . . ." He did not mean that the plant made him feel spiritual: Muir meant that the orchid was spiritual. -6-