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       At least as far back as the ancient Greeks and Hebrews, there have been two intellectual paths within Western Civilization. The nature's wisdom path has featured the idea that right livelihood requires that we honor and keep the ancient patterns of nature. Those so devoted understand that they will fail in the absolute sense, for strict adherence leads to practical problems and the need for compromise. The human cleverness path is predicated on the assumption that we derive our joy and sense of meaning from participating in the creation. Such exercise of our human cleverness requires that we be smart managers of the resources that sustain us. The most extreme devotees believe that the world is sufficiently resilient that both ecological and evolutionary processes can handle both unforeseen and unforseeable consequences of any technological misstep.

       Our minds may be as divided today as the minds of the ancients. Who among us would be without penicillin? Without books? Given the large number of humans, who would do without agriculture? Without plant breeding? Because most of us depend on all of these and more, those on the nature's wisdom path are forced to admit something such as "yes, there are discoveries and inventions developed by those on the human cleverness path." Given the context of the times, some, if not most, have become necessary.

       The standard line "necessity is the mother of invention" is logically inverted to "invention is the mother of necessity." Both are valid. Those who have inverted the conventional wisdom have something valid to say, for what runs ahead of everything else is the reality of global warming, ocean death occurring at an unprecedented rate, chemical contamination of our agricultural lands, accelerated soil erosion, our dependence on fossil fuels and more. All of these realities are the result of the exercise of human cleverness.

       In the short history of humanity, our boundaries of consideration over both time and space have generally been narrower than the boundaries of causation. Would the smart resource management school be more acceptable to the nature's wisdom advocate if the boundaries of consideration are widened to more realistically match the boundaries of causation? Is it even possible to agree what the boundaries are? If not, what are the criteria for the exercise of restraint? What scale gives human foresight a desired measure of efficacy?