Reincarnation. . . makes life what it is intended to be -- a glorious adventure in which victory is absolutely sure to be ours if we persist. It proves that man [is]. . . master of his fate on his road to the stars.
To drown a river beneath its own impounded water, by damming, is to kill what it was and to settle for something else. When the damming happens without good reason. . . then it's a tragedy of diminishment for the whole planet, a loss of one more wild thing, leaving Earth just a little flatter and tamer and simpler and uglier than before.