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Show 290. the bear who raided beehives and killed sheep, and the man who did the same? Why should Muir be disgusted with a man's nature and not a bear's? Unlike Thoreau, who admitted feeling a strange thrill of savage delight when he was tempted to seize and devour a woodchuck raw, Muir either did not feel that thrill, or repressed it. Thoreau spoke of an essential tension in the human soul, between the savage primitive and the spiritual instincts. He could only say, "I love the wild not less than the good." He knew wildness included the passion of the hunt. Muir's wildness too included the lure of hunting, but he was not able to accept it as an appropriate or necessary part of himself. In 1874 he observed a hunt for wild sheep near Mount Shasta, and he was surprised that he "who have never killed any mountain life, felt like a wolf chasing the flying flock." He tried to explain this "ferocity" in evolutionary terms. We little know how much wildness there is in us. Only a few generations separate us from our grandfathers that were savage as wolves. This is the secret of our love for the hunt. Savageness is natural, civilization is strained and unnatural. It required centuries to tame men as we find them, but if turned loose they would return to killing and bloody barbarism in as many years. His language revealed a major contradiction in his own thinking. !f he was pleased by the savageness of alligators who lived by their natural inclinations, then why would he praise men who denied this savageness in themselves, becoming unnaturally tame |
