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Show 19 vestigial faith in Man's works. He could not ignore the technology of grist mills and machines in Kentucky and Tennessee. He could not help criticizing southern society as being far behind the age of "speculation and invention so characteristic of the North." He thought the South was a "primitive country," as he listened to the talk of Providence he heard from a Tennessean. "I believe in Providence," said he. "Our fathers came into these valleys, got the richest of them, and skimmed off the cream of the soil. The wornout ground won't yield no roastin' ears now. But the Lord foresaw this state of affairs, and prepared something else for us. And what is it? Why, he meant us to bust open these copper mines and gold mines, so that we may have money to buy the corn we cannot raise." A most profound observation. Providence was what they had instead of Progress, Muir guessed. But he must have wondered which doctrine was worse, the one northern man dreamed, or the one southern man believed. Muir was not yet ready to understand that the northern sort of energy and industry was more damaging to Nature in the long run than the lazy indifference of the southerners he talked to. In any case, the South would enter the industrial age and he was beginning to suspect the kinship at the root of both doctrines, the implicit trust in Man's dominion over Nature. North and South, on the farm and at the foundry, men believed that God gave them the earth; after they cut down trees, and exhausted |