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Show 32 only "selfish," not "blind," and that it would be more appropriate for him to "sympathize" rather than to "side" with the bears. And yet he saw, when he went to California, that even sympathy was not a practical possibility; either one sided with Man, or one sided with the predators which Man fought as enemies. At issue was Man's choice to take dominion. Who had a right to hunt in the fields of the Lord? And what if a man was pasturing his sheep in those fields? While Muir worked as a shepherd for Smokey Jack and Patrick Delaney, he found himself having to defend their flocks from bears and coyotes. He must have hoped, as so many have through human history, that pastoral life would allow him to escape the hypocrisies of society, but instead he found that he was drawn into conflicting loyalties. While he read Shakespeare and tended his flocks, he discovered that there was no possibility of reconciling Nature's laws and Man's: I used to imagine that our Sabbath days were recognized by Nature, and that, . . . there was a more or less clearly defined correspondence between the laws of Nature and our own. But he was learning that such was simply not the case, and it was particularly clear in the battle between men and other predators. For instance coyotes (which he called wolves) were "the greatest of all enemies of the California sheep-raiser." To Muir, they seemed beautiful, loved by God. In fact, he particularly admired their style of hunting. But as a shepherd, |