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Show 261. A BITE FROM THE ANT Muir was too careful a naturalist to ignore the violence in Nature. He saw the signs which others interpreted as a struggle for existence, but avoided their language when he could. In fact, the phrase and conception, "struggle for existence," was the legacy from Lyell, who challenged the Linnaean notion of peaceful coexistence in the plant and animal communities. Like another famous phrase, "survival of the fittest," which can be attributed to Spencer, most of the popular language of evolution was not invented by Darwin. Marsh, for instance, had depicted Man as the imperialistic species who continued to displace other creatures in his march toward dominion. One did not have to be a Darwinian to see a struggle in Nature. Muir did not think of his excursions in the Sierra as a part of Man's imperialism, or as a part of a struggle for existence, but the issues were unavoidable. Most obviously, he worked as a shepherd in the Central Valley and in northern Yosemite, replacing wild animals with sheep. His employer willingly killed bears and coyotes. But Muir also recommended Tuolumne Meadows as a campground for tourists in the mid 1870's. As a result, the bears he wanted men to leave alone would someday be shot, not because they had a taste for sheep, but because they wrecked vacationers' automobiles in their search for food. Muir wondered about territorial imperialism. Certainly Man |