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Show 276. man to another." Men had been seeing their animal neighbors through the dark lens of a doctrine which blinded them to both the higher qualities of life in Nature, and in themselves. Muir's portrait may have been anthropomorphic, but at least it did not suggest the vulgar and simplified version of evolution which deified survival for its own sake. He was pleased to discover the "strong self-reliance and noble individuality of nature's sheep," and "exulted in the boundless sufficiency of wild nature displayed in their invention, construction, and keeping." Unlike domestic sheep, where each one was "only a fraction of an animal," wild sheep were "capable of a separate existence." They seemed to have few enemies. Even Man, "the unsatisfiable enemy of all nature," could not reach them because, "like stars and angels, they dwell mostly above his reach in the sky." This was such a close echo of his attitude toward himself and society in the early 1870's, that one recognizes a dual meaning to his conclusion. When he reminded his reader of the many wild animals Man had driven to extinction, Muir hoped that "all lovers of wilderness life will rejoice with me in the rocky security of Ovis montana. the bravest mountaineer of the Sierra." He was arguing that "wilderness life" was the reality of a mountain sheep and a possibility for Man. Humans would have to return to Nature if they wished to continue their own evolution. Otherwise they would become domestic animals like their own sheep, for whom survival per se was the highest value. |