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The World, We Are Told, Was Made Especially For Man...

  • aptitudeforemptine
  • Mar 27, 2021
  • 1 min read

...a presumption not supported by all the facts. A numerous class of men are painfully astonished whenever they find anything, living or dead, in all God's universe, which they cannot eat or render in some way what they call useful to themselves. These have precise dogmatic insight of the intentions of the Creator... He is regarded as a civilized, law-abiding gentleman in favour either of a republican form of government or of a limited monarchy; believes in the literature and language of England; is a warm supporter of the English constitution and Sunday schools and missionary societies...


With such views of the Creator it is, of course, not surprising that erroneous views should be entertained of the creation...


Now, it never seems to occur to these far-seeing teachers that Nature's object in making animals and plants might possibly be first of all the happiness of each one of them, not the creation of all for the happiness of one. Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unity of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit...?


I stated above that man claimed the earth was made for him, and I was going to say that venomous beasts, thorny plants, and deadly diseases...prove that the whole world was not made for him...


...[it is] the erratic genus Homo [that is clearly the] consummation devoutly to be prayed for... [rather than linger on this dread circumstance] I joyfully return to the...immortal beauty of Nature [to ponder].


- John Muir, A Thousand Mile Walk To The Gulf (1867)

 
 
 

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