Steep Trails | Page 6

may
therefore subserve some fixed requirement essential to the perfection of
the whole, or they may simply be the fine boundary-lines where and
exact balance between the wool and the hair is attained.
I have been offering samples of mountain wool to my friends,
demanding in return that the fineness of wildness be fairly recognized
and confessed, but the returns are deplorably tame. The first question
asked, is, "Now truly, wild sheep, wild sheep, have you any wool?"
while they peer curiously down among the hairs through lenses and
spectacles. "Yes, wild sheep, you HAVE wool; but Mary's lamb had
more. In the name of use, how many wild sheep, think you, would be
required to furnish wool sufficient for a pair of socks?" I endeavor to
point out the irrelevancy of the latter question, arguing that wild wool
was not made for man but for sheep, and that, however deficient as
clothing for other animals, it is just the thing for the brave
mountain-dweller that wears it. Plain, however, as all this appears, the
quantity question rises again and again in all its commonplace tameness.
For in my experience it seems well-nigh impossible to obtain a hearing
on behalf of Nature from any other standpoint than that of human use.
Domestic flocks yield more flannel per sheep than the wild, therefore it
is claimed that culture has improves upon wildness; and so it has as far
as flannel is concerned, but all to the contrary as far as a sheep's dress is
concerned. If every wild sheep inhabiting the Sierra were to put on
tame wool, probably only a few would survive the dangers of a single

season. With their fine limbs muffled and buried beneath a tangle of
hairless wool, they would become short-winded, and fall an easy prey
to the strong mountain wolves. In descending precipices they would be
thrown out of balance and killed, by their taggy wool catching upon
sharp points of rocks. Disease would also be brought on by the dirt
which always finds a lodgment in tame wool, and by the draggled and
water-soaked condition into which it falls during stormy weather.
No dogma taught by the present civilization seems to form so
insuperable an obstacle in the way of a right understanding of the
relations which culture sustains to wildness as that which regards the
world as made especially for the uses of man. Every animal, plant, and
crystal controverts it in the plainest terms. Yet it is taught from century
to century as something ever new and precious, and in the resulting
darkness the enormous conceit is allowed to go unchallenged.
I have never yet happened upon a trace of evidence that seemed to
show that any one animal was ever made for another as much as it was
made for itself. Not that Nature manifests any such thing as selfish
isolation. In the making of every animal the presence of every other
animal has been recognized. Indeed, every atom in creation may be said
to be acquainted with and married to every other, but with universal
union there is a division sufficient in degree for the purposes of the
most intense individuality; no matter, therefore, what may be the note
which any creature forms in the song of existence, it is made first for
itself, then more and more remotely for all the world and worlds.
Were it not for the exercise of individualizing cares on the part of
Nature, the universe would be felted together like a fleece of tame wool.
But we are governed more than we know, and most when we are
wildest. Plants, animals, and stars are all kept in place, bridled along
appointed ways, WITH one another, and THROUGH THE MIDST of
one another--killing and being killed, eating and being eaten, in
harmonious proportions and quantities. And it is right that we should
thus reciprocally make use of one another, rob, cook, and consume, to
the utmost of our healthy abilities and desires. Stars attract one another
as they are able, and harmony results. Wild lambs eat as many wild
flowers as they can find or desire, and men and wolves eat the lambs to
just the same extent.
This consumption of one another in its various modifications is a kind

of culture varying with the degree of directness with which it is carried
out, but we should be careful not to ascribe to such culture any
improving qualities upon those on whom it is brought to bear. The
water-ousel plucks moss from the riverbank to build its nest, but is does
not improve the moss by plucking it. We pluck feathers from birds, and
less directly wool from wild sheep, for the manufacture of clothing and
cradle-nests, without improving the wool for the sheep, or the