John Burroughs

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was in truth a protest against the humanizing of animals of which it seemed to me several animal writers had been profoundly guilty time and again and many times in my narratives i wrote speaking of my dog heroes he did not think these things he merely did them etc and i did this repeatedly to the clogging of my narrative and in violation of my artistic canons and i did it in order to hammer into the average human understanding that these dog heroes of mine were not directed by abstract reasoning but by instinct sensation and emotion and by simple reasoning also i endeavoured to make my stories in line with the facts of evolution i hewed them to the mark set by scientific research and awoke one day to find myself bundled neck and crop into the camp of the nature fakers president roosevelt was responsible for this and he tried to condemn me on two counts one i was guilty of having a big fighting bull-dog whip a wolf-dog two i was guilty of allowing a lynx to kill a wolf-dog in a pitched battle regarding the second count president roosevelt was wrong in his field observations taken while reading my book he must have read it hastily for in my story i had the wolf-dog kill the lynx not only did i have my wolf-dog kill the lynx but i made him eat the body of the lynx as well remains only the first count on which to convict me of nature faking and the first count does not charge me with diverging from ascertained facts it is merely a statement of a difference of opinion president roosevelt does not think a bull-dog can lick a wolf-dog i think a bull-dog can lick a wolf-dog and there we are difference of opinion may make and does make horse-racing i can understand that difference of opinion can make dog-fighting but what gets me is how difference of opinion regarding the relative fighting merits of a bull-dog and a wolf-dog makes me a nature faker and president roosevelt a vindicated and triumphant scientist then entered john burroughs to clinch president roosevelt's judgments in this alliance there is no difference of opinion that roosevelt can do no wrong is burroughs's opinion and that burroughs is always right is roosevelt's opinion both are agreed that animals do not reason they assert that all animals below man are automatons and perform actions only of two sorts mechanical and reflex and that in such actions no reasoning enters at all they believe that man is the only animal capable of reasoning and that ever does reason This is a view that makes the twentieth-century scientist smile.

It is not modern at all.

It is distinctly medieval.

President Roosevelt and John Burroughs, in advancing such a view, are homocentric in the same fashion that the scholastics of earlier and darker centuries were homocentric.

Had the world not been discovered to be round until after the births of President Roosevelt and John Burroughs, they would have been geocentric as well in their theories of the cosmos.

They could not have believed otherwise.

The stuff of their minds is so conditioned.

The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature.

Yet how can anyone speak of it today with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded and maimed? John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless.

Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest.

With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities? Freedom, expansion, opportunity, and above all peace and repose alone can teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and all its wonderful possibilities.

Yep.

In the beginning of the 20th century, there were a whole host of these writers about animal stories, and, uh, John Burroughs was one, Jack London obviously was one, and Ernest Thompson Seton was one.

And one of the stories he wrote was about Lobo, uh, and how he described the way this wolf died.

He said they caught Lobo, and they wanted to take Lobo alive so the ranchers could kind of gloat over this wolf finally being captured, and they staked it out in a rancher's yard.

The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature.

Yet how can anyone speak of it today with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded and maimed? John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless.

Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest.

With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities? Freedom, expansion, opportunity, and above all peace and repose alone can teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and all its wonderful possibilities.

The Breath of Life by John Burroughs The Preface Recording by Alan Davis Drake This is a LibriVox recording.

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For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. as life nears its end with me i find myself meditating more and more upon the mystery of its nature and origin yet without the least hope that i can find out the ways of the eternal in this or in any other world in these studies i fancy i am about as far from mastering the mystery as the ant which i saw this morning industriously exploring a small section of the garden walk is from getting a clear idea of the geography of the north american continent and she must have learned something about the small fraction of that part of the earth's surface I have passed many pleasant summer days in my hay-barn study, or under the apple-tree, exploring these questions, and though I have not solved them, I am satisfied with the clearer view I have given myself of the mystery that envelops them.

You men are always quoting your values on exchange.

Allow us to do the same with one of our values, our single priceless possession, our beauty.

Fox and Hound, taken from Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and Other Papers, by John Burroughs.

This is a LibriVox recording.

All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.

But what gets me is how difference of opinion regarding the relative fighting merits of a bulldog and a wolf dog makes me a nature faker, and President Roosevelt a vindicated and triumphant scientist.

Then entered John Burroughs to clinch President Roosevelt's judgments.

In this alliance there is no difference of opinion.

That Roosevelt can do no wrong is Burroughs' opinion, and that Burroughs is always right is Roosevelt's opinion.

It is not modern at all.

It is distinctly medieval.

President Roosevelt and John Burroughs, in advancing such a view, are homocentric in the same fashion that the scholastics of earlier and darker centuries were homocentric.

Had the world not been discovered to be round until after the births of President Roosevelt and John Burroughs, they would have been geocentric as well in their theories of the cosmos.