Higher Laws
primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love
countries, every function was reverently spoken of and regulated by
food which entereth into the mouth defileth a man, but the appetite
I have been willing to omit the gun. Yet notwithstanding the
continued, that they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also.
live this slimy, beastly life, eating and drinking.
think that I owed a mental perception to the commonly gross sense of
Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the
I have found repeatedly, of late years, that I cannot fish
found it to be the most serious objection to coarse labors long
food for the worms that possess us. If the hunter has a taste for
with which it is eaten. It is neither the quality nor the quantity,
If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and
and one does not see; one listens, and one does not hear; one eats,
Else man not only is the herd of swine,
from over the sea, and they are even. He goes to the mill-pond, she
detain us in scenery with which otherwise, at that age, we should
channel of purity is open. By turns our purity inspires and our
glorious existence is possible for you? Those same stars twinkle
that "some insects in their perfect state, though furnished with
contemporaries, I had rarely for many years used animal food, or
reports what those men already know practically or instinctively,
insectivorous fate. The gross feeder is a man in the larva state;
all the while. They might go there a thousand times before the
bound to inquire what is his food, or who prepares it; and even in
herd lose it very soon; superior men preserve it carefully." Who
increased scarcity of game, for perhaps the hunter is the greatest
that he worked in, and suggested work for certain faculties which
my fellow-citizens, whether fathers or children of the town, with
play so many games as they do in England, for here the more
the wild not less than the good. The wildness and adventure that
for some reproof, for it is surely there, and he is unfortunate who
went far enough to please my imagination. I believe that every man
will, yet it concerned him very little. It was no more than the
my own butcher and scullion and cook, as well as the gentleman for
naturalist it may be, and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind. The
Them to a headlong rage, and made them worse."
legislature regards it, it is chiefly to regulate the number of
our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness
speak conformably to the rumor which we have heard. From exertion
devour, and no morsel could have been too savage for me. The
John Farmer sat at his door one September evening, after a hard
essentially unclean about this diet and all flesh, and I began to
attention to the habits of the birds, that, if for that reason only,
berries which I had eaten on a hillside had fed my genius. "The
life in him, he distinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or
philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation. She
found myself ranging the woods, like a half-starved hound, with a
is not afraid to exhibit herself to them. The traveller on the
believe that water is the only drink for a wise man; wine is not so
it. We have heard of this virtue, but we know not what it is. We
It is hard to provide and cook so simple and clean a diet as
begins at once to refine a mans features, any meanness or
sleep sensually. They are but one appetite, and we only need to see
may be vain to ask why the imagination will not be reconciled to
Most men would feel shame if caught preparing with their own hands
forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most
be at cleaning a stable. Nature is hard to be overcome, but she
head, and he found himself planning and contriving it against his
Can use this horse, goat, wolf, and藏书网 evry beast,
had traced to them, as because they were not agreeable to my
the fishes nor the worms. This was habit. As for fowling, during
chastity? How shall a man know if he is chaste? He shall not know
in the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from
objection which one healthy man feels will at length prevail over
subject -- I care not how obscene my words are -- but because I
must be overcome. What avails it that you are Christian, if you are
If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions of his
another. If you would be chaste, you must be temperate. What is
mean, and does not falsely excuse himself by calling these things
into purity and devotion. The generative energy, which, when we are
animal food, and from much food of any kind. It is a significant
various fruits which succeed it. Man flows at once to God when the
law. Nothing was too trivial for the Hindoo lawgiver, however
indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little
That saith that hunters ben not holy men."
tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact
noble a liquor; and think of dashing the hopes of a morning with a
soul not being mistress of herself," says Thseng-tseu, "one looks,
apprehending a frost. He had not attended to the train of his
see where housework commences, and whence the endeavor, which costs
off, is heard as music, a proud, sweet satire on the meanness of our
and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me
organs of feeding, make no use of them"; and they lay it down as "a
are in fishing still recommended it to me. I like sometimes to take
than temperance and purity. "That in which men differ from brute
star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.
hooks to be used there; but they know nothing about the hook of
represented. Once or twice, however, while I lived at the pond, I
I have been surprised to consider that the only obvious employment,
he is. The impure can neither stand nor sit with purity. When the
one. It is the same whether a man eat, or drink, or cohabit, or
because he has not so many public holidays, and men and boys do not
not purer than the heathen, if you deny yourself no more, if you are
general rule, that almost all insects in this state eat much less
trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a
make us ashamed of our appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest
tusks, which suggested that there was an animal health and vigor
If I knew so wise a man as could teach me purity I would go to seek
freely without shame of one form of sensuality, and are silent about
elastic, more starry, more immortal -- that is your success. All
the most original part of himself. He goes thither at first as a
nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to
complete experience. The practical objection to animal food in my
and there are whole nations in that condition, nations without fancy
senses of the body, and good acts, are declared by the Ved to be
studying ornithology, and sought only new or rare birds. But I
too old and dignified to go a-fishing, and so they know it no more
wholesome diet. Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt
that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual
"yave not of the text a pulled hen
There is a period in the history of the individual, as of the race,
Insurance Company, recommending its laws, and our little goodness is
any vegetable wilderness -- hunters as well as fishers of men. Thus
objection on the score of humanity, I am compelled to doubt if
is taking place, owing, not to an increased humanity, but to an
sensuality to imbrute them.
him to new endeavors, though it be to the performance of rites
god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off九九藏书网 by
were to live in a wilderness I should again be tempted to become a
was to practise some new austerity, to let his mind descend into his
make a good shepherds dog, but is far from being the Good Shepherd.
cannot be otherwise. A puritan may go to his brown-bread crust with
he did not oftener stay to play on the common. But already a change
does not hear it. We cannot touch a string or move a stop but the
Yet, for my part, I was never unusually squeamish; I could
improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage
way -- as any one who will go to snaring rabbits, or slaughtering
great measure, by preying on other animals; but this is a miserable
precisely such a dinner, whether of animal or vegetable food, as is
even insanity, it may lead him; and yet that way, as he grows more
and one does not know the savor of food." He who distinguishes the
fare for variety. I have actually fished from the same kind of
over other fields than these. -- But how to come out of this
prairie is naturally a hunter, on the head waters of the Missouri
when the hunters are the "best men," as the Algonquins called them.
come wisdom and purity; from sloth ignorance and sensuality. In the
his food in which appetite had no share? I have been thrilled to
friend of the animals hunted, not excepting the Humane Society.
"How happys he who hath due place assigned
can for the time pervade and control every member and function of
charming moral transfixes us. Many an irksome noise, go a long way
but the devotion to sensual savors; when that which is eaten is not
hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and
string of fish, though they had the opportunity of seeing the pond
necessary functions of human nature. In earlier ages, in some
a viand to sustain our animal, or inspire our spiritual life, but
fact, stated by entomologists -- I find it in Kirby and Spence --
I hesitate to say these things, but it is not because of the
I have owed to this employment and to hunting, when quite young, my
we are not civilized, and, if gentlemen and ladies, are not true men
conjure up against it was all factitious, and concerned my
tea, or coffee, etc.; not so much because of any ill effects which I
sympathies do not always make the usual philanthropic distinctions.
impurity casts us down. He is blessed who is assured that the
humane, while his education has been sadly neglected. This was my
without falling a little in self-respect. I have tried it again and
pure; but no doubt such a clarifying process would be going on all
I picked up the lower jaw of a hog, with white and sound teeth and
true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not
condition and actually migrate thither? All that he could think of
more boundless even than those of a savage. No wonder, then, that
embryo man passes through the hunter stage of development.
imagination. The repugnance to animal food is not the effect of
year I am less a fisherman, though without more humanity or even
equally valuable sports are ever substituted for these; and when
Having bathed, he sat down to re-create his intellectual man. It
I had long felt differently about fowling, and sold my gun before I
some extent, our very life is our disgrace.--
perhaps cannot be wholly expelled; like the worms which, even in
I am glad to have drunk water so long, for the same reason that I
Why do you stay here and live this mean moiling life, when a
so that they shall not find game large enough for them in this or
trusting that they would soon outgrow it. No humane being, past the
mud-turtles, muskrats, and other such savage tidbits, the fine lady
of the flute came home to his ears out of a different sphere from
sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary.
bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from
sound harmonized with his mood. Still he thought of his work; but
pursuits. But put an extra condiment into your dish, and it will
it, but never change its nature. I fear that it may enjoy a certain
far I am of the opinion of Chaucers nun, who
and women. This certainly suggests what change is to be made. It
We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more
beasts," says Mencius, "is a thing very inconsiderable; the common
liquid. The abdomen under the wings of the butterfly still
cup of warm coffee, or of an evening with a dish of tea! Ah, how
him forthwith. "A command over our passions, and over the external
. . . . . . .
divine allied to beasts, the creatures of appetite, and that, to
answer with respect to those youths who were bent on this pursuit,
He who is only a traveller learns things at second-hand and by the
hooks with which to angle for the pond itself, impaling the
is universally a slothful one, one who sits by a stove, whom the sun
trifles.
extremity cries like a child. I warn you, mothers, that my
distress."
loose, dissipates and makes us unclean, when we are continent
not more religious? I know of many systems of religion esteemed
into a butterfly ... and the gluttonous maggot when become a fly"
slumbered in him. They gently did away with the street, and the
would avoid uncleanness, and all the sins, work earnestly, though it
from regarding myself as one of those privileged ones to whom the
We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion
astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The
went to the woods. Not that I am less humane than others, but I did
as well, with less trouble and filth. Like many of my
established. Perhaps there is none but has cause for shame on
life and health, occupy our bodies. Possibly we may withdraw from
than in that of larvae. The voracious caterpillar when transformed
Rome, and will destroy England and America. Of all ebriosity, who
resolute and faithful, his road lies. The faintest assured
wisdom; at present I am no fisherman at all. But I see that if I
sense a part of Nature themselves, are often in a more favorable
what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but
All sensuality is one, though it takes many forms; all purity is
for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human experience.
investment that never fails. In the music of the harp which
studying ornithology than this. It requires so much closer
the first streaks of morning. There is unquestionably this instinct
mass of men are still and always young in this respect. In some
To his beasts and disafforested his mind!
fisher and hunter in earnest. Beside, there is something
They mistake who assert that the Yankee has few amusements,
experience, but is an instinct. It appeared more beautiful to live
body and redeem it, and treat himself with ever increasing respect.
Ved refers when it says, that "he who has true faith in the
questions are entertained only in youth, as most believe of poetry.
raw; not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he
woodchuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of
legislature for a bait. Thus, even in civilized communities, the
the last years that I carried a gun my excuse was that I was
as our higher nature slumbers. It is reptile and sensual, and
another. We are so degraded that we cannot speak simply of the
myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is
Such is oftenest the young mans introduction to the forest, and
closest acquaintance with Nature. They early introduce us to and
offensive it may be to modern taste. He teaches how to eat, drink,
represents the larva. This is the tidbit which tempts his
holds its life by the same tenure that he does. The hare in its
have not yet give藏书网n place to the former. Almost every New England
the burden of his thought was, that though this kept running in his
yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be
except wood-chopping, ice-cutting, or the like business, which ever
as gross an appetite as ever an alderman to his turtle. Not that
the body, and transmute what in form is the grossest sensuality
taste, that I have been inspired through the palate, that some
when we feed the body; they should both sit down at the same table.
to her preserve-pot. The wonder is how they, how you and I, can
days work, his mind still running on his labor more or less.
instants truce between virtue and vice. Goodness is the only
some of my friends have asked me anxiously about their boys, whether
case was its uncleanness; and besides, when I had caught and cleaned
with years I have grown more coarse and indifferent. Perhaps these
animal is dying out in him day by day, and the divine being
flesh and fat. I am satisfied that it is not. Is it not a reproach
race who shall teach man to confine himself to a more innocent and
cannot speak of them without betraying my impurity. We discourse
essentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more
indispensable in the minds approximation to God." Yet the spirit
who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties
have done I feel that it would have been better if I had not fished.
philosophy more than my feelings. I speak of fishing only now, for
boy among my contemporaries shouldered a fowling-piece between the
forever on the side of the most sensitive. Listen to every zephyr
halves, and is poor authority. We are most interested when science
being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon
prefer the natural sky to an opium-eaters heaven. I would fain
thoughts long when he heard some one playing on a flute, and that
keep sober always; and there are infinite degrees of drunkenness. I
or imagination, whose vast abdomens betray them.
But to tell the truth, I find myself at present somewhat less
us. The harp is the travelling patterer for the Universes
heathenish whose precepts fill the reader with shame, and provoke
account of the inferior and brutish nature to which he is allied. I
just one exception, was fishing. Commonly they did not think that
reptile is attacked at one mouth of his burrow, he shows himself at
obliged to confess, because, however much it is to be regretted,
genius, which are certainly true, he sees not to what extremes, or
intoxicating. Such apparently slight causes destroyed Greece and
genius till it misled him. Though the result were bodily weakness,
not limited, like the preserves of an English nobleman, but were
have little acquaintance. Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and
indulges a taste for jelly made of a calfs foot, or for sardines
not perceive that my feelings were much affected. I did not pity
it was one of the best parts of my education -- make them hunters,
Moreover, when at the pond, I wished sometimes to add fish to my
all the assessment that we pay. Though the youth at last grows
so much, to wear a tidy and respectable appearance each day, to keep
scurf of his skin, which was constantly shuffled off. But the notes
a person do any one of these things to know how great a sensualist
in me which belongs to the lower orders of creation; yet with every
low and fare hard in many respects; and though I never did so, I
mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than
whom the dishes were served up, I can speak from an unusually
they should let them hunt, I have answered, yes -- remembering that
they were lucky, or well paid for their time, unless they got a long
fear that we are such gods or demigods only as fauns and satyrs, the
confess that I am now inclined to think that there is a finer way of
savage
99lib•net
delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour himstudent sensuality is a sluggish habit of mind. An unclean person
poison you. It is not worth the while to live by rich cookery.
forever. Yet even they expect to go to heaven at last. If the
with the more civilized.
to my knowledge detained at Walden Pond for a whole half-day any of
low I fall when I am tempted by them! Even music may be
ask no blessing; not because I am wiser than I was, but, I am
As I came home through the woods with my string of fish,
ages of ten and fourteen; and his hunting and fishing grounds were
Yet perhaps this may be done. The fruits eaten temperately need not
does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes? I have
trembles round the world it is the insisting on this which thrills
But hes those devils too which did incline
health of its own; that we may be well, yet not pure. The other day
Omnipresent Supreme Being may eat all that exists," that is, is not
sediment of fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their purpose
indifferent, the laws of the universe are not indifferent, but are
and Columbia a trapper, and at the Falls of St. Mary a fisherman.
countries a hunting parson is no uncommon sight. Such a one might
wildest scenes had become unaccountably familiar. I found in
true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and
lambs, may learn -- and he will be regarded as a benefactor of his
shines on prostrate, who reposes without being fatigued. If you
cohabit, void excrement and urine, and the like, elevating what is
Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an
content themselves with a drop or two of honey or some other sweet
strange abandonment, seeking some kind of venison which I might
for they went a-fishing there when they were boys; but now they are
necessity that the first fishers did. Whatever humanity I might
My practice is "nowhere," my opinion is here. Nevertheless I am far
was a rather cool evening, and some of his neighbors were
village, and the state in which he lived. A voice said to him --
thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature which
their case it is to be observed, as a Hindoo commentator has
And is not ass himself to all the rest!
the while. The Governor and his Council faintly remember the pond,
regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles.
though sportsmen only at first, if possible, mighty hunters at last,
I think that I do not mistake. It is a faint intimation, yet so are
again. I have skill at it, and, like many of my fellows, a certain
life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more
invigorates and inspires us. Chastity is the flowering of man; and
primitive but solitary amusements of hunting, fishing, and the like
remarked, that the Vedant limits this privilege to "the time of
rank hold on life and spend my day more as the animals do. Perhaps
particular in these respects. I carry less religion to the table,
named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a
distinct from the spiritual. This creature succeeded by other means
that man is a carnivorous animal? True, he can and does live, in a
lives.
others, spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar
the house sweet and free from all ill odors and sights. Having been
knows what sort of life would result if we had attained to purity?
the arguments and customs of mankind. No man ever followed his
hunter and fisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of a better
every day prepared for them by others. Yet till this is otherwise
instinct for it, which revives from time to time, but always when I
than it came to. A little bread or a few potatoes would have done
Who has not sometimes derived an inexpressible satisfaction from
merely.
will not offend the imagination; but this, I think, is to be fed