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.