The Evolution of American Wilderness Appreciation
Roderick Nash says in Wilderness and the American Mind that William Bradford disembarked from the Mayflower into what he described as a “hideous and desolate wilderness.”[1] Alexis de Tocqueville, during his trip to the United States in 1831, was perplexed that, “living in the wilds, the pioneer only prizes the works of man.”[2]
The American National Parks were a new and unique idea when their consideration first surfaced in the national discourse in the 19th century. Such uniqueness begs the question: what manifestations of the evolution of human thought and the human condition led to a popular will that would preserve American wilderness? With the words of 18th and 19th century writers, artists, politicians, and administrators as our guide, we can examine the prevailing--and rapidly evolving--national consciousness toward wilderness. In this review, we find two primary factors: (1) nature spirituality and (2) psychological rejuvenation for an over-industrialized society.
Nature Spirituality
Nash says that deists, “accorded wilderness, as pure nature, special importance as the clearest medium through which God showed His power and excellency.”[3] As presented in the Ken Burns documentary National Parks: America’s Best Idea, John Muir makes many references to the wilderness as his “sacred temple” which seems to follow the same vein of spirituality.[4] Teddy Roosevelt exclaimed, after spending time in the woods with John Muir, that “Lying out at night under those sequoias was lying in a temple built by no hand of man. A temple grander than any human architect could by any possibility build, and I hope for the preservation of the grove of giant trees simply because it would be a shame for our civilization to let them disappear.”[5]
In Nature Religion in America, by Catherine Albanese, we are presented with a progression of nature religion from the Puritans’ relationships with the New England Indians through John Muir and his successors. The author explains the philosophical and theological draw that nature presented to these important figures and eventually to the wilderness movement. According to Albanese, in Muir’s complex response to wilderness we can find the inherited Calvinism he shared with Emerson and Thoreau (as well as many others). And we find, expressly, the romantic Transcendentalism he learned from them, mingling idealistic and – more than they (especially more than Emerson) – pantheistic-vitalistic strains. Certainly what distinguished Muir most from them and from other writers on the sublime in nature was that he joined a personal religion of nature to a rhetoric inspiring his readers to direct action to preserve the wilderness. The rhetorical process began, however, in Muir’s private religious experience. And so it is to Muir’s personal life that we turn in order to understand the religious grounding of the preservationist movement he led.”[6]
In his journal, John Muir writes:
The American National Parks were a new and unique idea when their consideration first surfaced in the national discourse in the 19th century. Such uniqueness begs the question: what manifestations of the evolution of human thought and the human condition led to a popular will that would preserve American wilderness? With the words of 18th and 19th century writers, artists, politicians, and administrators as our guide, we can examine the prevailing--and rapidly evolving--national consciousness toward wilderness. In this review, we find two primary factors: (1) nature spirituality and (2) psychological rejuvenation for an over-industrialized society.
Nature Spirituality
Nash says that deists, “accorded wilderness, as pure nature, special importance as the clearest medium through which God showed His power and excellency.”[3] As presented in the Ken Burns documentary National Parks: America’s Best Idea, John Muir makes many references to the wilderness as his “sacred temple” which seems to follow the same vein of spirituality.[4] Teddy Roosevelt exclaimed, after spending time in the woods with John Muir, that “Lying out at night under those sequoias was lying in a temple built by no hand of man. A temple grander than any human architect could by any possibility build, and I hope for the preservation of the grove of giant trees simply because it would be a shame for our civilization to let them disappear.”[5]
In Nature Religion in America, by Catherine Albanese, we are presented with a progression of nature religion from the Puritans’ relationships with the New England Indians through John Muir and his successors. The author explains the philosophical and theological draw that nature presented to these important figures and eventually to the wilderness movement. According to Albanese, in Muir’s complex response to wilderness we can find the inherited Calvinism he shared with Emerson and Thoreau (as well as many others). And we find, expressly, the romantic Transcendentalism he learned from them, mingling idealistic and – more than they (especially more than Emerson) – pantheistic-vitalistic strains. Certainly what distinguished Muir most from them and from other writers on the sublime in nature was that he joined a personal religion of nature to a rhetoric inspiring his readers to direct action to preserve the wilderness. The rhetorical process began, however, in Muir’s private religious experience. And so it is to Muir’s personal life that we turn in order to understand the religious grounding of the preservationist movement he led.”[6]
In his journal, John Muir writes:
In God’s wildness lies the hope of the world – the great fresh unblighted, unredeemed wilderness.[7]
Albanese argues that Muir, and the Transcendentalists that preceded him, used their idealism to “accommodate a former Calvinism without acknowledging it,” positing that “if the world in all its alluring beauty pointed beyond itself to spirit, then, as we have noted, it could be safe to contemplate matter without guilt or stain. And so long as one held onto the emblematic theory that nature made sense as sacramental sign of spirit, it could be safe to relish the splendor of mountain and forest.”[8]
Dennis Williams offers a study of nature religion focused, specifically, on the theology of John Muir. Williams’ contention is that Muir did not simply accommodate his Calvinist roots, but that he used the Evangelical Protestant tradition to guide his zealous crusade for wilderness preservation.[9] He explains that “the power of Muir’s preservationist ethic…lay in its appeal to higher values—to the sense that Nature had transcendent values based on its capacity to serve as a primary revelation of God.”[10]
Albanese further explains that, “the Calvinist-tinged Christianity of Muir’s childhood, like the Puritanism of Emerson and Thoreau, did not vanish but, instead, played itself out in a different key.”[11] Muir would write:
Further describing Muir’s relationship with nature, Albanese says, “His idealism – an apology to his once and former Calvinism – was a muted breed, more muted even than the idealism of Henry David Thoreau. Meanwhile, his embrace of nature went beyond Emerson and Thoreau in its seriousness, in its sheer and unqualified delight in matter.”[14] Nash also comments on Muir’s Calvinistic roots as a significant obstacle saying that his father’s “Calvinistic conception of Christianity brooked no religion of nature. Scripture, postulated Daniel Muir, was the only source of God’s truth, and young John was obliged to commit the entire New Testament and most of the Old to memory.”[15] Although Muir appears rather late in the progression of wilderness appreciation, his story paints the clearest picture of the Romantic desire to find new ways to worship while accommodating the faith one was raised with. Muir and many others found that nature was the best vehicle for accomplishing both.
Quiz Yourself!
Psychological Rejuvenation for an Over-Industrialized Society
Romantic literature plays a key role in giving voice to the effect of wild nature on the human soul and serves as critique of the unbridled conquest of nature by civilization. Aidan Day offers us a study of Romantic thought in his book Romanticism which includes sections specifically devoted to nature and the sublime and the relevant literature of the period. The authors cited include Wordsworth, Coleridge, Thoreau, Emerson, and others.
According to Day, in the late eighteenth century, a reader will find an abundance of literary work dedicated to the merits of nature and the simple life.[16] Here is an example from William Wordsworth in Lyrical Ballads that offers criticism of the march of civilized man.
I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it griev’d my heart to think What man has made of man. The budding twigs spread out their fan, To catch the breezy air; And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there. If these thoughts may not prevent, If such be of my creed the plan, Have I not reason to lament What man has made of man?[17] |
Charlotte Smith published a poem entitled The Emigrants in 1793, which follows a similar vein of critique and a longing for the wild.[18] Here is an excerpt:
He, whose Spirit into being call’d
This wond’rous World of Waters; He who bids The wild wind lift them till they dash the clouds, And speaks to them in thunder; or whose breath, Low murmuring o’er the gently heaving tides, When the fair Moon, in summer night serene, Irradiates with long trembling lines of light Their undulating surface; that great Power, Who, governing the Planets, also knows If but a Sea-Mew falls, whose nest is hid In these incumbent cliffs; He surely means To us, his reasoning Creatures, whom He bids Acknowledge and revere his awful hand, Nothing but good: Yet Man, misguided Man, Mars the fair work that he was bid enjoy, And makes himself the evil he deplores ... How often do I half, abjure Society, And sigh for some lone Cottage, deep embower’d In the green woods, that these steep chalky Hills Guard from the strong South West; where round their base The Beach wide flourishes, and the light Ash With slender leaf half hides the thymy turf! –[19] |
Day goes on to discuss the role of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in this growing antipathy towards society. He presents an excerpt from “The Nightingale”, which rejects the notion that the song of the nightingale strikes a somber tone, suggesting that it is society which is melancholy and that it has mistakenly ascribed such a state to nature.[20]
Day goes on to discuss the role of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in this growing antipathy towards society. He presents an excerpt from “The Nightingale”, which rejects the notion that the song of the nightingale strikes a somber tone, suggesting that it is society which is melancholy and that it has mistakenly ascribed such a state to nature.[20]
some night-wandering Man, whose heart was pierc’d
With the remembrance of a grievous wrong ... First nam’d these notes a melancholy strain; And many a poet echoes the conceit, Poet, who hath been building up the rhyme When he had better far have stretch’d his limbs Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell By sun or moonlight, to the influxes Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song And of his fame forgetful! so his fame Should share in nature’s immortality, A venerable thing! and so his song Should make all nature lovelier, and itself Be lov’d, like nature! – But ‘twill not be so; And youths and maidens most poetical Who lose the deep’ning twilights of the spring In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs O’er Philomela’s pity-pleading strains. My Friend, and my Friend’s Sister! we have learnt A different lore: we may not thus profane Nature’s sweet voices always full of love And joyance![21] |
According to Day, James Thomson was possibly an influential figure to the aforementioned writers. He wrote a poem entitled The Seasons more than fifty years earlier in which nature is seen as an expression of the divine.[22] This might also represent an influence of deism and nature religion. The excerpt below is from the preface to ‘Winter’.
I know no Subject ... more ready to awake the poetical Enthusiasm, the philosophical Reflection, and the moral Sentiment, than the Works of Nature. Where can we meet with such Variety, such Beauty, such Magnificence? All that enlarges, and transports, the Soul?[23]
Other earlier writers that paved the way for Wordsworth, according to Day, included Joseph Warton, James Beattie, William Cowper, and Mark Akenside. These writers represent what has been “called a pre-Romantic stirring against the authoritative ethos of the time.”[24] In The Enthusiast: or the Lover of Nature (1744), Joseph Warton writes:
All-beauteous Nature! by thy boundless charms
Oppress’d, O, where shall I begin thy praise,
Where turn th’ecstatic eye, how ease my breast
That pants with wild astonishment and love![25]
Oppress’d, O, where shall I begin thy praise,
Where turn th’ecstatic eye, how ease my breast
That pants with wild astonishment and love![25]
The English Romantics and the pre-Romantic influences discussed so far paved the way for the American Romantic period, which encompasses a period of writing from the mid-1830s to the early 1860s. This period began, in large part, with the essay, ‘Nature’, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.[26] In reference to nature, Emerson writes:
These enchantments are medicinal, they sober and heal us. These are plain pleasures, kindly and native to us. We come to our own, and make friends with matter, which the ambitious chatter of the schools would persuade us to despise.[27]
Cities give not the human senses room enough.[28]
…these are the music and pictures of the most ancient religion.[29]
He who knows the most, he who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the waters, the plants, the heavens, and how to come at these enchantments, is the rich and royal man.[30]
The men, though young, having tasted the first drop from the cup of thought, are already dissipated: the maples and ferns are still uncorrupt; yet no doubt, when they come to consciousness, they too will curse and swear.[31]
Cities give not the human senses room enough.[28]
…these are the music and pictures of the most ancient religion.[29]
He who knows the most, he who knows what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the waters, the plants, the heavens, and how to come at these enchantments, is the rich and royal man.[30]
The men, though young, having tasted the first drop from the cup of thought, are already dissipated: the maples and ferns are still uncorrupt; yet no doubt, when they come to consciousness, they too will curse and swear.[31]
Day argues that Thoreau was concerned with mankind’s exploitation of the Earth and themselves saying that “Thoreau presents the ascetic self-sufficiency that he practiced during his sojourn in the woods as something that freed him from the self-imposed suffering under which modern Westerners labour.”[32] In “Walking”, Thoreau writes:
In wildness is the preservation of the world.[33]
In “Huckleberries”, Thoreau writes:
Let us try to keep the new world new, and while we make a wary use of the city, preserve as far as possible the advantages of living in the country.
If there is any central and commanding hill-top, it should be reserved for the public use.
I think that each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, either in one body or several – where a stick should never be cut for fuel – nor for the navy, nor to make wagons, but stand and decay for higher uses – a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation.[34]
If there is any central and commanding hill-top, it should be reserved for the public use.
I think that each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, either in one body or several – where a stick should never be cut for fuel – nor for the navy, nor to make wagons, but stand and decay for higher uses – a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation.[34]
We can find examples of these arguments outside of the Romantic writers as well. Frederick Law Olmsted was one of the first commissioners to manage the Yosemite Valley after it was granted to California as a park and wrote a report intended for the state legislature which offers a rich supply of arguments for the parks and suggestions for future administration of them.[35] Olmsted presented, in great detail, the argument for the mental health necessity of wilderness. He asserts that “it is a scientific fact that the occasional contemplation of natural scenes of an impressive character, particularly if this contemplation occurs in connection with relief from ordinary cares, change of air and change of habits, is favorable to the health and vigor of men and especially to the health and vigor of their intellect beyond any other conditions which can be offered them, that it not only gives pleasure for the time being but increases the subsequent capacity for happiness and the means of securing happiness.”[36]
Quiz Yourself!
Conclusion
By examining the political and intellectual discourse of the period leading up to the first National Parks, we can peak into the evolution of thought that culminated in “America’s Best Idea”, the National Parks. This evolution included ideas of nature spirituality and psychological rejuvenation for an over-industrialized society. The journey was one of incredibly good fortune, but was not without its setbacks. One is left to wonder how much more could have been saved, but not without a feeling of great pride for what was.
[1] Roderick F. Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982), 23-24.
[2] Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 23.
[3] Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 46.
[4] National Parks: America’s Best Idea, directed by Ken Burns (Public Broadcasting Service, 2009)
[5] National Parks: America’s Best Idea.
[6] Catherine L. Albanese, Nature Religion in America: From the Algonkian Indians to the New Age, (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), 95.
[7] Albanese, Nature Religion in America, 93.
[8] Albanese, Nature Religion in America, 96.
[9] Dennis C. Williams, God’s Wilds: John Muir’s Vision of Nature, (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2002), xi.
[10] Williams, Gods Wilds, 158.
[11] Albanese, Nature Religion in America, 99.
[12] Albanese, Nature Religion in America, 97.
[13] Albanese, Nature Religion in America, 99.
[14] Albanese, Nature Religion in America, 105.
[15] Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 123.
[16] Aidan Day, Romanticism, (New York, NY: Routledge, 2012), 34.
[17] Day, Romanticism, 35.
[18] Day, Romanticism, 36.
[19] Day, Romanticism, 36.
[20] Day, Romanticism, 37.
[21] Day, Romanticism, 37.
[22] Day, Romanticism, 42.
[23] Day, Romanticism, 42.
[24] Day, Romanticism, 43-47.
[25] Day, Romanticism, 45.
[26] Day, Romanticism, 187.
[27] Ralph W. Emerson, Nature: Followed by the Trancendentalist, (Schooner & Co Publishing, 2016), 53.
[28] Emerson, Nature: Followed by the Trancendentalist, 53.
[29] Emerson, Nature: Followed by the Trancendentalist, 69.
[30] Emerson, Nature: Followed by the Trancendentalist, 78-79.
[31] Emerson, Nature: Followed by the Trancendentalist, 151-152.
[32] Day, Romanticism, 194.
[33] Albanese, Nature Religion in America, 93.
[34] Albanese, Nature Religion in America, 93.
[35] Frederick L. Olmsted, Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove: A Preliminary Report, 1865.
[36] Olmsted, Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove: A Preliminary Report, 1865.