BIOL 3130 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Henry David Thoreau, Transcendentalism
22 Mar 2016
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In wilderness is the preservaion of the world : tossed aside romanic and naionalisic clich s to approach the signiicance of the wild more closely. Transcendentalism (complex aitudes towards man, nature, and god) was a major factor in condiioning his ideas regarding wilderness: the belief that a correspondence existed between the higher realm of spiritual truth and the lower one of material objects. Natural objects were assumed to be important as they relected spiritual truths: nature was the proper source of religion, saw no danger in wild country as they believed in a man"s basic goodness. He was also shaped by his opinion of civilizaion: technological civilizaion was replacing older, beter paterns of living, he spoke of the commercial spirit as a virus infecing his age. Given his views it made sense that he would take up the naionalists" defence of american scenery.
