Chapter 75 Higher Law - 2

There was a time, both in personal and racial history, when hunters were hailed as "the best of men," as the Algonquin Indians called them.We cannot help but pity the boy who has never fired a gun, whose education has been neglected, who is no longer humane.I have also said this to those teenagers who indulge in hunting. I believe they will surpass this stage in the future.No one, after having spent his childhood carefree, kills any living thing, because living things have the same right to life as he does.When the rabbit came to the end, he cried like a child.I warn you, mothers, that my sympathies do not always make the usual distinctions of loving humanity.

The youth often approaches the forest by hunting, and develops the most natural part of him.He goes thither first as a hunter, as a fisherman, and at last, if he has the seeds of a better life in him, he finds his proper aim to be a poet, perhaps, a naturalist, Forget about shotguns and fishing rods.In this respect, most of humanity is still and always will be young.Hunting priests are not uncommon in some countries.Such a priest might make a good shepherd dog, but never a good shepherd.I am still wondering, there is no need to mention such things as logging and ice digging, and now there is only one thing left, which can still attract my fellow citizens, young and old, to Walden Pond Stay for a full half day, with one exception, and that is fishing.Generally speaking, they don't think they are lucky yet, and their half day is well worth it, unless they catch a long string of fish, which they have been given the chance to see all the time on the lake.They have to go hooking a thousand times before the misconception sinks to the bottom of the lake and their object is purified; no doubt the process of purification goes on all the time.The memory of the lakes and marshes has been dimmed by the Governor and Members, because they only fished in their childhood; now they are too old and sanctimonious, how can they still go fishing?So they never know what to do.Yet they still hope to go to heaven at last.If they legislate, it's mostly a regulation of how many hooks are allowed on the lake; but they don't know which hooks catch the best lake views, and the legislation becomes the bait.Thus, even in civilized society, man in the embryonic state passes through a stage of development as a fisherman.

In recent years, I have found again and again that every time I fish, I always feel that my self-esteem has dropped a little.I try and try.My skill at fishing, and a natural inclination like my companions, prompted me to fish again and again, but when I had done so, I thought it better not to fish, and I thought I was not wrong.It was a faint hint, like a twilight at dawn.Undoubtedly my natural inclination is one of the lower kinds of creation, yet my interest in fishing diminishes a little every year without increasing in humane views, or even in wisdom, and at present I am no longer a The fisherman is hooked.But I know that if I lived in the wilderness, I should be tempted again to be a keen fisherman and hunter.Besides, this fish, and all meat, is basically unclean, and I began to understand where did all the chores come from, where did the desire arise: to be present every day, to dress clean and respectable, to have a house Lovely management without any stinky unsightly sights costs a lot of money.Fortunately, I am butcher, handyman, cook, and master who eats from dish to dish, so I can speak from an unusual total experience.My chief objection to eating animal meat is that it is unclean, and besides, after catching, washing, boiling, and eating my fish, I do not feel that it gives me any great nourishment.Insignificant, unnecessary, and expensive.A small bread and a few potatoes are enough, less trouble and less dirty.Like many of my contemporaries, I have for some years seldom eaten meat or tea or coffee, etc.; not because I have found faults in them, but because they do not suit my ideas.An aversion to animal meat is not caused by experience, but an instinct.A life of humble austerity is more beautiful in many ways, though I have never achieved it, at least so far as it pleases my fancy.I believe that every man who is interested in preserving his higher, poetic faculties in the best condition must avoid especially the meat of animals, and avoid any food in excess.Entomologists consider this a remarkable fact,—I read from Colby and Spence,—"that some insects, in their most perfect state, though having eating organs, do not use them, ’ They boiled this down to ‘a general rule that insects in the adult stage eat much less than they do in the pupal stage, after the voracious chrysalis turns into a butterfly, . . . after the voracious maggot turns into a fly ", as long as a drop or two of honey or other sweet liquid is very satisfying.The abdomen under the butterfly wings is still in the shape of a pupa.This is what tempts it to kill insects.The big eater is the man who is still in the chrysalis state; there are countries in which the entire population has no illusions, no imagination, and only one has betrayed their big bellies.