John Muir And Henry David Thoreau's Analysis

From these readings I have found that John Muir and Henry David Thoreau have many of the same notions about nature and the American frontier. Both viewed nature as a defined space, completely separated from civil society, a place in which “a man can be a man.” For Muir it seemed that nature was very much a sacred space and loved to idealize nature as a sort of heaven on earth. I think one of the biggest things I realized through these readings is that Muir and Thoreau both emphasized the difference, physically and mentally, between nature and urbanization. It is this idea that Americans now live on, I believe that people now think of nature and urban areas as entirely separate entities and in doing so, make nature into a sort of place to visit but never stay. Ultimately, I believe that both Muir and Thoreau have a mostly organic worldview, however, it is one that has some mechanistic influences. Thoreau writes, “…to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part or parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society.” This statement leads me to believe that Thoreau had an organic view in which he thought of man and nature as one but still giving respect to nature by itself.