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Essay on Man's Journey with Nature

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According to a recent census the world’s population is increasing at a rate of 80 million individuals a year (“The World Factbook” n.d.). This is equivalent to the population of Germany every year. Humanity is growing faster now than at any other period in history. New technological inventions are being devised, new biological developments are found everyday, and current-edge infrastructure breaks the boundaries of what man thought was possible. The society’s amelioration raises an important question: do the improvements of man warrant his superiority, or is nature still dominant? To clearly understand we must be familiar with the concepts and champions for each separate conviction. In the book Man and Nature, George Perkins Marsh details …show more content…

Thus, according to
Emerson, we will define nature as everything man is able to see and interact with, including his fellows and their creations.
In order to understand the difference between the mutual development of man and nature and the differing concepts of superior man or connected man, we must understand both the works of Marsh and Emerson. Marsh introduces the idea of a superior man in his book Man and Nature. He notes that mankind is forced to take dominion of nature in order to ensure his own survival, and as Marsh notes, eventually become the overseer of nature. The notion sums up as man being forced to decide the right actions, to ensure his survival, and the possible advancement of nature; for without nature man will eventually perish. Meanwhile, Emerson introduces a different vantage point in how he perceived the coexistence of man and nature. Emerson, in his book Nature, writes how man is altogether connected with our natural environment; that man’s ideas and reasons are wedded to nature and self-reliance. Introducing the concept that nature is the basis for all-human reason, ideology, spiritual sense, and focus for humanity. These two arguments form the basis of the division to the man/nature debates. Finally, there is the unrealized midpoint of the two views. This can be categorized as neither man’s dominance nor his valet service to nature. It is the realization that man receives aspiration and resources from the different services that nature

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