Humanity is exalted not because we are so far above other living creatures, but because knowing them well elevates the very concept of life. E.O. Wilson, 1984

17 Apr 2013

The Call of the Wild

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/JackLondoncallwild.jpg 

Inspired by Darwin's Origin, but also as a reaction against the increasing industrialisation and constricting social contracts which he encountered during his hobo voyages across America, Jack London created The Call Of The Wild. It is a tale of a domesticated dog, who following kidnap and beatings, eventually recedes from his lazy sun-kissed life to live under the reign of primitive law. Shipped to the chill of the Yukon to work as a sled-dog, he becomes hardened, or rather, the soft sheen of his civilisation is stripped away, to reveal the natural core within.

"And when on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors, dead and dust pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through him... he was joining the depths of his nature, and of the parts of his nature that were deeper than he, going back to the womb of time" 

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