Perception Of The Living In The Green Wilderness

Thoreau was a famous essayist in the 19th century and one of the most influential preservation thinkers. Yet his thought failed to be accepted until latter half of the 20th century when the world environment deteriorated. From then on, Thoreau was remembered again and regarded as "the Father of the Modern Environmental Movement "because of his far-sighted thought about nature and ecology. Different from his popularity abroad, in China , Thoreau was seen as a hermit because little was known about him except his Walden. Therefore, how to appraise Thoreau properly in the new century and what the value of his thought means to us are the main concern in Chinese academic circles. The paper attempts to provide its answer with the approach of ecological philosophy and systematic analysis of his work. The paper is composed of the following five parts. Part one: After a brief introduction about the author and his work, this part reviews the recent study about him and provides the structure of the paper. Part two: This part aims at a systematic interpretation about Thoreau's thought on nature. After giving a general account of the ancient and the modern mechanistic views on nature, the paper focuses its attention on Thoreau's thought about nature, which was the further development of the Romantic views upon nature and complete refutation of the mechanistic views on it . Part three: This part mainly discusses Thoreau's idea about nature and civilization. In his mind, with the development of the material civilization, the merchandising of the nature, the expanding material desires and the decline of the individual's spirit were unavoidable,which leads to Man's predatory behavior beyond his rationality and the destruction of nature in the end. To deal with the deteriorating situation, Thoreau stressed self-reliance and independence of mind. He called for simple living style and put it into practice. What he stressed and practiced still has great significance in today's society which is suffering the natural environmental crisis as well as the human being's mental crisis. Part four: The main concern of this part is about his ecological thought, especially about his eco-ethics thought and their inspiration to us. In Thoreau's mind, nature is a complex organism among which every living-being has the right and reason to exist. As to Thoreau, the human being is only a common member among it. Therefore, he suggested that people should hold every living-being in veneration and preservation fields should be established. His thoughts has great influence on John Muir,Aldo Leopold and Deep Ecology. Conclusion: Thoreau's thought throws new light on the problems of the deteriorating natural environment and the worsening living conditions and inspires people to pursue the ways for sustainable development, which is still significant in dealing with the realistic problems. His thought on nature and ecology made him the Father of the Modern Environmental Movement and the forerunner of eco-ethics & eco-philosophy as well.