"I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil--to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, f...

"I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil--to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that."

Henry David Thoreau, noted transcendentalist, wrote Walking as a message of the battle between the importance of nature and the pull of the demands of society, while at the same time writing his other environmental work, * Walden.First delivered by Thoreau in 1851, Walking,or also known as The Wild,* this essay was not only popular with the public, but also considered by Thoreau himself as, "... a sort of introduction to all that I may write hereafter."