>>37988789Consider the wilderness, and its representation of savage verses civilized types. In the wild, the only animal that does not require to tread softly, to avoid crackling leaves and creaking branches, the only animal that can dispense with deceit and with make-believe, and who can come and go as he likes and trumpet forth the truth honestly to the world without either compromise or caution, is that animal whose power and strength are above the ordinary attacks of its neighbors, and whose food springs from the soil about him, without its having to lie in ambush for it to appear and be waylaid. All other animals must practice deceit, subterfuge, falsehood, ruse, craft and a great variety of attitudes. All other animals must be deceivers and profiteers of no mean attainments; they must know how to crouch, how to crawl, how to cringe, how to dissimulate, and how to pretend. Nature condones all these accomplishments in those of her creatures which are caught in the cruel wheel of the struggle for existence. If she did not condone these accomplishments, either they would never get a meal, or they would always be providing meals with their own bodies to those who were stronger than they. The Snorlax alone can afford to be honest, is honest. The Snorlax alone can practice sincerity, staunchness, levity, laziness, and constancy to principle; he alone can let others live.
