use the Providence of History has
again and again raised up men who were incapable of taking the world as
they found it, that regenerations and reformations of society have
occurred at all. Society never moves forward except when it is goaded
by the spirit of individual genius. So far as we can trace the history
of civilisation, and thanks to modern research we have about ten
thousand years to go by, civilisation is a succession of waves, each
flowing a little higher than its predecessor, with an ebb between each.
At what point is the ebb checked, at what point does the fuller wave
begin to flow? Always with the advent of individual genius. A great
man rises who founds a dynasty; a great thinker, who publishes new
truths; a great lawgiver or statesman, who establishes a new social
system. New worlds need a Columbus, and the social Columbus is always
a man with sufficient daring to stand by original convictions.
Therefore I say that human progress is only made possible by not taking
the world as we find it; and that he is the best friend of collective
progress who is the most obedient not to collective convention, but to
individual insight.

I observe that my friend does not live in the spirit of his own axiom:
else, why should he trouble himself over the inhabitants of Lucraft's
Row? He is certainly not taking the world as he finds it when he
devotes his hours of leisure to impart the elements of decency to
gutter-snipes, and save drunkards from the pit. He is as much an
individualist as I, only his individualism expresses itself in a
different way; which confirms my original conjecture that we may be
equally right in our own mode of life. Nor, by his own confession,
does he really sacrifice his inclinations in his mode of life; he
gratifies his sense of altruism in Lucraft's Row, and I my love of
Nature in the solitude of lonely hills. The objects which give men
pleasure may be so diverse that what is a source of joy to one man may
be an equal source of misery to another. There can be no doubt that
many of the martyrs and ascetics were honestly enamoured of pain and
whatever credit they deserve for sacrifice, they pleased themselves by
renouncing the world, as others by enjoying it; and all that can be
said on the subject is that each pleased himself in his own way.

Thoreau's defence when he was accused of not doing good was that it did
not agree with his constitution; and although the defence sounds like a