the social welfare of his
neighborhood.

Thoreau called himself a mystic, and a transcendentalist, and a
natural philosopher to boot. But the least of these was the natural
philosopher. He did not have the philosophic mind, nor the scientific
mind; he did not inquire into the reason of things, nor the meaning of
things; in fact, had no disinterested interest in the universe apart
from himself. He was too personal and illogical for a philosopher. The
scientific interpretation of things did not interest him at all. He
was interested in things only so far as they related to Henry Thoreau.
He interpreted Nature entirely in the light of his own idiosyncrasies.

Science goes its own way in spite of our likes and dislikes, but
Thoreau's likes and dislikes determined everything for him. He was
stoical, but not philosophical. His intellect had no free play outside
his individual predilection. Truth as philosophers use the term, was
not his quest but truth made in Concord.

Thoreau writes that when he was once asked by the Association for the
Advancement of Science what branch of science he was especially
interested in, he did not reply because he did not want to make
himself the laughing-stock of the scientific community, which did not
believe in a science which deals with the higher law--his higher law,
which bears the stamp of Henry Thoreau.

He was an individualist of the most pronounced type. The penalty of
this type of mind is narrowness; the advantage is the personal flavor
imparted to the written page. Thoreau's books contain plenty of the
pepper and salt of character and contrariness; even their savor of
whim and prejudice adds to their literary tang. When his individualism
becomes aggressive egotism, as often happens, it is irritating; but
when it gives only that pungent and personal flavor which pervades
much of "Walden," it is very welcome.

Thoreau's critics justly aver that he severely arraigns his countrymen
because they are not all Thoreaus--that they do not desert their farms
and desks and shops and take to the woods. What unmeasured contempt he
pours out upon the lives and ambitions of most of them! Need a
nature-lover, it is urged, necessarily be a man-hater? Is not man a
part of nature?--averaging up quite as good as the total scheme of
things out of which he came? Cannot his vices and shortcomings be
matched by a thousand cruel and abortive things in the fields and the
woods? The fountain cannot rise ab