Economy

When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.

I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained. I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no particular interest in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of these questions in this book. In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were any body else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits.

I would fain say something, not so much concerning the Chinese and Sandwich Islanders as you who read these pages, who are said to live in New England; something about your condition, especially your outward condition or circumstances in this world, in this town, what it is, whether it is necessary that it be as bad as it is, whether it cannot be improved as well as not. I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and every where, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways. What I have heard of Bramins sitting exposed to four fires and looking in the face of the sun; or hanging suspended, with their heads downward, over flames; or looking at the heavens over their shoulders 'until it becomes impossible for them to resume their natural position, while from the twist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the stomach'; or dwelling, chained for life, at the foot of a tree; or measuring with their bodies, like caterpillars, the breadth of vast empires; or standing on one leg on the tops of pillars — even these forms of conscious penance are hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes which I daily witness. The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve, and had an end; but I could never see that these men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor. They have no friend Iolas to burn with a hot iron the root of the hydra's head, but as soon as one head is crushed, two spring up.

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born? They have got to live a man's life, pushing all these things before them, and get on as well as they can. How many a poor immortal soul have I met well nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture, and wood-lot! The portionless, who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh.

But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before. It is said that Deucalion and Pyrrha created men by throwing stones over their heads behind them -



Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque laborum,

Et documenta damus quâ simus origine nati.



Or, as Raleigh rhymes it in his sonorous way —



From thence our kind hard-hearted is, enduring pain and care,

Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are.



So much for a blind obedience to a blundering oracle, throwing the stones over their heads behind them, and not seeing where they fell.

Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be any thing but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance — which his growth requires — who has so often to use his knowledge? We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.

Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time; robbing your creditors of an hour. It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by experience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins œs alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay; promising to pay, to-morrow, and dying to-day, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offences; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility, or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay up something against a sick day, something to be tucked away in an old chest, or in a stocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, in the brick bank; no matter where, no matter how much or how little.

I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, I may almost say, as to attend to the gross but somewhat foreign form of servitude called Negro Slavery, there are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both north and south. It is hard to have a southern overseer; it is worse to have a northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself. Talk of a divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the highway, wending to market by day or night; does any divinity stir within him? His highest duty to fodder and water his horses! What is his destiny to him compared with the shipping interests? Does not he drive for Squire Make-a-stir? How godlike, how immortal, is he? See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. Self-emancipation even in the West Indian provinces of the fancy and imagination — what Wilberforce is there to bring that about? Think, also, of the ladies of the land weaving toilet cushions against the last day, not to betray too green an interest in their fates! As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What every body echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. What old people say you cannot do you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. Old people did not know enough once, perchance, to fetch fresh fuel to keep the fire a-going; new people put a little dry wood under a pot, and are whirled round the globe with the speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the phrase is. Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned any thing of absolute value by living. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that experience, and they are only less young than they were. I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me any thing, to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it. If I have any experience which I think valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my Mentors said nothing about.

One farmer says to me, 'You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with'; and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plough along in spite of every obstacle. Some things are really necessaries of life in some circles, the most helpless and diseased, which in others are luxuries merely, and in others still are entirely unknown.

The whole ground of human life seems to some to have been gone over by their predecessors, both the heights and the valleys, and all things to have been cared for. According to Evelyn, 'the wise Solomon prescribed ordinances for the very distances of trees; and the Roman prætors have decided how often you may go into your neighbor's land to gather the acorns which fall on it without trespass, and what share belongs to that neighbor.' Hippocrates has even left directions how we should cut our nails; that is, even with the ends of the fingers, neither shorter nor longer. Undoubtedly the very tedium and ennui which presume to have exhausted the variety and the joys of life are as old as Adam. But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little has been tried. Whatever have been thy failures hitherto, 'be not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to thee what thou hast left undone?'

We might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; as, for instance, that the same sun which ripens my beans illumines at once a system of earths like ours. If I had remembered this it would have prevented some mistakes. This was not the light in which I hoed them. The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant and different beings in the various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at the same moment! Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology! — I know of no reading of another's experience so startling and informing as this would be.

The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of any thing, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? You may say the wisest thing you can old man - you who have lived seventy years, not without honor of a kind — I hear an irresistible voice which invites me away from all that. One generation abandons the enterprises of another like stranded vessels.

I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength. The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick? How vigilant we are! determined not to live by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, 'To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.' When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men will at length establish their lives on that basis.



Let us consider for a moment what most of the trouble and anxiety which I have referred to is about, and how much it is necessary that we be troubled, or, at least, careful. It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life and what methods have been taken to obtain them; or even to look over the old day-books of the merchants, to see what it was that men most commonly bought at the stores, what they stored, that is, what are the grossest groceries. For the improvements of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man's existence; as our skeletons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors.

By the words, necessary of life, I mean whatever, of all that man obtains by his own exertions, has been from the first, or from long use has become, so important to human life that few, if any, whether from savageness, or poverty, or philosophy, ever attempt to do without it. To many creatures there is in this sense but one necessary of life, Food. To the bison of the prairie it is a few inches of palatable grass, with water to drink; unless he seeks the Shelter of the forest or the mountain's shadow. None of the brute creation requires more than Food and Shelter. The necessaries of life for man in this climate may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several heads of Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel; for not till we have secured these are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life with freedom and a prospect of success. Man has invented, not only houses, but clothes and cooked food; and possibly from the accidental discovery of the warmth of fire, and the consequent use of it, at first a luxury, arose the present necessity to sit by it. We observe cats and dogs acquiring the same second nature. By proper Shelter and Clothing we legitimately retain our own internal heat; but with an excess of these, or of Fuel, that is, with an external heat greater than our own internal, may not cookery properly be said to begin? Darwin, the naturalist, says of the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, that while his own party, who were well clothed and sitting close to a fire, were far from too warm, these naked savages, who were farther off, were observed, to his great surprise, 'to be streaming with perspiration at undergoing such a roasting.' So, we are told, the New Hollander goes naked with impunity, while the European shivers in his clothes. Is it impossible to combine the hardiness of these savages with the intellectualness of the civilized man? According to Liebig, man's body is a stove, and food the fuel which keeps up the internal combustion in the lungs. In cold weather we eat more, in warm less. The animal heat is the result of a slow combustion, and disease and death take place when this is too rapid; or for want of fuel, or from some defect in the draught, the fire goes out. Of course the vital heat is not to be confounded with fire; but so much for analogy. It appears, therefore, from the above list, that the expression, animal life, is nearly synonymous with the expression, animal heat; for while Food may be regarded as the Fuel which keeps up the fire within us — and Fuel serves only to prepare that Food or to increase the warmth of our bodies by addition from without — Shelter and Clothing also serve only to retain the heat thus generated and absorbed.

The grand necessity, then, for our bodies, is to keep warm, to keep the vital heat in us. What pains we accordingly take, not only with our Food, and Clothing, and Shelter, but with our beds, which are our nightclothes, robbing the nests and breasts of birds to prepare this shelter within a shelter, as the mole has its bed of grass and leaves at the end of its burrow! The poor man is wont to complain that this is a cold world; and to cold, no less physical than social, we refer directly a great part of our ails. The summer, in some climates, makes possible to man a sort of Elysian life. Fuel, except to cook his Food, is then unnecessary; the sun is his fire, and many of the fruits are sufficiently cooked by its rays; while Food generally is more various, and more easily obtained, and Clothing and Shelter are wholly or half unnecessary. At the present day, and in this country, as I find by my own experience, a few implements, a knife, an axe, a spade, a wheelbarrow, &c., and for the studious, lamplight, stationery, and access to a few books, rank next to necessaries, and can all be obtained at a trifling cost. Yet some, not wise, go to the other side of the globe, to barbarous and unhealthy regions, and devote themselves to trade for ten or twenty years, in order that they may live — that is, keep comfortably warm — and die in New England at last. The luxuriously rich are not simply kept comfortably warm, but unnaturally hot; as I implied before, they are cooked, of course à la mode.

Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hinderances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. We know not much about them. It is remarkable that we know so much of them as we do. The same is true of the more modern reformers and benefactors of their race. None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty. Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art. There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a nobler race of men. But why do men degenerate ever? What makes families run out? What is the nature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are we sure that there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopher is in advance of his age even in the outward form of his life. He is not fed, sheltered, clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries. How can a man be a philosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better methods than other men?

When a man is warmed by the several modes which I have described, what does he want next? Surely not more warmth of the same kind, as more and richer food, larger and more splendid houses, finer and more abundant clothing, more numerous incessant and hotter fires, and the like. When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced. The soil, it appears, is suited to the seed, for it has sent its radicle downward, and it may now send its shoot upward also with confidence. Why has man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in the same proportion into the heavens above? — for the nobler plants are valued for the fruit they bear at last in the air and light, far from the ground, and are not treated like the humbler esculents, which, though they may be biennials, are cultivated only till they have perfected their root, and often cut down at top for this purpose, so that most would not know them in their flowering season.

I do not mean to prescribe rules to strong and valiant natures, who will mind their own affairs whether in heaven or hell, and perchance build more magnificently and spend more lavishly than the richest, without ever impoverishing themselves, not knowing how they live — if, indeed, there are any such, as has been dreamed; nor to those who find their encouragement and inspiration in precisely the present condition of things, and cherish it with the fondness and enthusiasm of lovers — and, to some extent, I reckon myself in this number; I do not speak to those who are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and they know whether they are well employed or not; — but mainly to the mass of men who are discontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of their lot or of the times, when they might improve them. There are some who complain most energetically and inconsolably of any, because they are, as they say, doing their duty. I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters.



If I should attempt to tell how I have desired to spend my life in years past, it would probably surprise those of my readers who are somewhat acquainted with its actual history; it would certainly astonish those who know nothing about it. I will only hint at some of the enterprises which I have cherished.

In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint 'No Admittance' on my gate.

I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them, describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves.

To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter, before yet any neighbor was stirring about his business, have I been about mine! No doubt, many of my townsmen have met me returning from this enterprise, farmers starting for Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going to their work. It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it.

So many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside the town, trying to hear what was in the wind, to hear and carry it express! I well-nigh sunk all my capital in it, and lost my own breath into the bargain, running in the face of it. If it had concerned either of the political parties, depend upon it, it would have appeared in the Gazette with the earliest intelligence. At other times watching from the observatory of some cliff or tree, to telegraph any new arrival; or waiting at evening on the hill-tops for the sky to fall, that I might catch something, though I never caught much, and that, mannawise, would dissolve again in the sun.

For a long time I was reporter to a journal, of no very wide circulation, whose editor has never yet seen fit to print the bulk of my contributions, and, as is too common with writers, I got only my labor for my pains. However, in this case my pains were their own reward.

For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow storms and rain storms, and did my duty faithfully; surveyor, if not of highways, then of forest paths and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and ravines bridged and passable at all seasons, where the public heel had testified to their utility.

I have looked after the wild stock of the town, which give a faithful herdsman a good deal of trouble by leaping fences; and I have had an eye to the unfrequented nooks and corners of the farm; though I did not always know whether Jonas or Solomon worked in a particular field to-day; that was none of my business. I have watered the red huckleberry, the sand cherry and the nettle tree, the red pine and the black ash, the white grape and the yellow violet, which might have withered else in dry seasons.

In short, I went on thus for a long time, I may say it without boasting, faithfully minding my business, till it became more and more evident that my townsmen would not after all admit me into the list of town officers, nor make my place a sinecure with a moderate allowance. My accounts, which I can swear to have kept faithfully, I have, indeed, never got audited, still less accepted, still less paid and settled. However, I have not set my heart on that.

Not long since, a strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the house of a well-known lawyer in my neighborhood. 'Do you wish to buy any baskets?' he asked. 'No, we do not want any,' was the reply. 'What!' exclaimed the Indian as he went out the gate, 'do you mean to starve us?' Having seen his industrious white neighbors so well off — that the lawyer had only to weave arguments, and by some magic wealth and standing followed, he had said to himself; I will go into business; I will weave baskets; it is a thing which I can do. Thinking that when he had made the baskets he would have done his part, and then it would be the white man's to buy them. He had not discovered that it was necessary for him to make it worth the other's while to buy them, or at least make him think that it was so, or to make something else which it would be worth his while to buy. I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had not made it worth any one's while to buy them. Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them. The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

Finding that my fellow-citizens were not likely to offer me any room in the court house, or any curacy or living any where else, but I must shift for myself, I turned my face more exclusively than ever to the woods, where I was better known. I determined to go into business at once, and not wait to acquire the usual capital, using such slender means as I had already got. My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles; to be hindered from accomplishing which for want of a little common sense, a little enterprise and business talent, appeared not so sad as foolish.

I have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits; they are indispensable to every man. If your trade is with the Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough. You will export such articles as the country affords, purely native products, much ice and pine timber and a little granite, always in native bottoms. These will be good ventures. To oversee all the details yourself in person; to be at once pilot and captain, and owner and underwriter; to buy and sell and keep the accounts; to read every letter received, and write or read every letter sent; to superintend the discharge of imports night and day; to be upon many parts of the coast almost at the same time; — often the richest freight will be discharged upon a Jersey shore; — to be your own telegraph, unweariedly sweeping the horizon, speaking all passing vessels bound coastwise; to keep up a steady despatch of commodities, for the supply of such a distant and exorbitant market; to keep yourself informed of the state of the markets, prospects of war and peace every where, and anticipate the tendencies of trade and civilization — taking advantage of the results of all exploring expeditions, using new passages and all improvements in navigation; — charts to be studied, the position of reefs and new lights and buoys to be ascertained, and ever, and ever, the logarithmic tables to be corrected, for by the error of some calculator the vessel often splits upon a rock that should have reached a friendly pier — there is the untold fate of La Perouse; — universal science to be kept pace with, studying the lives of all great discoverers and navigators, great adventurers and merchants, from Hanno and the Phoenicians down to our day; in fine, account of stock to be taken from time to time, to know how you stand. It is a labor to task the faculties of a man — such problems of profit and loss, of interest, of tare and tret, and gauging of all kinds in it, as demand a universal knowledge.

I have thought that Walden Pond would be a good place for business, not solely on account of the railroad and the ice trade; it offers advantages which it may not be good policy to divulge; it is a good post and a good foundation. No Neva marshes to be filled; though you must every where build on piles of your own driving. It is said that a flood-tide, with a westerly wind, and ice in the Neva, would sweep St Petersburg from the face of the earth.



As this business was to be entered into without the usual capital, it may not be easy to conjecture where those means, that will still be indispensable to every such undertaking, were to be obtained. As for Clothing, to come at once to the practical part of the question, perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty, and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility. Let him who has work to do recollect that the object of clothing is, first, to retain the vital heat, and secondly, in this state of society, to cover nakedness, and he may judge how much of any necessary or important work may be accomplished without adding to his wardrobe. Kings and queens who wear a suit but once, though made by some tailor or dressmaker to their majesties, cannot know the comfort of wearing a suit that fits. They are no better than wooden horses to hang the clean clothes on. Every day our garments become more assimilated to ourselves, receiving the impress of the wearer's character, until we hesitate to lay them aside, without such delay and medical appliances and some such solemnity even as our bodies. No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience. But even if the rent is not mended, perhaps the worst vice betrayed is improvidence. I sometimes try my acquaintance by such tests as this; — who could wear a patch, or two extra seams only, over the knee? Most behave as if they believed that their prospects for life would be ruined if they should do it. It would be easier for them to hobble to town with a broken leg than with a broken pantaloon. Often if an accident happens to a gentleman's legs, they can be mended; but if a similar accident happens to the legs of his pantaloons, there is no help for it; for he considers, not what is truly respectable, but what is respected. We know but few men, a great many coats and breeches. Dress a scarecrow in your last shift, you standing shiftless by, who would not soonest salute the scarecrow? Passing a cornfield the other day, close by a hat and coat on a stake, I recognized the owner of the farm. He was only a little more weather-beaten than when I saw him last. I have heard of a dog that barked at every stranger who approached his master's premises with clothes on, but was easily quieted by a naked thief. It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes. Could you, in such a case, tell surely of any company of civilized men, which belonged to the most respected class? When Madam Pfeiffer, in her adventurous travels round the world, from east to west, had got so near home as Asiatic Russia, she says that she felt the necessity of wearing other than a travelling dress, when she went to meet the authorities, for she 'was now in a civilized country, where — people are judged of by their clothes'. Even in our democratic New England towns the accidental possession of wealth, and its manifestation in dress and equipage alone, obtain for the possessor almost universal respect. But they who yield such respect, numerous as they are, are so far heathen, and need to have a missionary sent to them. Beside, clothes introduced sewing, a kind of work which you may call endless; a woman's dress, at least, is never done.

A man who has at length found something to do will not need to get a new suit to do it in; for him the old will do, that has lain dusty in the garret for an indeterminate period. Old shoes will serve a hero longer than they have served his valet — if a hero ever has a valet — bare feet are older than shoes, and he can make them do. Only they who go to soirées and legislative halls must have new coats, coats to change as often as the man changes in them. But if my jacket and trousers, my hat and shoes, are fit to worship God in, they will do; will they not? Who ever saw his old clothes — his old coat, actually worn out, resolved into its primitive elements, so that it was not a deed of charity to bestow it on some poor boy, by him perchance to be bestowed on some poorer still, or shall we say richer, who could do with less? I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before you try it in your old clothes. All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. The loon retires to solitary ponds to spend it. Thus also the snake casts its slough, and the caterpillar its wormy coat, by an internal industry and expansion; for clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal coil. Otherwise we shall be found sailing under false colors, and be inevitably cashiered at last by our own opinion, as well as that of mankind.

We don garment after garment, as if we grew like exogenous plants by addition without. Our outside and often thin and fanciful clothes are our epidermis or false skin, which partakes not of our life, and may be stripped off here and there without fatal injury; our thicker garments, constantly worn, are our cellular integument, or cortex; but our shirts are our liber or true bark, which cannot be removed without girdling and so destroying the man. I believe that all races at some seasons wear something equivalent to the shirt. It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly, that, if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety. While one thick garment is, for most purposes, as good as three thin ones, and cheap clothing can be obtained at prices really to suit customers; while a thick coat can be bought for five dollars, which will last as many years, thick pantaloons for two dollars, cowhide boots for a dollar and a half a pair, a summer hat for a quarter of a dollar, and a winter cap for sixty-two and a half cents, or a better be made at home at a nominal cost, where is he so poor that, clad in such a suit, of his own earning, there will not be found wise men to do him reverence?

When I ask for a garment of a particular form, my tailoress tells me gravely, 'They do not make them so now,' not emphasizing the 'They' at all, as if she quoted an authority as impersonal as the Fates, and I find it difficult to get made what I want, simply because she cannot believe that I mean what I say, that I am so rash. When I hear this oracular sentence, I am for a moment absorbed in thought, emphasizing to myself each word separately that I may come at the meaning of it, that I may find out by what degree of consanguinity They are related to me, and what authority they may have in an affair which affects me so nearly; and, finally, I am inclined to answer her with equal mystery, and without any more emphasis of the 'they' — 'It is true, they did not make them so recently, but they do now.' Of what use this measuring of me if she does not measure my character, but only the breadth of my shoulders, as it were a peg to hang the coat on? We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcæ, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same. I sometimes despair of getting any thing quite simple and honest done in this world by the help of men. They would have to be passed through a powerful press first, to squeeze their old notions out of them, so that they would not soon get upon their legs again, and then there would be some one in the company with a maggot in his head, hatched from an egg deposited there nobody knows when, for not even fire kills these things, and you would have lost your labor. Nevertheless, we will not forget that some Egyptian wheat was handed down to us by a mummy.

On the whole, I think that it cannot be maintained that dressing has in this or any country risen to the dignity of an art. At present men make shift to wear what they can get. Like shipwrecked sailors, they put on what they can find on the beach, and at a little distance, whether of space or time, laugh at each other's masquerade. Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new. We are amused at beholding the costume of Henry Ⅷ, or Queen Elizabeth, as much as if it was that of the King and Queen of the Cannibal Islands. All costume off a man is pitiful or grotesque. It is only the serious eye peering from and the sincere life passed within it, which restrain laughter and consecrate the costume of any people. Let Harlequin be taken with a fit of the colic and his trappings will have to serve that mood too. When the soldier is hit by a cannon ball rags are as becoming as purple.

The childish and savage taste of men and women for new patterns keeps how many shaking and squinting through kaleidoscopes that they may discover the particular figure which this generation requires to-day. The manufacturers have learned that this taste is merely whimsical. Of two patterns which differ only by a few threads more or less of a particular color, the one will be sold readily, the other lie on the shelf, though it frequently happens that after the lapse of a season the latter becomes the most fashionable. Comparatively, tattooing is not the hideous custom which it is called. It is not barbarous merely because the printing is skin-deep and unalterable.

I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing. The condition of the operatives is becoming every day more like that of the English; and it cannot be wondered at, since, as far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that the corporations may be enriched. In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.



As for a Shelter, I will not deny that this is now a necessary of life, though there are instances of men having done without it for long periods in colder countries than this. Samuel Laing says that 'The Laplander in his skin dress, and in a skin bag which he puts over his head and shoulders, will sleep night after night on the snow — in a degree of cold which would extinguish the life of one exposed to it in any woollen clothing.' He had seen them asleep thus. Yet he adds, 'They are not hardier than other people.' But, probably, man did not live long on the earth without discovering the convenience which there is in a house, the domestic comforts, which phrase may have originally signified the satisfactions of the house more than of the family; though these must be extremely partial and occasional in those climates where the house is associated in our thoughts with winter or the rainy season chiefly, and two thirds of the year, except for a parasol, is unnecessary. In our climate, in the summer, it was formerly almost solely a covering at night. In the Indian gazettes a wigwam was the symbol of a day's march, and a row of them cut or painted on the bark of a tree signified that so many times they had camped. Man was not made so large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world, and wall in a space such as fitted him. He was at first bare and out of doors; but though this was pleasant enough in serene and warm weather, by daylight, the rainy season and the winter, to say nothing of the torrid sun, would perhaps have nipped his race in the bud if he had not made haste to clothe himself with the shelter of a house. Adam and Eve, according to the fable, wore the bower before other clothes. Man wanted a home, a place of warmth, or comfort, first of physical warmth, then the warmth of the affections.

We may imagine a time when, in the infancy of the human race, some enterprising mortal crept into a hollow in a rock for shelter. Every child begins the world again, to some extent, and loves to stay out doors, even in wet and cold. It plays house, as well as horse, having an instinct for it. Who does not remember the interest with which when young he looked at shelving rocks, or any approach to a cave? It was the natural yearning of that portion of our most primitive ancestor which still survived in us. From the cave we have advanced to roofs of palm leaves, of bark and boughs, of linen woven and stretched, of grass and straw, of boards and shingles, of stones and tiles. At last, we know not what it is to live in the open air, and our lives are domestic in more senses than we think. From the hearth to the field is a great distance. It would be well perhaps if we were to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction between us and the celestial bodies, if the poet did not speak so much from under a roof, or the saint dwell there so long. Birds do not sing in caves, nor do doves cherish their innocence in dovecots.

However, if one designs to construct a dwelling house, it behooves him to exercise a little Yankee shrewdness, lest after all he find himself in a workhouse, a labyrinth without a clew, a museum, an almshouse, a prison, or a splendid mausoleum instead. Consider first how slight a shelter is absolutely necessary. I have seen Penobscot Indians, in this town, living in tents of thin cotton cloth, while the snow was nearly a foot deep around them, and I thought that they would be glad to have it deeper to keep out the wind. Formerly, when how to get my living honestly, with freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a question which vexed me even more than it does now, for unfortunately I am become somewhat callous, I used to see a large box by the railroad, six feet long by three wide, in which the laborers locked up their tools at night, and it suggested to me that every man who was hard pushed might get such a one for a dollar, and, having bored a few auger holes in it, to admit the air at least, get into it when it rained and at night, and hook down the lid, and so have freedom in his love, and in his soul be free. This did not appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable alternative. You could sit up as late as you pleased, and, whenever you got up, go abroad without any landlord or house-lord dogging you for rent. Many a man is harassed to death to pay the rent of a larger and more luxurious box who would not have frozen to death in such a box as this. I am far from jesting. Economy is a subject which admits of being treated with levity, but it cannot so be disposed of. A comfortable house for a rude and hardy race, that lived mostly out of doors, was once made here almost entirely of such materials as Nature furnished ready to their hands. Gookin, who was superintendent of the Indians subject to the Massachusetts Colony, writing in 1674, says, 'The best of their houses are covered very neatly, tight and warm, with barks of trees, slipped from their bodies at those seasons when the sap is up, and made into great flakes, with pressure of weighty timber, when they are green ... The meaner sort are covered with mats which they make of a kind of bulrush, and are also indifferently tight and warm, but not so good as the former ... Some I have seen, sixty or a hundred feet long and thirty feet broad ... I have often lodged in their wigwams, and found them as warm as the best English houses.' He adds, that they were commonly carpeted and lined within with well-wrought embroidered mats, and were furnished with various utensils. The Indians had advanced so far as to regulate the effect of the wind by a mat suspended over the hole in the roof and moved by a string. Such a lodge was in the first instance constructed in a day or two at most, and taken down and put up in a few hours; and every family owned one, or its apartment in one.

In the savage state every family owns a shelter as good as the best, and sufficient for its coarser and simpler wants; but I think that I speak within bounds when I say that, though the birds of the air have their nests, and the foxes their holes, and the savages their wigwams, in modern civilized society not more than one half the families own a shelter. In the large towns and cities, where civilization especially prevails, the number of those who own a shelter is a very small fraction of the whole. The rest pay an annual tax for this outside garment of all, become indispensable summer and winter, which would buy a village of Indian wigwams, but now helps to keep them poor as long as they live. I do not mean to insist here on the disadvantage of hiring compared with owning, but it is evident that the savage owns his shelter because it costs so little, while the civilized man hires his commonly because he cannot afford to own it; nor can he, in the long run, any better afford to hire. But, answers one, by merely paying this tax the poor civilized man secures an abode which is a palace compared with the savage's. An annual rent of from twenty-five to a hundred dollars, these are the country rates, entitles him to the benefit of the improvements of centuries, spacious apartments, clean paint and paper, Rumford fireplace, back plastering, Venetian blinds, copper pump, spring lock, a commodious cellar, and many other things. But how happens it that he who is said to enjoy these things is so commonly a poor civilized man, while the savage, who has them not, is rich as a savage? If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the condition of man — and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages — it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. An average house in this neighborhood costs perhaps eight hundred dollars, and to lay up this sum will take from ten to fifteen years of the laborer's life, even if he is not encumbered with a family; — estimating the pecuniary value of every man's labor at one dollar a day, for if some receive more, others receive less; — so that he must have spent more than half his life commonly before his wigwam will be earned. If we suppose him to pay a rent instead, this is but a doubtful choice of evils. Would the savage have been wise to exchange his wigwam for a palace on these terms?

It may be guessed that I reduce almost the whole advantage of holding this superfluous property as a fund in store against the future, so far as the individual is concerned, mainly to the defraying of funeral expenses. But perhaps a man is not required to bury himself. Nevertheless this points to an important distinction between the civilized man and the savage; and, no doubt, they have designs on us for our benefit, in making the life of a civilized people an institution, in which the life of the individual is to a great extent absorbed, in order to preserve and perfect that of the race. But I wish to show at what a sacrifice this advantage is at present obtained, and to suggest that we may possibly so live as to secure all the advantage without suffering any of the disadvantage. What mean ye by saying that the poor ye have always with you, or that the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge?

'As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel.'

'Behold all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth it shall die.'

When I consider my neighbors, the farmers of Concord, who are at least as well off as the other classes, I find that for the most part they have been toiling twenty, thirty, or forty years, that they may become the real owners of their farms, which commonly they have inherited with encumbrances, or else bought with hired money — and we may regard one third of that toil as the cost of their houses — but commonly they have not paid for them yet. It is true, the encumbrances sometimes outweigh the value of the farm, so that the farm itself becomes one great encumbrance, and still a man is found to inherit it, being well acquainted with it, as he says. On applying to the assessors, I am surprised to learn that they cannot at once name a dozen in the town who own their farms free and clear. If you would know the history of these homesteads, inquire at the bank where they are mortgaged. The man who has actually paid for his farm with labor on it is so rare that every neighbor can point to him. I doubt if there are three such men in Concord. What has been said of the merchants, that a very large majority, even ninety-seven in a hundred, are sure to fail, is equally true of the farmers. With regard to the merchants, however, one of them says pertinently that a great part of their failures are not genuine pecuniary failures, but merely failures to fulfil their engagements, because it is inconvenient; that is, it is the moral character that breaks down. But this puts an infinitely worse face on the matter, and suggests, beside, that probably not even the other three succeed in saving their souls, but are perchance bankrupt in a worse sense than they who fail honestly. Bankruptcy and repudiation are the springboards from which much of our civilization vaults and turns its somersets, but the savage stands on the unelastic plank of famine. Yet the Middlesex Cattle Show goes off here with éclat annually, as if all the joints of the agricultural machine were suent.

The farmer is endeavoring to solve the problem of a livelihood by a formula more complicated than the problem itself. To get his shoestrings he speculates in herds of cattle. With consummate skill he has set his trap with a hair springe to catch comfort and independence, and then, as he turned away, got his own leg into it. This is the reason he is poor; and for a similar reason we are all poor in respect to a thousand savage comforts, though surrounded by luxuries. As Chapman sings —



The false society of men —

— for earthly greatness

All heavenly comforts rarefies to air.



And when the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him. As I understand it, that was a valid objection urged by Momus against the house which Minerva made, that she 'had not made it movable, by which means a bad neighborhood might be avoided'; and it may still be urged, for our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them; and the bad neighborhood to be avoided is our own scurvy selves. I know one or two families, at least, in this town, who, for nearly a generation, have been wishing to sell their houses in the outskirts and move into the village, but have not been able to accomplish it, and only death will set them free.

Granted that the majority are able to last either to own or hire the modern house with all its improvements. While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings. And if the civilized man's pursuits are no worthier than the savage's, if he is employed the greater part of his life in obtaining gross necessaries and comforts merely, why should he have a better dwelling than the former?

But how do the poor minority fare? Perhaps it will be found, that just in proportion as some have been placed in outward circumstances above the savage, others have been degraded below him. The luxury of one class is counterbalanced by the indigence of another. On the one side is the palace, on the other are the almshouse and 'silent poor'. The myriads who built the pyramids to be the tombs of the Pharaohs were fed on garlic, and it may be were not decently buried themselves. The mason who finishes the cornice of the palace returns at night perchance to a hut not so good as a wigwam. It is a mistake to suppose that, in a country where the usual evidences of civilization exist, the condition of a very large body of the inhabitants may not be as degraded as that of savages. I refer to the degraded poor, not now to the degraded rich. To know this I should not need to look farther than to the shanties which every where border our railroads, that last improvement in civilization; where I see in my daily walks human beings living in sties, and all winter with an open door, for the sake of light, without any visible, often imaginable, wood-pile, and the forms of both old and young are permanently contracted by the long habit of shrinking from cold and misery, and the development of all their limbs and faculties is checked. It certainly is fair to look at that class by whose labor the works which distinguish this generation are accomplished. Such too, to a greater or less extent, is the condition of the operatives of every denomination in England, which is the great workhouse of the world. Or I could refer you to Ireland, which is marked as one of the white or enlightened spots on the map. Contrast the physical condition of the Irish with that of the North American Indian, or the South Sea Islander, or any other savage race before it was degraded by contact with the civilized man. Yet I have no doubt that people's rulers are as wise as the average of civilized rulers. Their condition only proves what squalidness may consist with civilization. I hardly need refer now to the laborers in our Southern States who produce the staple exports of this country, and are themselves a staple production of the South. But to confine myself to those who are said to be in moderate circumstances.

Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. As if one were to wear any sort of coat which the tailor might cut out for him, or, gradually leaving off palmleaf hat or cap of woodchuck skin, complain of hard times because he could not afford to buy him a crown! It is possible to invent a house still more convenient and luxurious than we have, which yet all would admit that man could not afford to pay for. Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less? Shall the respectable citizen thus gravely teach, by precept and example, the necessity of the young man's providing a certain number of superfluous glowshoes, and umbrellas, and empty guest chambers for empty guests, before he dies? Why should not our furniture be as simple as the Arab's or the Indian's? When I think of the benefactors of the race, whom we have apotheosized as messengers from heaven, bearers of divine gifts to man, I do not see in my mind any retinue at their heels, any car-load of fashionable furniture. Or what if I were to allow — would it not be a singular allowance? — that our furniture should be more complex than the Arab's, in proportion as we are morally and intellectually his superiors! At present our houses are cluttered and defiled with it, and a good housewife would sweep out the greater part into the dust hole, and not leave her morning's work undone. Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon, what should be man's morning work in this world? I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and I threw them out the window in disgust. How, then, could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless where man has broken ground.

It is the luxurious and dissipated who set the fashions which the herd so diligently follow. The traveller who stops at the best houses, so called, soon discovers this, for the publicans presume him to be a Sardanapalus, and if he resigned himself to their tender mercies he would soon be completely emasculated. I think that in the railroad car we are inclined to spend more on luxury than on safety and convenience, and it threatens without attaining these to become no better than a modern drawing room, with its divans, and ottomans, and sunshades, and a hundred other oriental things, which we are taking west with us, invented for the ladies of the harem and the effeminate natives of the Celestial Empire, which Jonathan should be ashamed to know the names of. I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion. I would rather ride on earth in an ox cart with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train and breathe a malaria all the way.

The very simplicity and nakedness of man's life in the primitive ages imply this advantage at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. When he was refreshed with food and sleep he contemplated his journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world, and was either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing the mountain tops. But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper. We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of agriculture. We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten. There is actually no place in this village for a work of fine art, if any had come down to us, to stand, for our lives, our houses and streets, furnish no proper pedestal for it. There is not a nail to hang a picture on, nor a shelf to receive the bust of a hero or a saint. When I consider how our houses are built and paid for, or not paid for, and their internal economy managed and sustained, I wonder that the floor does not give way under the visitor while he is admiring the gewgaws upon the mantelpiece, and let him through into the cellar, to some solid and honest though earthy foundation. I cannot but perceive that this so called rich and refined life is a thing jumped at, and I do not get on in the enjoyment of the fine arts which adorn it, my attention being wholly occupied with the jump; for I remember that the greatest genuine leap, due to human muscles alone, on record, is that of certain wandering Arabs, who are said to have cleared twenty-five feet on level ground. Without factitious support, man is sure to come to earth again beyond that distance. The first question which I am tempted to put to the proprietor of such great impropriety is, Who bolsters you? Are you one of the ninety-seven who fail, or the three who succeed? Answer me these questions, and then perhaps I may look at your bawbles and find them ornamental. The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must be stripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living be laid for a foundation: now, a taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, where there is no house and no housekeeper.

Old Johnson, in his 'Wonder-Working Providence', speaking of the first settlers of this town, with whom he was contemporary, tells us that 'they burrow themselves in the earth for their first shelter under some hillside, and, casting the soil aloft upon timber, they make a smoky fire against the earth, at the highest side.' They did not 'provide them houses', says he, 'till the earth, by the Lord's blessing, brought forth bread to feed them', and the first year's crop was so light that 'they were forced to cut their bread very thin for a long season.' The secretary of the Province of New Netherland, writing in Dutch, in 1650, for the information of those who wished to take up land there, states more particularly, that 'those in New Netherland, and especially in New England, who have no means to build farm houses at first according to their wishes, dig a square pit in the ground, cellar fashion, six or seven feet deep, as long and as broad as they think proper, case the earth inside with wood all round the wall, and line the wood with the bark of trees or something else to prevent the caving in of the earth; floor this cellar with plank, and wainscot it overhead for a ceiling, raise a roof of spars clear up, and cover the spars with bark or green sods, so that they can live dry and warm in these houses with their entire families for two, three, and four years, it being understood that partitions are run through those cellars which are adapted to the size of the family. The wealthy and principal men in New England, in the beginning of the colonies, commenced their first dwelling houses in this fashion for two reasons; firstly, in order not to waste time in building, and not to want food the next season; secondly, in order not to discourage poor laboring people whom they brought over in numbers from Fatherland. In the course of three or four years, when the country became adapted to agriculture, they built themselves handsome houses, spending on them several thousands.'

In this course which our ancestors took there was a show of prudence at least, as if their principle were to satisfy the more pressing wants first. But are the more pressing wants satisfied now? When I think of acquiring for myself one of our luxurious dwellings, I am deterred, for, so to speak, the country is not yet adapted to human culture, and we are still forced to cut our spiritual bread far thinner than our forefathers did their wheaten. Not that all architectural ornament is to be neglected even in the rudest periods; but let our houses first be lined with beauty, where they come in contact with our lives, like the tenement of the shellfish, and not overlaid with it. But, alas! I have been inside one or two of them, and know what they are lined with.

Though we are not so degenerate but that we might possibly live in a cave or a wigwam or wear skins to-day, it certainly is better to accept the advantages, though so dearly bought, which the invention and industry of mankind offer. In such a neighborhood as this, boards and shingles, lime and bricks, are cheaper and more easily obtained than suitable caves, or whole logs, or bark in sufficient quantities, or even well-tempered clay or flat stones. I speak understandingly on this subject, for I have made myself acquainted with it both theoretically and practically. With a little more wit we might use these materials so as to become richer than the richest now are, and make our civilization a blessing. The civilized man is a more experienced and wiser savage. But to make haste to my own experiment.



Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house, and began to cut down some tall arrowy white pines, still in their youth, for timber. It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it sharper than I received it. It was a pleasant hillside where I worked, covered with pine woods, through which I looked out on the pond, and a small open field in the woods where pines and hickories were springing up. The ice in the pond was not yet dissolved, though there were some open spaces, and it was all dark colored and saturated with water. There were some slight flurries of snow during the days that I worked there; but for the most part when I came out on to the railroad, on my way home, its yellow sand heap stretched away gleaming in the hazy atmosphere, and the rails shone in the spring sun, and I heard the lark and pewee and other birds already come to commence another year with us. They were pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man's discontent was thawing as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to stretch itself. One day, when my axe had come off and I had cut a green hickory for a wedge, driving it with a stone, and had placed the whole to soak in a pond hole in order to swell the wood, I saw a striped snake run into the water, and he lay on the bottom, apparently without inconvenience, as long as I staid there, or more than a quarter of an hour; perhaps because he had not yet fairly come out of the torpid state. It appeared to me that for a like reason men remain in their present low and primitive condition; but if they should feel the influence of the spring of springs arousing them, they would of necessity rise to a higher and more ethereal life. I had previously seen the snakes in frosty mornings in my path with portions of their bodies still numb and inflexible, waiting for the sun to thaw them. On the 1st of April it rained and melted the ice, and in the early part of the day, which was very foggy, I heard a stray goose groping about over the pond and cackling as if lost, or like the spirit of the fog.

So I went on for some days cutting and hewing timber, and also studs and rafters, all with my narrow axe, not having many communicable or scholar-like thoughts, singing to myself -



Men say they know many things;

But lo! they have taken wings -

The arts and sciences,

And a thousand appliances;

The wind that blows

Is all that any body knows.



I hewed the main timbers six inches square, most of the studs on two sides only, and the rafters and floor timbers on one side, leaving the rest of the bark on, so that they were just as straight and much stronger than sawed ones. Each stick was carefully mortised or tenoned by its stump, for I had borrowed other tools by this time. My days in the woods were not very long ones; yet I usually carried my dinner of bread and butter, and read the newspaper in which it was wrapped, at noon, sitting amid the green pine boughs which I had cut off, and to my bread was imparted some of their fragance, for my hands were covered with a thick coat of pitch. Before I had done I was more the friend than the foe of the pine tree, though I had cut down some of them, having become better acquainted with it. Sometimes a rambler in the wood was attracted by the sound of my axe, and we chatted pleasantly over the chips which I had made.

By the middle of April, for I made no haste in my work, but rather made the most of it, my house was framed and ready for the raising. I had already bought the shanty of James Collins, an Irishman who worked on the Fitchburg Railroad, for boards. James Collins' shanty was considered an uncommonly fine one. When I called to see it he was not at home. I walked about the outside, at first unobserved from within, the window was so deep and high. It was of small dimensions, with a peaked cottage roof, and not much else to be seen, the dirt being raised five feet all around as if it were a compost heap. The roof was the soundest part, though a good deal warped and made brittle by the sun. Door-sill there was none, but a perennial passage for the hens under the door board. Mrs C. came to the door and asked me to view it from the inside. The hens were driven in by my approach. It was dark, and had a dirt floor for the most part, dank, clammy, and aguish, only here a board and there a board which would not bear removal. She lighted a lamp to show me the inside of the roof and the walls, and also that the board floor extended under the bed, warning me not to step into the cellar, a sort of dust hole two feet deep. In her own words, they were 'good boards overhead, good boards all around, and a good window' — of two whole squares originally, only the cat had passed out that way lately. There was a stove, a bed, and a place to sit, an infant in the house where it was born, a silk parasol, gilt-framed looking-glass, and a patent new coffee-mill nailed to an oak sapling, all told. The bargain was soon concluded, for James had in the mean while returned. I to pay four dollars and twenty-five cents to-night, he to vacate at five the sun having never shone on them, the sand still keeps its place. It was but two hours' work. I took particular pleasure in this breaking of ground, for in almost all latitudes men dig into the earth for an equable temperature. Under the most splendid house in the city is still to be found the cellar where they store their roots as of old, and long after the superstructure has disappeared posterity remark its dent in the earth. The house is still but a sort of porch at the entrance of a burrow.

At length, in the beginning of May, with the help of some of my acquaintances, rather to improve so good an occasion for neighborliness than from any necessity, I set up the frame of my house. No man was ever more honored in the character of his raisers than I. They are destined, I trust, to assist at the raising of loftier structures one day. I began to occupy my house on the 4th of July, as soon as it was boarded and roofed, for the boards were carefully feather-edged and lapped, so that it was perfectly impervious to rain; but before boarding I laid the foundation of a chimney at one end, bringing two cartloads of stones up the hill from the pond in my arms. I built the chimney after my hoeing in the fall, before a fire became necessary for warmth, doing my cooking in the mean while out of doors on the ground, early in the morning: which mode I still think is in some respects more convenient and agreeable than the usual one. When it stormed before my bread was baked, I fixed a few boards over the fire, and sat under them to watch my loaf, and passed some pleasant hours in that way. In those days, when my hands were much employed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper which lay on the ground, my holder, or table-cloth, afforded me as much entertainment, in fact answered the same purpose as the Iliad.



It would be worth the while to build still more deliberately than I did, considering, for instance, what foundation a door, a window, a cellar, a garret, have in the nature of man, and perchance never raising any superstructure until we found a better reason for it than our temporal necessities even. There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter? What does architecture amount to in the experience of the mass of men? I never in all my walks came across a man engaged in so simple and natural an occupation as building his house. We belong to the community. It is not the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? and what object does it finally serve? No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.

True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his point of view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism. A sentimental reformer in architecture, he began at the cornice, not at the foundation. It was only how to put a core of truth within the ornaments, that every sugar plum in fact might have an almond or caraway seed in it — though I hold that almonds are most wholesome without the sugar — and not how the inhabitant, the indweller, might build truly within and without, and let the ornaments take care of themselves. What reasonable man ever supposed that ornaments were something outward and in the skin merely — that the tortoise got his spotted shell, or the shellfish its mother-o'-pearl tints, by such a contract as the inhabitants of Broadway their Trinity Church? But a man has no more to do with the style of architecture of his house than a tortoise with that of its shell: nor need the soldier be so idle as to try to paint the precise color of his virtue on his standard. The enemy will find it out. He may turn pale when the trial comes. This man seemed to me to lean over the cornice, and timidly whisper his half truth to the rude occupants who really knew it better than he. What of architectural beauty I now see, I know has gradually grown from within outward, out of the necessities and character of the indweller, who is the only builder — out of some unconscious truthfulness, and nobleness, without ever a thought for the appearance; and whatever additional beauty of this kind is destined to be produced will be preceded by a like unconscious beauty of life. The most interesting dwellings in this country, as the painter knows, are the most unpretending, humble log huts and cottages of the poor commonly; it is the life of the inhabitants whose shells they are, and not any peculiarity in their surfaces merely, which makes them picturesque; and equally interesting will be the citizen's suburban box, when his life shall be as simple and as agreeable to the imagination, and there is as little straining after effect in the style of his dwelling. A great proportion of architectural ornaments are literally hollow, and a September gale would strip them off, like borrowed plumes, without injury to the substantials. They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar. What if an equal ado were made about the ornaments of style in literature, and the architects of our bibles spent as much time about their cornices as the architects of our churches do? So are made the belles-lettres and the beaux-arts and their professors. Much it concerns a man, forsooth, how a few sticks are slanted over him or under him, and what colors are daubed upon his box. It would signify somewhat, if, in any earnest sense, he slanted them and daubed it; but the spirit having departed out of the tenant, it is of a piece with constructing his own coffin — the architecture of the grave, and 'carpenter', is but another name for 'coffin-maker'. One man says, in his despair or indifference to life, take up a handful of the earth at your feet, and paint your house that color. Is he thinking of his last and narrow house? Toss up a copper for it as well. What an abundance of leisure he must have! Why do you take up a handful of dirt? Better paint your house your own complexion; let it turn pale or blush for you. An enterprise to improve the style of cottage architecture! When you have got my ornaments ready I will wear them.

Before winter I built a chimney, and shingled the sides of my house, which were already impervious to rain, with imperfect and sappy shingles made of the first slice of the log, whose edges I was obliged to straighten with a plane.

I have thus a tight shingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by fifteen long, and eight-feet posts, with a garret and a closet, a large window on each side, two trap doors, one door at the end, and a brick fireplace opposite. The exact cost of my house, paying the usual price for such materials as I used, but not counting the work, all of which was done by myself, was as follows; and I give the details because very few are able to tell exactly what their houses cost, and fewer still, if any, the separate cost of the various materials which compose them:—

These are all the materials excepting the timber, stones and sand, which I claimed by squatter's rights. I have also a small wood-shed adjoining, made chiefly of the stuff which was left after building the house.

I intend to build me a house which will surpass any on the main street in Concord in grandeur and luxury, as soon as it pleases me as much and will cost me no more than my present one.

I thus found that the student who wishes for a shelter can obtain one for a lifetime at an expense not greater than the rent which he now pays annually. If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself; and my shortcomings and inconsistencies do not affect the truth of my statement. Notwithstanding much cant and hypocrisy — chaff which I find it difficult to separate from my wheat, but for which I am as sorry as any man — I will breathe freely and stretch myself in this respect, it is such a relief to both the moral and physical system; and I am resolved that I will not through humility become the devil's attorney. I will endeavor to speak a good word for the truth. At Cambridge College the mere rent of a student's room, which is only a little larger than my own, is thirty dollars each year, though the corporation had the advantage of building thirty-two side by side and under one roof, and the occupant suffers the inconvenience of many and noisy neighbors, and perhaps a residence in the fourth story. I cannot but think that if we had more true wisdom in these respects, not only less education would be needed, because, forsooth, more would already have been acquired, but the pecuniary expense of getting an education would in a great measure vanish. Those conveniences which the student requires at Cambridge or elsewhere cost him or somebody else ten times as great a sacrifice of life as they would with proper management on both sides. Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made. The mode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of dollars and cents, and then following blindly the principles of a division of labor to its extreme, a principle which should never be followed but with circumspection — to call in a contractor who makes this a subject of speculation, and he employs Irishmen or other operatives actually to lay the foundations, while the students that are to be are said to be fitting themselves for it; and for these oversights successive generations have to pay. I think that it would be better than this, for the students, or those who desire to be benefited by it, even to lay the foundation themselves. The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful. 'But,' says one, 'you do not mean that the students should go to work with their hands instead of their heads?' I do not mean that exactly, but I mean something which he might think a good deal like that; I mean that they should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living? Methinks this would exercise their minds as much as mathematics. If I wished a boy to know something about the arts and sciences, for instance, I would not pursue the common course, which is merely to send him into the neighborhood of some professor, where any thing is professed and practised but the art of life; — to survey the world through a telescope or a microscope, and never with his natural eye; to study chemistry, and not learn how his bread is made, or mechanics, and not learn how it is earned; to discover new satellites to Neptune, and not detect the motes in his eyes, or to what vagabond he is a satellite himself; or to be devoured by the monsters that swarm all around him, while contemplating the monsters in a drop of vinegar. Which would have advanced the most at the end of a month — the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this — or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the Institute in the mean while, and had received a Rogers' penknife from his father? Which would be most likely to cut his fingers? ... To my astonishment I was informed on leaving college that I had studied navigation! — why, if I had taken one turn down the harbor I should have known more about it. Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.

As with our colleges, so with a hundred 'modern improvements'; there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. Either is in such a predicament as the man who was earnest to be introduced to a distinguished deaf woman, but when he was presented, and one end of her ear trumpet was put into his hand, had nothing to say. As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough. After all, the man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages; he is not an evangelist, nor does he come round eating locusts and wild honey. I doubt if Flying Childers ever carried a peck of corn to mill.

One says to me, 'I wonder that you do not lay up money; you love to travel; you might take the cars and go to Fitchburg to-day and see the country.' But I am wiser than that. I have learned that the swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot. I say to my friend, Suppose we try who will get there first. The distance is thirty miles; the fare ninety cents. That is almost a day's wages. I remember when wages were sixty cents a day for laborers on this very road. Well, I start now on foot, and get there before night; I have travelled at that rate by the week together. You will in the mean while have earned your fare, and arrive there some time to-morrow, or possibly this evening, if you are lucky enough to get a job in season. Instead of going to Fitchburg, you will be working here the greater part of the day. And so, if the railroad reached round the world, I think that I should keep ahead of you; and as for seeing the country and getting experience of that kind, I should have to cut your acquaintance altogether.

Such is the universal law, which no man can ever outwit, and with regard to the railroad even we may say it is as broad as it is long. To make a railroad round the world available to all mankind is equivalent to grading the whole surface of the planet. Men have an indistinct notion that if they keep up this activity of joint stocks and spades long enough all will at length ride somewhere, in next to no time, and for nothing; but though a crowd rushes to the depot, and the conductor shouts 'All aboard!' when the smoke is blown away and the vapor condensed, it will be perceived that a few are riding, but the rest are run over — and it will be called, and will be, 'A melancholy accident'. No doubt they can ride at last who shall have earned their fare, that is, if they survive so long, but they will probably have lost their elasticity and desire to travel by that time. This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it, reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone up garret at once. 'What!' exclaim a million Irishmen starting up from all the shanties in the land, 'is not this railroad which we have built a good thing?' Yes, I answer, comparatively good, that is, you might have done worse; but I wish, as you are brothers of mine, that you could have spent your time better than digging in this dirt [...]

Where I Lived, and What I Lived For

At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house. I have thus surveyed the country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. In imagination I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were to be bought, and I knew their price. I walked over each farmer's premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on husbandry with him, took his farm at his price, at any price, mortgaging it to him in my mind; even put a higher price on it — took every thing but a deed of it — took his word for his deed, for I dearly love to talk — cultivated it, and him too to some extent, I trust, and withdrew when I had enjoyed it long enough, leaving him to carry it on. This experience entitled me to be regarded as a sort of real-estate broker by my friends. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat? — better if a country seat. I discovered many a site for a house not likely to be soon improved, which some might have thought too far from the village, but to my eyes the village was too far from it. Well, there I might live, I said; and there I did live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how I could let the years run off, buffet the winter through, and see the spring come in. The future inhabitants of this region, wherever they may place their houses, may be sure that they have been anticipated. An afternoon sufficed to lay out the land into orchard, wood-lot, and pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines should be left to stand before the door, and whence each blasted tree could be seen to the best advantage; and then I let it lie, fallow perchance, for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

My imagination carried me so far that I even had the refusal of several farms — the refusal was all I wanted — but I never got my fingers burned by actual possession. The nearest that I came to actual possession was when I bought the Hollowell place, and had begun to sort my seeds, and collected materials with which to make a wheelbarrow to carry it on or off with; but before the owner gave me a deed of it, his wife — every man has such a wife — changed her mind and wished to keep it, and he offered me ten dollars to release him. Now, to speak the truth, I had but ten cents in the world, and it surpassed my arithmetic to tell, if I was that man who had ten cents, or who had a farm, or ten dollars, or all together. However, I let him keep the ten dollars and the farm too, for I had carried it far enough; or rather, to be generous, I sold him the farm for just what I gave for it, and, as he was not a rich man, made him a present of ten dollars, and still had my ten cents, and seeds, and materials for a wheelbarrow left. I found thus that I had been a rich man without any damage to my poverty. But I retained the landscape, and I have since annually carried off what it yielded without a wheelbarrow. With respect to landscapes —



I am monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute.



I have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having enjoyed the most valuable part of a farm, while the crusty farmer supposed that he had got a few wild apples only. Why, the owner does not know it for many years when a poet has put his farm in rhyme, the most admirable kind of invisible fence, has fairly impounded it, milked it, skimmed it, and got all the cream, and left the farmer only the skimmed milk.

The real attractions of the Hollowell farm, to me, were; its complete retirement, being about two miles from the village, half a mile from the nearest neighbor, and separated from the highway by a broad field; its bounding on the river, which the owner said protected it by its fogs from frosts in the spring, though that was nothing to me; the gray color and ruinous state of the house and barn, and the dilapidated fences, which put such an interval between me and the last occupant; the hollow and lichen-covered apple trees, gnawed by rabbits, showing what kind of neighbors I should have; but above all, the recollection I had of it from my earliest voyages up the river, when the house was concealed behind a dense grove of red maples, through which I heard the house-dog bark. I was in haste to buy it, before the proprietor finished getting out some rocks, cutting down the hollow apple trees, and grubbing up some young birches which had sprung up in the pasture, or, in short, had made any more of his improvements. To enjoy these advantages I was ready to carry it on; like Atlas, to take the world on my shoulders — I never heard what compensation he received for that — and do all those things which had no other motive or excuse but that I might pay for it and be unmolested in my possession of it; for I knew all the while that it would yield the most abundant crop of the kind I wanted if I could only afford to let it alone. But it turned out as I have said.

All that I could say, then, with respect to farming on a large scale (I have always cultivated a garden) was, that I had had my seeds ready. Many think that seeds improve with age. I have no doubt that time discriminates between the good and the bad; and when at last I shall plant, I shall be less likely to be disappointed. But I would say to my fellows, once for all, As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail.

Old Cato, whose 'De Re Rusticâ' is my 'Cultivator', says, and the only translation I have seen makes sheer nonsense of the passage, 'When you think of getting a farm, turn it thus in your mind, not to buy greedily; nor spare your pains to look at it, and do not think it enough to go round it once. The oftener you go there the more it will please you, if it is good.' I think I shall not buy greedily, but go round and round it as long as I live, and be buried in it first, that it may please me the more at last.



The present was my next experiment of this kind, which I purpose to describe more at length; for convenience, putting the experience of two years into one. As I have said, I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up.

When first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my nights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on Independence day, or the fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for winter, but was merely a defence against the rain, without plastering or chimney, the walls being of rough weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and freshly planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers were saturated with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited the year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth every where.

The only house I had been the owner of before, if I except a boat, was a tent, which I used occasionally when making excursions in the summer, and this is still rolled up in my garret; but the boat, after passing from hand to hand, has gone down the stream of time. With this more substantial shelter about me, I had made some progress toward settling in the world. This frame, so slightly clad, was a sort of crystallization around me, and reacted on the builder. It was suggestive somewhat as a picture in outlines. I did not need to go out doors to take the air, for the atmosphere within had lost none of its freshness. It was not so much within doors as behind a door where I sat, even in the rainiest weather. The Harivansa says, 'An abode without birds is like a meat without seasoning.' Such was not my abode, for I found myself suddenly neighbor to the birds; not by having imprisoned one, but having caged myself near them. I was not only nearer to some of those which commonly frequent the garden and the orchard, but to those wilder and more thrilling songsters of the forest which never, or rarely, serenade a villager — the wood-thrush, the veery, the scarlet tanager, the field-sparrow, the whippoorwill, and many others.

I was seated by the shore of a small pond, about a mile and a half south of the village of Concord and somewhat higher than it, in the midst of an extensive wood between that town and Lincoln, and about two miles south of that our only field known to fame, Concord Battle Ground; but I was so low in the woods that the opposite shore, half a mile off, like the rest, covered with wood, was my most distant horizon. For the first week, whenever I looked out on the pond it impressed me like a tarn high up on the side of a mountain, its bottom far above the surface of other lakes, and, as the sun arose, I saw it throwing off its nightly clothing of mist, and here and there, by degrees, its soft ripples or its smooth reflecting surface was revealed, while the mists, like ghosts, were stealthily withdrawing in every direction into the woods, as at the breaking up of some nocturnal conventicle. The very dew seemed to hang upon the trees later into the day than usual, as on the sides of mountains.

This small lake was of most value as a neighbor in the intervals of a gentle rain storm in August, when, both air and water being perfectly still, but the sky overcast, mid-afternoon had all the serenity of evening, and the wood-thrush sang around, and was heard from shore to shore. A lake like this is never smoother than at such a time; and the clear portion of the air above it being shallow and darkened by clouds, the water, full of light and reflections, becomes a lower heaven itself so much the more important. From a hill top near by, where the wood had been recently cut off, there was a pleasing vista southward across the pond, through a wide indentation in the hills which form the shore there, where their opposite sides sloping toward each other suggested a stream flowing out in that direction through a wooded valley, but stream there was none. That way I looked between and over the near green hills to some distant and higher ones in the horizon, tinged with blue. Indeed, by standing on tiptoe I could catch a glimpse of some of the peaks of the still bluer and more distant mountain ranges in the north-west, those true-blue coins from heaven's own mint, and also of some portion of the village. But in other directions, even from this point, I could not see over or beyond the woods which surrounded me. It is well to have some water in your neighborhood, to give buoyancy to and float the earth. One value even of the smallest well is, that when you look into it you see that earth is not continent but insular. This is as important as that it keeps butter cool. When I looked across the pond from this peak toward the Sudbury meadows, which in time of flood I distinguished elevated perhaps by a mirage in their seething valley, like a coin in a basin, all the earth beyond the pond appeared like a thin crust insulated and floated even by this small sheet of intervening water, and I was reminded that this on which I dwelt was but dry land.

Though the view from my door was still more contracted, I did not feel crowded or confined in the least. There was pasture enough for my imagination. The low shrub-oak plateau to which the opposite shore arose, stretched away toward the prairies of the West and the steppes of Tartary, affording ample room for all the roving families of men. 'There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon' — said Damodara, when his herds required new and larger pastures.

Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me. Where I lived was as far off as many a region viewed nightly by astronomers. We are wont to imagine rare and delectable places in some remote and more celestial corner of the system, behind the constellation of Cassiopeia's Chair, far from noise and disturbance. I discovered that my house actually had its site in such a withdrawn, but forever new and unprofaned, part of the universe. If it were worth the while to settle in those parts near to the Pleiades or the Hyades, to Aldebaran or Altair, then I was really there, or at an equal remoteness from the life which I had left behind, dwindled and twinkling with as fine a ray to my nearest neighbor, and to be seen only in moonless nights by him. Such was that part of creation where I had squatted —



There was a shepherd that did live,

And held his thoughts as high

As were the mounts whereon his flocks

Did hourly feed him by.



What should we think of the shepherd's life if his flocks always wandered to higher pastures than his thoughts?

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did. They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub of king Tching-thang to this effect: 'Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again.' I can understand that. Morning brings back the heroic ages. I was as much affected by the faint hum of a mosquito making its invisible and unimaginable tour through my apartment at earliest dawn, when I was sitting with door and windows open, as I could be by any trumpet that ever sang of fame. It was Homer's requiem; itself an Iliad and Odyssey in the air, singing its own wrath and wanderings. There was something cosmical about it; a standing advertisement, till forbidden, of the everlasting vigor and fertility of the world. The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night. Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own newly-acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air — to a higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less than the light. That man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening way. After a partial cessation of his sensuous life, the soul of man, or its organs rather, are reinvigorated each day, and his Genius tries again what noble life it can make. All memorable events, I should say, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere. The Vedas say, 'All intelligences awake with the morning.' Poetry and art, and the fairest and most memorable of the actions of men, date from such an hour. All poets and heroes, like Memnon, are the children of Aurora, and emit their music at sunrise. To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering? They are not such poor calculators. If they had not been overcome with drowsiness they would have performed something. The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. If we refused, or rather used up, such paltry information as we get, the oracles would distinctly inform us how this might be done.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to 'glorify God and enjoy him forever'.

Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so called internal improvements, which, by the way, are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldly and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it as for them is a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live like baboons or like men, is a little uncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers, I assure you. And every few years a new lot is laid down and run over; so that, if some have the pleasure of riding on a rail, others have the misfortune to be ridden upon. And when they run over a man that is walking in his sleep, a supernumerary sleeper in the wrong position, and wake him up, they suddenly stop the cars, and make a hue and cry about it, as if this were an exception. I am glad to know that it takes a gang of men for every five miles to keep the sleepers down and level in their beds as it is, for this is a sign that they may sometime get up again.

Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches to-day to save nine to-morrow. As for work, we haven't any of any consequence. We have the Saint Vitus' dance, and cannot possibly keep our heads still. If I should only give a few pulls at the parish bell-rope, as for a fire, that is, without setting the bell, there is hardly a man on his farm in the outskirts of Concord, notwithstanding that press of engagements which was his excuse so many times this morning, nor a boy, nor a woman, I might almost say, but would forsake all and follow that sound, not mainly to save property from the flames, but, if we will confess the truth, much more to see it burn, since burn it must, and we, be it known, did not set it on fire, — or to see it put out, and have a hand in it, if that is done as handsomely; yes, even if it were the parish church itself. Hardly a man takes a half hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, 'What's the news?' as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. Some give directions to be waked every half hour, doubtless for no other purpose; and then, to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed. After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. 'Pray tell me any thing new that has happened to a man any where on this globe' — and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.

For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think there are very few important communications made through it. To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life — I wrote this some years ago — that were worth the postage. The penny-post is, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man that penny for his thoughts which is so often safely offered in jest. And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter — we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip. There was such a rush, as I hear, the other day at one of the offices to learn the foreign news by the last arrival, that several large squares of plate glass belonging to the establishment were broken by the pressure — news which I seriously think a ready wit might write a twelvemonth or twelve years beforehand with sufficient accuracy. As for Spain, for instance, if you know how to throw in Don Carlos and the Infanta, and Don Pedro and Seville and Granada, from time to time in the right proportions — they may have changed the names a little since I saw the papers — and serve up a bull-fight when other entertainments fail, it will be true to the letter, and give us as good an idea of the exact state or ruin of things in Spain as the most succinct and lucid reports under this head in the newspapers: and as for England, almost the last significant scrap of news from that quarter was the revolution of 1649; and if you have learned the history of her crops for an average year, you never need attend to that thing again, unless your speculations are of a merely pecuniary character. If one may judge who rarely looks into the newspapers, nothing new does ever happen in foreign parts, a French revolution not excepted.

What news! how much more important to know what that is which was never old! 'Kieou-he-yu (great dignitary of the state of Wei) sent a man to Khoung-tseu to know his news. Khoung-tseu caused the messenger to be seated near him, and questioned him in these terms: What is your master doing? The messenger answered with respect: My master desires to diminish the number of his faults, but he cannot come to the end of them. The messenger being gone, the philosopher remarked: What a worthy messenger! What a worthy messenger!' The preacher, instead of vexing the ears of drowsy farmers on their day of rest at the end of the week — for Sunday is the fit conclusion of an ill-spent week, and not the fresh and brave beginning of a new one — with this one other draggletail of a sermon, should shout with thundering voice — 'Pause! Avast! Why so seeming fast, but deadly slow?'

Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we know, would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. If we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets. When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence — that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality. This is always exhilarating and sublime. By closing the eyes and slumbering, and consenting to be deceived by shows, men establish and confirm their daily life of routine and habit every where, which still is built on purely illusory foundations. Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure. I have read in a Hindoo book, that 'there was a king's son, who, being expelled in infancy from his native city, was brought up by a forester, and, growing up to maturity in that state, imagined himself to belong to the barbarous race with which he lived. One of his father's ministers having discovered him, revealed to him what he was, and the misconception of his character was removed, and he knew himself to be a prince. So soul,' continues the Hindoo philosopher, 'from the circumstances in which it is placed, mistakes its own character, until the truth is revealed to it by some holy teacher, and then it knows itself to be Brahme.' I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface of things. We think that that is which appears to be. If a man should walk through this town and see only the reality, where, think you, would the 'Milldam' go to? If he should give us an account of the realities he beheld there, we should not recognize the place in his description. Look at a meeting-house, or a court-house, or a jail, or a shop, or a dwelling-house, and say what that thing really is before a true gaze, and they would all go to pieces in your account of them. Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind the farthest star, before Adam and after the last man. In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or the artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at least could accomplish it.

Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry — determined to make a day of it. Why should we knock under and go with the stream? Let us not be upset and overwhelmed in that terrible rapid and whirlpool called a dinner, situated in the meridian shallows. Weather this danger and you are safe, for the rest of the way is down hill. With unrelaxed nerves, with morning vigor, sail by it, looking another way, tied to the mast like Ulysses. If the engine whistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains. If the bell rings, why should we run? We will consider what kind of music they are like. Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through church and state, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake; and then begin, having a point d'appui, below freshet and frost and fire, a place where you might found a wall or a state, or set a lamp-post safely, or perhaps a gauge, not a Nilometer, but a Realometer, that future ages might know how deep a freshet of shams and appearances had gathered from time to time. If you stand right fronting and face to face to a fact, you will see the sun glimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your mortal career. Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore-paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine.

Winter Animals

When the ponds were firmly frozen, they afforded not only new and shorter routes to many points, but new views from their surfaces of the familiar landscape around them. When I crossed Flints' Pond, after it was covered with snow, though I had often paddled about and skated over it, it was so unexpectedly wide and so strange that I could think of nothing but Baffin's Bay. The Lincoln hills rose up around me at the extremity of a snowy plain, in which I did not remember to have stood before; and the fishermen, at an indeterminable distance over the ice, moving slowly about with their wolfish dogs, passed for sealers or Esquimaux, or in misty weather loomed like fabulous creatures, and I did not know whether they were giants or pygmies. I took this course when I went to lecture in Lincoln in the evening, travelling in no road and passing no house between my own hut and the lecture room. In Goose Pond, which lay in my way, a colony of muskrats dwelt, and raised their cabins high above the ice, though none could be seen abroad when I crossed it. Walden, being like the rest usually bare of snow, or with only shallow and interrupted drifts on it, was my yard, where I could walk freely when the snow was nearly two feet deep on a level elsewhere and the villagers were confined to their streets. There, far from the village street, and except at very long intervals, from the jingle of sleigh-bells, I slid and skated, as in a vast mooseyard well trodden, overhung by oak woods and solemn pines bent down with snow or bristling with icicles.

For sounds in winter nights, and often in winter days, I heard the forlorn but melodious note of a hooting owl indefinitely far; such a sound as the frozen earth would yield if struck with a suitable plectrum, the very lingua vernacula of Walden Wood, and quite familiar to me at last, though I never saw the bird while it was making it. I seldom opened my door in a winter evening without hearing it; Hoo hoo hoo, hoorer hoo, sounded sonorously, and the first three syllables accented somewhat like how der do; or sometimes hoo hoo only. One night in the beginning of winter, before the pond froze over, about nine o'clock, I was startled by the loud honking of a goose, and, stepping to the door, heard the sound of their wings like a tempest in the woods as they flew low over my house. They passed over the pond toward Fair Haven, seemingly deterred from settling by my light, their commodore honking all the while with a regular beat. Suddenly an unmistakable cat-owl from very near me, with the most harsh and tremendous voice I ever heard from any inhabitant of the woods, responded at regular intervals to the goose, as if determined to expose and disgrace this intruder from Hudson's Bay by exhibiting a greater compass and volume of voice in a native, and boo-hoo him out of Concord horizon. What do you mean by alarming the citadel at this time of night consecrated to me? Do you think I am ever caught napping at such an hour, and that I have not got lungs and a larynx as well as yourself? Boo-hoo, boo-hoo, boo-hoo! It was one of the most thrilling discords I ever heard. And yet, if you had a discriminating ear, there were in it the elements of a concord such as these plains never saw nor heard.

I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and bad dreams; or I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.

Sometimes I heard the foxes as they ranged over the snow crust, in moonlight nights, in search of a partridge or other game, barking raggedly and demoniacally like forest dogs, as if laboring with some anxiety, or seeking expression, struggling for light and to be dogs outright and run freely in the streets; for if we take the ages into our account, may there not be a civilization going on among brutes as well as men? They seemed to me to be rudimental, burrowing men, still standing on their defence, awaiting their transformation. Sometimes one came near to my window, attracted by my light, barked a vulpine curse at me, and then retreated.

Usually the red squirrel (Sciurus Hudsonius) waked me in the dawn, coursing over the roof and up and down the sides of the house, as if sent out of the woods for this purpose. In the course of the winter I threw out half a bushel of ears of sweetcorn, which had not got ripe, on to the snow crust by my door, and was amused by watching the motions of the various animals which were baited by it. In the twilight and the night the rabbits came regularly and made a hearty meal. All day long the red squirrels came and went, and afforded me much entertainment by their manœuvres. One would approach at first warily through the shrub-oaks, running over the snow crust by fits and starts like a leaf blown by the wind, now a few paces this way, with wonderful speed and waste of energy, making inconceivable haste with his 'trotters', as if it were for a wager, and now as many paces that way, but never getting on more than half a rod at a time; and then suddenly pausing with a ludicrous expression and a gratuitous somerset, as if all the eyes in the universe were fixed on him — for all the motions of a squirrel, even in the most solitary recesses of the forest, imply spectators as much as those of a dancing girl — wasting more time in delay and circumspection than would have sufficed to walk the whole distance — I never saw one walk — and then suddenly, before you could say Jack Robinson, he would be in the top of a young pitch-pine, winding up his clock and chiding all imaginary spectators, soliloquizing and talking to all the universe at the same time — for no reason that I could ever detect, or he himself was aware of, I suspect. At length he would reach the corn, and selecting a suitable ear, brisk about in the same uncertain trigonometrical way to the top-most stick of my wood-pile, before my window, where he looked me in the face, and there sit for hours, supplying himself with a new ear from time to time, nibbling at first voraciously and throwing the half-naked cobs about; till at length he grew more dainty still and played with his food, tasting only the inside of the kernel, and the ear, which was held balanced over the stick by one paw, slipped from his careless grasp and fell to the ground, when he would look over at it with a ludicrous expression of uncertainty, as if suspecting that it had life, with a mind not made up whether to get it again, or a new one, or be off; now thinking of corn, then listening to hear what was in the wind. So the little impudent fellow would waste many an ear in a fore-noon; till at last, seizing some longer and plumper one, considerably bigger than himself, and skilfully balancing it, he would set out with it to the woods, like a tiger with a buffalo, by the same zig-zag course and frequent pauses, scratching along with it as if it were too heavy for him and falling all the while, making its fall a diagonal between a perpendicular and horizontal, being determined to put it through at any rate; — a singularly frivolous and whimsical fellow; — and so he would get off with it to where he lived, perhaps carry it to the top of a pine tree forty or fifty rods distant, and I would afterwards find the cobs strewn about the woods in various directions.

At length the jays arrive, whose discordant screams were heard long before, as they were warily making their approach an eighth of a mile off, and in a stealthy and sneaking manner they flit from tree to tree, nearer and nearer, and pick up the kernels which the squirrels have dropped. Then, sitting on a pitch-pine bough, they attempt to swallow in their haste a kernel which is too big for their throats and chokes them; and after great labor they disgorge it, and spend an hour in the endeavor to crack it by repeated blows with their bills. They were manifestly thieves, and I had not much respect for them; but the squirrels, though at first shy, went to work as if they were taking what was their own.

Meanwhile also came the chicadees in flocks, which, picking up the crums the squirrels had dropped, flew to the nearest twig, and, placing them under their claws, hammered away at them with their little bills, as if it were an insect in the bark, till they were sufficiently reduced for their slender throats. A little flock of these tit-mice came daily to pick a dinner out of my wood-pile, or the crums at my door, with faint flitting lisping notes, like the tinkling of icicles in the grass, or else with sprightly day day day, or more rarely, in spring-like days, a wiry summery phe-be from the wood-side. They were so familiar that at length one alighted on an armful of wood which I was carrying in, and pecked at the sticks without fear. I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn. The squirrels also grew at last to be quite familiar, and occasionally stepped upon my shoe, when that was the nearest way.

When the ground was not yet quite covered, and again near the end of the winter, when the snow was melted on my south hill-side and about my wood-pile, the partridges came out of the woods morning and evening to feed there. Whichever side you walk in the woods the partridge bursts away on whirring wings, jarring the snow from the dry leaves and twigs on high, which comes sifting down in the sun-beams like golden dust; for this brave bird is not to be scared by winter. It is frequently covered up by drifts, and, it is said, 'sometimes plunges from on wing into the soft snow, where it remains concealed for a day or two'. I used to start them in the open land also, where they had come out of the woods at sunset to 'bud' the wild apple-trees. They will come regularly every evening to particular trees, where the cunning sportsman lies in wait for them, and the distant orchards next the woods suffer thus not a little. I am glad that the partridge gets fed, at any rate. It is Nature's own bird which lives on buds and diet-drink.

In dark winter mornings, or in short winter afternoons, I sometimes heard a pack of hounds threading all the woods with hounding cry and yelp, unable to resist the instinct of the chase, and the note of the hunting horn at intervals, proving that man was in the rear. The woods ring again, and yet no fox bursts forth on to the open level of the pond, nor following pack pursuing their Actæon. And perhaps at evening I see the hunters returning with a single brush trailing from their sleigh for a trophy, seeking their inn. They tell me that if the fox would remain in the bosom of the frozen earth he would be safe, or if he would run in a straight line away no fox-hound could overtake him; but, having left his pursuers far behind, he stops to rest and listen till they come up, and when he runs he circles round to his old haunts, where the hunters await him. Sometimes, however, he will run upon a wall many rods, and then leap off far to one side, and he appears to know that water will not retain his scent. A hunter told me that he once saw a fox pursued by hounds burst out on to Walden when the ice was covered with shallow puddles, run part way across, and then return to the same shore. Ere long the hounds arrived, but here they lost the scent. Sometimes a pack hunting by themselves would pass my door, and circle round my house, and yelp and hound without regarding me, as if afflicted by a species of madness, so that nothing could divert them from the pursuit. Thus they circle until they fall upon the recent trail of a fox, for a wise hound will forsake every thing else for this. One day a man came to my hut from Lexington to inquire after his hound that made a large track, and had been hunting for a week by himself. But I fear that he was not the wiser for all I told him, for every time I attempted to answer his questions he interrupted me by asking, 'What do you do here?' He had lost a dog, but found a man.

One old hunter who has a dry tongue, who used to!!come to bathe in Walden once every year when the water was warmest, and at such times looked in upon me, told me, that many years ago he took his gun one afternoon and went out for a cruise in Walden Wood; and as he walked the Wayland road he heard the cry of hounds approaching, and ere long a fox leaped the wall into the road, and as quick as thought leaped the other wall out of the road, and his swift bullet had not touched him. Some way behind came an old hound and her three pups in full pursuit, hunting on their own account, and disappeared again in the woods. Late in the afternoon, as he was resting in the thick woods south of Walden, he heard the voice of the hounds far over toward Fair Haven still pursuing the fox; and on they came, their hounding cry which made all the woods ring sounding nearer and nearer, now from Well-Meadow, now from the Baker Farm. For a long time he stood still and listened to their music, so sweet to a hunter's ear, when suddenly the fox appeared, threading the solemn aisles with an easy coursing pace, whose sound was concealed by a sympathetic rustle of the leaves, swift and still, keeping the ground, leaving his pursuers far behind; and, leaping upon a rock amid the woods, he sat erect and listening, with his back to the hunter. For a moment compassion restrained the latter's arm; but that was a short-lived mood, and as quick as thought can follow thought his piece was levelled, and whang! — the fox rolling over the rock lay dead on the ground. The hunter still kept his place and listened to the hounds. Still on they came, and now the near woods resounded through all their aisles with their demoniac cry. At length the old hound burst into view with muzzle to the ground, and snapping the air as if possessed, and ran directly to the rock; but spying the dead fox she suddenly ceased her hounding, as if struck dumb with amazement, and walked round and round him in silence; and one by one her pups arrived, and, like their mother, were sobered into silence by the mystery. Then the hunter came forward and stood in their midst, and the mystery was solved. They waited in silence while he skinned the fox, then followed the brush a while, and at length turned off into the woods again. That evening a Weston Squire came to the Concord hunter's cottage to inquire for his hounds, and told how for a week they had been hunting on their own account from Weston woods. The Concord hunter told him what he knew and offered him the skin; but the other declined it and departed. He did not find his hounds that night, but the next day learned that they had crossed the river and put up at a farmhouse for the night, whence, having been well fed, they took their departure early in the morning.

The hunter who told me this could remember one Sam Nutting, who used to hunt bears on Fair Haven Ledges, and exchange their skins for rum in Concord village; who told him, even, that he had seen a moose there. Nutting had a famous fox-hound named Burgoyne — he pronounced it Bugine — which my informant used to borrow. In the 'Wast Book' of an old trader of this town, who was also a captain, town-clerk, and representative, I find the following entry. Jan. 18th, 1742—3, 'John Melven Cr. by 1 Grey Fox 0—2—3'; they are not now found here; and in his leger, Feb. 7th, 1743, Hezekiah Stratton has credit 'by a Catt skin 0—1— '; of course; a wild-cat, for Stratton was a sergeant in the old French war, and would not have got credit for hunting less noble game. Credit is given for deer skins also, and they were daily sold. One man still preserves the horns of the last deer that was killed in this vicinity, and another has told me the particulars of the hunt in which his uncle was engaged. The hunters were formerly a numerous and merry crew here. I remember well one gaunt Nimrod who would catch up a leaf by the roadside and play a strain on it wilder and more melodious, if my memory serves me, than any hunting horn.

At midnight, when there was a moon, I sometimes met with hounds in my path prowling about the woods, which would skulk out of my way, as if afraid, and stand silent amid the bushes till I had passed.

Squirrels and wild mice disputed for my store of nuts. There were scores of pitch-pines around my house, from one to four inches in diameter, which had been gnawed by mice the previous winter — a Norwegian winter for them, for the snow lay long and deep, and they were obliged to mix a large proportion of pine bark with their other diet. These trees were alive and apparently flourishing at mid-summer, and many of them had grown a foot, though completely girdled; but after another winter such were without exception dead. It is remarkable that a single mouse should thus be allowed a whole pine tree for its dinner, gnawing round instead of up and down it; but perhaps it is necessary in order to thin these trees, which are wont to grow up densely.

The hares (Lepus Americanus) were very familiar. One had her form under my house all winter, separated from me only by the flooring, and she startled me each morning by her hasty departure when I began to stir, — thump, thump, thump, striking her head against the floor timbers in her hurry. They used to come round my door at dusk to nibble the potato parings which I had thrown out, and were so nearly the color of the ground that they could hardly be distinguished when still. Sometimes in the twilight I alternately lost and recovered sight of one sitting motionless under my window. When I opened my door in the evening, off they would go with a squeak and a bounce. Near at hand they only excited my pity. One evening one sat by my door two paces from me, at first trembling with fear, yet unwilling to move; a poor wee thing, lean and bony, with ragged ears and sharp nose, scant tail and slender paws. It looked as if Nature no longer contained the breed of nobler bloods, but stood on her last toes. Its large eyes appeared young and unhealthy, almost dropsical. I took a step, and lo, away it scud with an elastic spring over the snow crust, straightening its body and its limbs into graceful length, and soon put the forest between me and itself — the wild free venison, asserting its vigor and the dignity of Nature. Not without reason was its slenderness. Such then was its nature. (Lepus, levipes, light-foot, some think.)

What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground — and to one another; it is either winged or it is legged. It is hardly as if you had seen a wild creature when a rabbit or a partridge bursts away, only a natural one, as much to be expected as rustling leaves. The partridge and the rabbit are still sure to thrive, like true natives of the soil, whatever revolutions occur. If the forest is cut off, the sprouts and bushes which spring up afford them concealment, and they become more numerous than ever. That must be a poor country indeed that does not support a hare. Our woods teem with them both, and around every swamp may be seen the partridge or rabbit walk, beset with twiggy fences and horse-hair snares, which some cow-boy tends.

Conclusion

[...] Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board. The hospitality was as cold as the ices. I thought that there was no need of ice to freeze them. They talked to me of the age of the wine and the fame of the vintage; but I thought of an older, a newer, and purer wine, of a more glorious vintage, which they had not got, and could not buy. The style, the house and grounds and 'entertainment' pass for nothing with me. I called on the king, but he made me wait in his hall, and conducted like a man incapacitated for hospitality. There was a man in my neighborhood who lived in a hollow tree. His manners were truly regal. I should have done better had I called on him.

How long shall we sit in our porticoes practising idle and musty virtues, which any work would make impertinent? As if one were to begin the day with long-suffering, and hire a man to hoe his potatoes; and in the afternoon go forth to practise Christian meekness and charity with goodness aforethought! Consider the China pride and stagnant self-complacency of mankind. This generation reclines a little to congratulate itself on being the last of an illustrious line; and in Boston and London and Paris and Rome, thinking of its long descent, it speaks of its progress in art and science and literature with satisfaction. There are the Records of the Philosophical Societies, and the public Eulogies of Great Men! It is the good Adam contemplating his own virtue. 'Yes, we have done great deeds, and sung divine songs, which shall never die' — that is, as long as we can remember them. The learned societies and great men of Assyria — where are they? What youthful philosophers and experimentalists we are! There is not one of my readers who has yet lived a whole human life. These may be but the spring months in the life of the race. If we have had the seven-years' itch, we have not seen the seventeen-year locust yet in Concord. We are acquainted with a mere pellicle of the globe on which we live. Most have not delved six feet beneath the surface, nor leaped as many above it. We know not where we are. Beside, we are sound asleep nearly half our time. Yet we esteem ourselves wise, and have an established order on the surface. Truly, we are deep thinkers, we are ambitious spirits! As I stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and endeavoring to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myself why it will cherish those humble thoughts, and hide its head from me who might, perhaps, be its benefactor, and impart to its race some cheering information, I am reminded of the greater Benefactor and Intelligence that stands over me the human insect.

There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dulness. I need only suggest what kind of sermons are still listened to in the most enlightened countries. There are such words as joy and sorrow, but they are only the burden of a psalm, sung with a nasal twang, while we believe in the ordinary and mean. We think that we can change our clothes only. It is said that the British Empire is very large and respectable, and that the United States are a first-rate power. We do not believe that a tide rises and falls behind every man which can float the British Empire like a chip, if he should ever harbor it in his mind. Who knows what sort of seventeen-year locust will next come out of the ground? The government of the world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner conversations over the wine.

The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats. It was not always dry land where we dwell. I see far inland the banks which the stream anciently washed, before science began to record its freshets. Every one has heard the story which has gone the rounds of New England, of a strong and beautiful bug which came out of the dry leaf of an old table of apple-tree wood, which had stood in a farmer's kitchen for sixty years, first in Connecticut, and afterward in Massachusetts, — from an egg deposited in the living tree many years earlier still, as appeared by counting the annual layers beyond it; which was heard gnawing out for several weeks, hatched perchance by the heat of an urn. Who does not feel his faith in a resurrection and immortality strengthened by hearing of this? Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many concentric layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society, deposited at first in the alburnum of the green and living tree, which has been gradually converted into the semblance of its well-seasoned tomb, — heard perchance gnawing out now for years by the astonished family of man, as they sat round the festive board, — may unexpectedly come forth from amidst society's most trivial and handselled furniture, to enjoy its perfect summer life at last!

I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

目 录

中文目录

英文目录

企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想



论 自 然

(英汉双语)

[美]拉尔夫·瓦尔多·爱默生 著 吴瑞楠 译













中国出版集团

中国对外翻译出版公司

图书在版编目(CIP)数据


论自然/[美]拉尔夫·瓦尔多·爱默生著;吴瑞楠译—北京:中国对外翻译出版公司,2009.11

(企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想)

ISBN 978-7-5001-2525-9



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中文目录

自然

历史

自立

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自 然

环环相扣的精妙链条,

向无垠的远方延伸;

目光解读它触及的征兆,

玫瑰诉说万语千言;

幼虫历尽一次次的蜕变,

导 言

我们这个时代是怀旧的。人们为逝者建墓立碑,写作各种传记、历史和评论。我们的祖先直视上帝和自然,我们却通过先人的眼睛与之交流。我们为什么不去享受一种与世界的全新关系呢?我们的诗歌和哲学为什么总是遵循传统,却没有洞察力呢?我们的宗教为什么要经由先人,而不是直接给我们启示呢?我们生活在自然的怀抱里,生命之流在我们体内和周围流淌,邀请我们凭借其力量与自然和谐相伴。我们为什么要在历史的残垣断壁中孜孜寻找呢?为什么要让今时的人身着褪色的旧服?今天,太阳同样放射光芒,原野和田间收获更多的羊毛和亚麻。土地是新的,人们是新的,思想也是新的。让我们创造自己的作品、法律和宗教吧。

当然,我们不会质疑那些无法回答的问题。我们必须相信上帝的创世是完美的,相信无论我们有多少好奇和不解,万物之序自有它的解释。每个人的状态,就是在象形意义上对他的疑问的解答。人类先有生活,而后才知晓真理。同样,自然已经在以它的形式和偏好,描述自身的存在。让我们来研读自然那伟大的灵魂吧,它在我们周围散发着宁静的光芒。让我们来探究自然的终极所在吧。

所有的科学都有一个目的:找到关于自然的理论。我们已经有了种族的理论、函数的理论,却没有一个,即便是模糊的,关于创世的概念。我们离发现真理还有遥远的路途。宗教布道者意见不和,彼此憎恨,而宗教研究者往往被认为既愚蠢又不可靠。然而,如果评判公正,最抽象的真理是最现实的。真理无论何时出现,都是自身最好的证据。证明真理的标准是,它可以解释一切现象。今天,许多问题仍然没有得到解答,人们甚至认为它们是无法解释的,如:语言、睡眠、疯狂、梦、怪兽、性。

从哲学意义上考虑,宇宙是由自然和心灵构成的。所以,严格说来,一切独立于我们之外的,所有哲学意义上的非我,即自然和艺术、他人,以及我自身都属于这一范畴。在细数自然的价值并计算其总和时,我指的是这个词的两层意义:通常意义和哲学含义。我们正在进行的探究非常宽泛,两种意义上的差别没有什么影响,并不会造成思想上的混乱。一般意义上讲,自然指的是未经人类改变的物质,如太空、空气、河流、树叶等。艺术则是人类的意愿与这些物质混和后的产物,比如一座房屋、一条运河、一尊雕像或是一幅画。但是,人类的参与总体而言是微不足道的,仅仅是修修补补,烘烤洗刷,并不能改变世界给予人的宏伟印象。



自 然

人不仅要远离社会,还需远离书房,方可进入孤独的境界。当我读书写作时,虽然无人相伴,但并不孤独。仰望星空吧,它会让你体验到什么是孤独。来自天国的光芒将你和你所接触的世界分离。你或许会想到,空气之所以是透明的,就是要让人类感受到天体那亘古不变的崇高和壮美。在城市的街道上仰望它们,多么壮观啊!假如这些繁星在一千年中仅仅出现一次,人们将如何信仰和崇拜它们啊,又将如何代代相传,纪念那上帝之城的光芒啊!然而,每一晚,这些美的使者都以训诫的微笑照亮寰宇。

繁星虽然每晚都会出现,人类却无法接近,也因而对其心生敬畏之情。当你放开心灵去感受万物时,你会发现一切自然之物都像星辰那样,令人产生类似的感觉。大自然从不平凡。最聪明的智者也无法穷尽自然的秘密,不会因发现自然的完美而失去好奇心。对智者来说,自然决不是一个玩物。鲜花、动物、山峦愉悦了他纯真的童年,也映射出他睿智的盛年。

当我们这样描述自然时,我们的感觉是清晰又极具诗意的。我们指的是各种自然物给予人的整体印象。正是这种整体印象将伐木工人看到的木头与诗人眼中的树木区别开来。今天早上我看到的迷人景象是由大约二三十个农场构成的。这块地属于米勒,旁边那块是洛克的,再远处的山林是曼宁的。然而,这迷人的风景却不属于他们中的任一位。只有诗人的眼睛才能将一个个农场的美景凝为一体。农场的景色融为一体,才成为最美,这并非农场主人的地契所能赋予的。

坦白地说,没有几个成年人能发现自然。大多数人意识不到太阳的存在。至少,他们对自然的理解是非常肤浅的。阳光仅能帮助成年人视物,却能深入孩童的眼睛和心灵。自然的热爱者,他内心和外在的感觉仍然是协调变化的,即使进入成年,他仍能保有童时的心灵。与天国和尘世的交流成为他每天生活的一部分。面对自然,即便他正经历苦痛,却有强烈的愉悦之情滋养身心。自然在诉说:我是他的造物主,不管他有多少痛苦,跟我在一起,他就是快乐的。不仅仅是白昼、夏日,每一小时、每一季节都给人带来愉悦。从令人窒息的正午到最阴冷的午夜,每一小时,每一变化,都使人产生不同的心境。无论是喜悦还是悲伤,自然都是契合的背景。若你身体健康,大自然的空气就是绝佳的甜果汁饮料。黎明时分,天空中满是云朵,穿过一片空旷的公地,脚下是雪地的小水洼,脑海中没有任何要交好运的念头闪过,我的心中却满是喜悦。我快乐得几乎要到恐惧的边缘。在树林里,人们丢掉年龄,就像蛇褪皮一样,在生命中的任何时期,都是孩子。在树林里,青春是永恒的。在这些上帝的树林里,仪礼和神圣主宰一切,节日四季不断,在这里生活即便是千年,也没有人会厌倦。在树林里,我们回归理性和信仰。在树林里,我感到,不会有不幸降临,没有耻辱,没有灾难(把双眼留给我),不幸、耻辱、灾难的伤害是自然也无法弥补的。站在空地上,沐浴在快乐的空气中,我仰头望向无尽的天穹——所有狭隘的自我消失了。我变成了一个透明的眼球。我什么都不是,我看到了一切。全能的上帝之流在我体内流淌,我是上帝的一个颗粒,是上帝的一部分。我最亲密朋友的名字听上去陌生又遥远,是兄弟?朋友?还是主仆?这一问题变得琐屑又扰人。我热爱那无限又永恒的美。原野更让我觉得可爱、可亲,胜过街道或是乡村。在静谧的风景里,在遥远的地平线上,人类看到了像其本性一样美的东西。

田野和树林赋予人的最大快乐,在于揭示了人与植物间的神秘关系。我并不孤独,也不陌生。植物冲我点头,我也向它们致意。在我看来,暴风雨中摇曳的树枝既新奇又熟悉,让我吃惊却并不陌生;就像是当我认为我在公正地思考或做事时,那种涌上心头的崇高思想或美好感觉。

然而,这种体验快乐的力量并非在于自然,而是属于人类,或是在于人与自然的和谐。体验这些快乐需要很有节制。因为,自然并非总是穿着节日的盛装,昨日因美丽少女嬉戏而飘香、灿烂的景象,今天却会布满忧郁。自然总是呈现心灵的色彩。在灾害后劳作的人啊,他燃起的火焰中带着悲伤。刚刚被死神夺去挚友的人啊,他在风景中感受到的还有一份冷漠。那些贫穷的小人物啊,看到的天空也不会那么壮观。



物 质

无论是谁,在思考世界的根源时,都会发现它是由许多不同元素构成的。这些元素可以归于以下几个范畴:物质、美、语言、知识。

在这里,我将所有自然给予我们的馈赠归为物质的范畴。当然,这种馈赠是暂时、过渡的,而不是最终的,如同物质相对于心灵。虽然物质是低一级的范畴,它本身却是完美的,也是所有人都感受到的自然的赠予。自然源源不断地向人类提供丰富的物质,使之在地球上得以生存和快乐,最终进入天堂。当我们想到这些时,人类的痛苦看上去就像孩童的任性。这些灿烂的装饰、充裕的物质、天穹、海洋、大地、阳光、云朵、气候、四季,什么样的天使才能创造出来呢?野兽、火焰、水流、岩石、谷物,都是人的奴仆。田野是他的居所、工作间、休息室、花园、卧室。



“侍奉他的奴仆,

多得超出他的想象。”



自然对于人类,不仅仅是物质,还是过程和结果。万物相互作用,每时每刻都在为人类谋福祉。风播下种子,太阳蒸发海洋,轻风将水蒸气送到田野,地球那侧的寒冰在这里化身为雨,雨水浇灌植物,植物养育动物。自然神圣的馈赠循环往复,哺育着人类。

有用的艺术是人类利用智慧对自然的馈赠进行再生产,或重新组合。他不再等待风的到来,却通过蒸气使埃俄罗斯 之袋的寓言成为现实,他的轮船蒸汽机承载了自然的三十二种风。人类用铁棒铺路,减少磨擦。他驾驭着马车,载着一车人、动物、商品,在一个个乡镇间穿行,就像一只雄鹰、一只燕子在天空急速飞过。自然的赐予使世界从诺亚方舟进入了拿破仑时代。人类有了城市、轮船、运河、桥梁。走进邮局,有人为你服务;进入书店,你会发现人们阅读、写作所有发生的事情;到了法院,国家纠正你的错误。你若在路边建了房子,人们每天来来往往,在下雪天铲除积雪,为你找出一条道来。

这里,没必要将物质的范畴一一列举。它是无穷尽的,例子非常明显,读者可自己想象。物质与更高的善相联系。人类之所以得到物质上的满足,并非是因为他可以被满足,而是因为他可以工作。



自然还满足人类另一个更崇贵的需求:热爱美。

古希腊人以“美”来描述世界。最原始的形态,如天空、山峦、树木、动物使人愉悦;这种愉悦是内含于事物本身的,由轮廓、颜色、动作和组合构成。这就是所有事物的本性,或者说是人类眼睛的塑造力。似乎美仅仅因眼睛而存在,眼睛是最好的艺术家。眼球的运动与光的规律结合在一起,就产生了视角。所有的物体都映射在色泽均匀、浓淡相宜的地球之上。无论个中物件如何平庸、不起眼,它们构成的风景都是圆满、对称的。正因为眼睛是最好的艺术家,所以光是最优秀的画家。无论多么丑陋的事物,强烈的光线都会使之美丽起来。光所给予人的感官刺激,所具有的像时空一样无限永恒的特性,让一切事物明快起来。即便是人类的遗体,也有它的美。但是,除了这种遍布于大自然的整体的美感,几乎所有的个体形象都是令人愉悦的。这从人类对某些形象从未停止的模仿和描画上就可以看出,比如:橡子、葡萄、松锥、麦耳、鸡蛋、飞鸟的翅膀和形态、狮爪、蟒蛇、蝴蝶、贝壳、火焰、云朵、花蕾、树叶,以及许许多多树的形态,如棕榈树等。

为了更好地理解,我们可以从三个方面来探究美的特点。

第一,对自然形态的认识和感受是一种快乐。自然的形态和行为对人类来说必不可少,即便在最低层次上,它也是物质和美的分界线。对于因工作或应酬而身心俱疲的人,自然可以疗伤,使他恢复气力。商人、律师从闹市的工作间走出,仰望天空,看到树林,就再次成为快乐的人儿。他在天空和树林永恒的宁静里,重新找回了自我。眼睛的健康似乎需要地平线的存在。只要我们能看得足够远,就不会感觉疲惫。

但在黎明和黄昏时分,自然不需借助物质,它的可爱足以愉悦人类。清晨,从黎明到日出,遥望远处的山顶,我的心情如天使一般。纤细的云朵在空中飘浮,像日出时大海中的游鱼,笼罩在深红色的光芒中。我站在地球上就好像在岸边,凝视安静的大海,似乎随着它千变万化;魔力进入我的身体,我开始膨胀,与晨风融为一体。自然以这几样极普通的元素使我们享有神明般的地位!赐予我健康和一天的时光,我将蔑视君王的虚华。黎明是我的亚述帝国;日落和月升是我的帕福斯 ,那超出想象的仙境;正午是那充满理智与情感的英格兰;夜晚则是以神秘哲学和梦境著称的德意志。

一月份的日落时分同样充满魅力,除非我们的知觉在午后变得迟钝起来。在西方的天空下,云朵已经化成一片片粉色的薄云,有说不出的柔软,空中弥漫着生命的气息和活力。此时,呆在屋中,不去欣赏美景是多么痛苦啊。自然要述说什么呢?磨坊后面那安静的山谷,即使是荷马,或者莎士比亚也无法描述,它们难道没有意义吗?暮色中,光秃秃的树木变成了燃烧的火焰,远处东方的天空已变为深蓝色,死去的星状花朵,枯萎的茎干和残株挂着寒霜,这一切都化成了无声的音乐。

城市居民通常认为,乡村的景色一年中只有半年是宜人的。我却同样陶醉于冬日乡村的优雅,它给予我们的感动毫不逊于夏日。若细心观察,你会发现四季之美各有特色。一块田地,每一小时都呈现一幅全新的图画。天空总在变化,原野映出它的灿烂和阴郁。周围农场的作物让大地的表情周周都有不同。牧场和路边野生的植物默默提醒人们夏日的时光,在有心人的眼里,甚至可以揭示时光的流转。飞鸟和昆虫,就像植物那样守时,一拨拨来,一拨拨走,都在四季里找到各自的位置。沿着河流,景色变化更为明显。七月,蓝色的匹克罗草大片大片地盛开在浅浅的河床上,成群的黄色蝴蝶翩翩起舞。这华丽的紫色和黄色的美景啊,没有艺术能与之匹敌。河流总是穿着节日的盛装,每个月份都有新的装饰。

但是,这种人们看到、感受到的美景是自然最稀有的部分。白昼的美景、露水湿润的早晨、山峦、花儿盛开的果园、星辰、月光、安静水面上的倒影,如此种种,如若人们过于热切地追求,就变成了一场秀,化为泡影,嘲笑我们。走出屋外去看月亮,它仅仅是闪光的亮片。只有你身处旅途,月亮的光芒才会那么宜人。十月黄昏薄暮的美景又有谁能攫取呢?你去寻找,它却消失了,就像从那驿车窗口看到的幻影。

第二,美若要臻于完美,更高层次精神元素的存在是极重要的。崇高又神圣的美只有与人的意志相融合,才不会显得矫揉造作。美是上帝赋予美德的标记。每一个自然的行为都是优美的。每一次英雄的事迹都是高尚的,并让那环境和参与者也灿烂起来。伟大的事迹告诉我们,宇宙属于每一个个体。自然是每一个人的嫁妆和财产。如果人类愿意,自然就是属于他的。他可能会抛弃自然,或者偷偷地溜到一个角落,放弃他的自然王国。大部分人都会这样做,但人类生来就有权利拥有自然。人类能在多大程度上拥有它,取决于他的思想和意志。塞勒斯特说过:“一切人们耕作、建造、航行所追寻的事物都臣服于美德。”吉本则说:“风浪总是帮助最能干的水手。”不仅是风浪,太阳、月亮、所有的星辰皆是如此。高贵的行为发生,可能恰巧是在一个风景秀丽之处。斯巴达国王列奥尼达和他的三百勇士即将失去生命的一天,日月相继照耀德摩比勒隘口;阿诺德·温克里德在那高耸的阿尔卑斯山上,面对可能发生的雪崩抓起奥地利大把长矛,为他的战友杀开一条血路,难道美丽的风景没有让这些英雄的事迹更加辉煌吗?哥伦布的航船靠近美洲的海岸,岸上的土著居民纷纷逃离茅舍,他的身后是汪洋大海,四周是紫色的印第安群岛,我们又怎能将这位英雄与风景隔裂?新大陆没有用她的棕榈林和大草原来装点英雄吗?自然的美景总是像空气一样,悄无声息地环绕伟大的行为。当亨利·范爵士坐在雪撬上被拖上塔山,即将作为英国法律的先驱者牺牲生命时,人群中就有人向他高喊,“你的座位从未像今天那样荣耀”。查理二世为了恐吓伦敦的民众,迫使爱国人士罗素勋爵坐在敞开的马车上通过城市的大街,驶向绞刑架。罗素勋爵的传记作者这样写道:“众人在想象中,看到自由和美德与他比肩而坐。”在周围都是肮脏事物的环境里,追求真理,或是英雄的行为即刻将天空变成了自己的庙宇殿堂,太阳成为它的蜡烛。只要人类的思想足够伟大,自然就会伸开双臂,拥抱他。自然欣然地以玫瑰和紫罗兰跟随他的脚步,以她的壮丽和优雅装扮她可爱的孩子。只要人类的思想足够宽广,自然总会契合他的一举一动。具有美德的人与自然是融为一体的,是风景的中心人物。在我们的记忆中,荷马、品达、苏格拉底、福基昂 都与希腊的地理和气候完美地联系在一起。我们所能看到的天堂和尘世与耶稣休戚与共。生活中,具有坚强性格的天才,总能从容地主宰万物——人群、舆论、时光、自然都成为他的附属。

第三,美还有另外一个特点,它是理智思考的对象。美不仅与美德相联系,还与思想有关系。理智寻求万物的绝对秩序,不带任何感情色彩。思考与行动的力量似乎彼此接续,一方独有的行为催生另一方的行动。二者好像并不友好,但又像动物交替进行的进食和工作,前者为后者做准备,后者跟随前者发生。因此,与行动相联系的美,是自然产生的,也正因为并非刻意追求,美才得以生成。这种美成为思考所追逐理解的对象,又继而转化为行动的力量。神圣的事物不会消亡。所有的善都具有永恒重生的力量。人类的理智重新构画自然的美,不仅仅是为了思考,还为了新的创造。

自然给予所有人不同程度的影响。有些人因为自然而快乐,这种对美的热爱是一种喜好;还有一些人同样热爱自然,他们不满足于仰慕它,还要以新的形式将自然表现出来。这种对美的创造就是艺术。

艺术作品的创造有助于揭示人性的奥秘。艺术作品是对世界的抽象,是世界的缩影。它是缩微的自然,是对自然的表述。尽管自然界的万物数不胜数,千变万化,但对它们的表述却都是相似的,甚至是相同的。自然是由各种形态构成的海洋,它们极为相似。一片树叶、一缕阳光、一块土地、海洋给人带来相同的印象,它们所共有的完美和谐即是美。衡量美的标准是自然形态的统一——自然的一体完整性,这也体现在意大利人对美的定义上:“万物合一”。单个的事物不会太美丽,只有属于一个整体,才显出美来。诗人、画家、雕刻家、音乐家、建筑师,都试图将自然的美集中于一点,每一个人都在他的不同作品中满足对美的热爱。正是对美的热爱激发了他创作的热情。因此,艺术是经过人类加工的自然。在艺术作品里,人类将自然之物原初的美展现出来。

自然的存在,满足了人类灵魂对美的渴望。我称其为一种终极目标。至于灵魂为什么追求美,没有理由,也无法解释。在最广泛最深远的意义上,美是对世界的表达。上帝是完美的。真、善、美只是上帝的不同面孔。但是,美在本质上并不是最终的。它是内在永恒之美的预示,它本身并非完满又令人满足的善。美是个体,不是整体,也并非自然之源最终最崇高的表达。



语 言

语言是自然赠予人类的第三个礼物。自然是思想的载体,这一点可从三个方面来阐释。

一、词语是自然存在的符号表达。

二、特定的自然存在是精神存在的象征。

三、自然是精神的象征。

第一,词语是自然存在的符号表达。自然史的作用是帮助我们理解超自然的历史。物质存在的作用是给予我们语言,来表达精神的存在和变化。每一个表达道德或精神存在的词语,如果我们寻根究底,会发现它们都是起源于某些物质现象。正确包含直的意味,错误则有弯曲的含义;精神最初的含义是风;谮越原指跨过一条线;傲慢是说扬起眉毛。我们说,心表达情感,头脑传达思想;思想和情感这两个词来自有形的物质存在,现在专门指代精神的意义。这种变化大多数在遥远的语言成形时期就已经发生了,我们无法得知其中详情。但在日常生活中,我们却可以在儿童身上发现类似的表现。儿童和原始人只使用名词或事物的名字,他们将这些名称转化成动词,并用来表达类似的精神行为。

第二,所有表达精神含义的词语都起源于自然界的物质,这是语言史上一个非常明显的特点。然而,这远非自然对人类的最大恩惠。不仅仅是词语具有象征意义,物质存在本身都具有象征意义。每一个自然事实都是某些精神存在的象征。每一个自然现象都对应一种思想状态,这种思想状态只有通过对自然现象的描画才能表述出来。暴怒的人是狮子,狡猾的人是狐狸,坚定的人是岩石,博学的人是火炬。羔羊寓义天真,蛇代表恶毒,鲜花表达爱意。光明和黑暗是我们熟知的对知识和无知的表述;热则用来形容爱情。我们背后和面前的可视距离,则分别代表回忆和希望。

站在河边深思的人,谁又不会想到万物的流动呢?向溪水中投掷一枚石子,那一圈圈的涟漪完美显现了事物之间的相互影响。人类意识到,上帝存在于他的生活中,就像正义、真理、爱、自由在天穹升起,熠熠生辉。他称上帝为理性:它不属于我,不属于你,也不属于他。我们人类是它的财产,它的子民。地球所处的蓝色宇宙,布满永恒的天体,处于亘古不变的宁静中,这就是理性的一种。与自然相联系的理性,我们称之为精神。精神是造物主。它本身具有生命。所有时代、所有国家的人都称其为“我父上帝”。

很容易可以看出,这些类比没有任何偶然的因素在内,没有变化,它们是一贯的、恒定的,在自然中无处不在。这些并非少许几个诗人的梦想,人类是善于类比的,他探究万物间的联系。人被置于万物的中心,联系的光线从每一个事物指向他。没有其他事物,人类无法被理解,没有人类其他事物也不可能被理解。自然历史上的所有存在,如果单独来看,没有任何意义,就像仅有男人或女人,并无生命力。若将它与人类的历史结合起来,就充满了生机和活力。自然学家关于动植物的著述仅仅是枯燥的对事实的记录。但是,这些事实中最不起眼的部分,如某个植物的习性、某个昆虫的器官、工作或声音,假如用来说明思想哲学的某个事实,或与人类的本性联系起来,就能以一种最为生动和宜人的方式打动我们。植物的种子在有关人类本性的比喻中被应用到了极致,以至于保罗将人的尸体比作种子:“它作为自然的实体被播种;成为精神的实体被收获。”地球自转,产生日夜;它绕太阳转动,生成四季。虽然这些仅仅是光和热的变化,但是人的生活和四季间没有相似之处吗?四季难道不因这种类比而披上华彩,增添感伤吗?假如我们认为蚂蚁就只是蚂蚁而已,它的本能就微不足道了。但是,如果我们将它与人类联系起来,就会对它有新的认识。辛苦劳作的蚂蚁就好像人类的督导员,弱小的身体里却藏着一颗坚强的心。如此一来,蚂蚁的习性,包括最近刚刚发现的它从不睡觉,都变得崇高起来。

正因为可见的物质存在与人类思想具有这种根本的对应关系,只有生活必需品的原始人是以图像来交流的。沿着人类的历史逐步回溯,语言的形象化就越来越明显。语言最初成形时,完全以诗歌的形式存在,所有精神存在都是通过自然的象征来表达。而这些象征正是语言最初的组成部分。人们还发现,不同语言中的成语在那些最雄辩最有力的篇章中是相似的。最古老的语言是这样,最新的语言也是如此。语言从自然中生成,它将自然的现象转变成某种人类的生活,它对我们的影响力从未减弱过。正是这种影响力使性情刚强的农夫或边疆居民的言谈增添了一分酣畅淋漓,得到所有人的喜爱。

人类用恰当的象征符号来表达思想,并通过语言描述出来的这种能力取决于他质朴的个性,也即是他对真理的热爱,以及完整传达真理的愿望。人类堕落之后,语言也随之堕落。如果人类质朴的本性和独立的思想被各种衍生的欲望取代,如对财富、享乐、权力、奉承的追求,复杂和虚妄代替了质朴和真理,人类就在某种程度上失去了利用自然阐释意志的能力。新的形象不再生成;旧的词语受到歪曲,就不再传达正确的含义;当金库里不再有黄金时,纸币就产生了。到了某个时候,欺骗和虚假成为主宰,词语就再也无法达意,不能激发人类情感了。在每一个高度文明的国家,都有数以百计的作家,他们仅在一个较短的时期内相信,或使别人相信,他们看到了并且说出了真理。他们自身并不是利用自然来表达思想,而是无意识地应用了最早期作家所创造的语言。那些最早期的作家才真正是以自然为语言。

但是,睿智的人会丢弃那些陈腐的措辞,再次将语言与自然之物联系起来。图画般的语言郑重证明了,使用它的人是与真理和上帝站在一起的。有时,我们的语言会超越日常熟悉的事实,充满激情,或因思想而升华,此时的语言完全是各种自然的形象。一个正在诚挚交谈的人,如果他注意到自己的思想历程,会发现与他的每一个想法相伴,都有一个或多或少明亮的物质形象出现在脑海里。这个形象即是思想的外衣。因此,好的作品和精彩的演讲都是永恒的隐喻。这种形象是自然生成的,是经验与即时思想活动的融合,是恰当的创造。它是上帝对自然之子的再创造。

以上事实或许可以说明,对于富有思想的人,乡村生活要胜于拥挤又虚伪的城市生活。从自然中我们知晓更多,而不仅仅是我们想要表达的。自然的光芒洒进我们的思维,我们几乎忘记它的存在。在树林中长大的诗人或演说家,自然那美丽又令人愉悦的变化满足了他的感官需求,年复一年,从无定式,悄无声息。城市的喧嚣或是政界的纷争也不会使他全然忘掉自然的教诲。多年以后,当他身处充斥着愤怒和恐惧的国民议会中,在那革命的时刻,自然那神圣的意象将再次闪耀光芒,就像合适的象征,完美表达了他彼时的感受。受到高尚情感的召唤,他再次看到、听到那摇动的树林、低语的松枝、波光粼粼的河流,还有山脚下的水牛,就像他童时看到和听到的一样。有了这些自然形象的帮助,他就拥有了游说的魔力,掌握了力量之匙。

第三,自然之物帮助我们表达特定的意义。但是,表达这些琐屑信息的语言是多么伟大啊!这些高贵的物种、多姿多彩的自然形态、天穹中那数不清的天体,它们的存在就只是为他市政演说中提供单词和语法吗?当我们利用这种伟大的暗码使生活更加方便时,我们并没有发挥到极致,也没有能力做到。我们就像旅行者,利用火山的余烬来烤鸡蛋。尽管我们知道,自然每时每刻都能传达我们的思想,我们却禁不住要问,自然本身难道就没有意义吗?山峦、海浪、天空,我们将它们作为象征,来表达我们的思想。除此之外,它们没有任何意义吗?世界是象征的。我们言语中的一部分是隐喻,因为自然是人类思想的一个隐喻。精神世界的法则与物质世界一一对应,就像镜子内外的两个形象。“可见的物质世界及其各组成部分的相互关系是不可见的精神世界的刻度盘。”物理学的公理阐释了伦理学的法则。比如,“整体大于部分”;“反作用力等于作用力”;“如果用时间来弥补质量之差,最轻的物体可以撬动最重的物体。”其他类似的命题还有很多,它们不仅具有物理学意义,还有伦理学意义。这些命题被应用于人类生活时,它们的意义更广泛、更普遍。

同样地,历史上流传下来的谚语以及各个民族的格言通常由自然事实构成,用来寓意表达道德上的真理。比如:滚石不生苔;一鸟在手胜于二鸟在林;走对路的瘸子要快过走错路的运动员;趁热打铁;杯满则溢;青出于蓝;压倒骆驼的最后一根稻草;早生根的树更长久;如此种种。这些谚语最初只是琐屑的自然事实,却因为它们的象征意义不断得到重复。谚语是这样,所有的神话、寓言、隐喻都是如此。

物质与精神间的这种联系并非是某个诗人凭空想象的,而是上帝的意志,所有人都可以知晓。它在人类面前时隐时现。当我们在某些幸运的时刻思考这个奇迹时,智慧的人会反思:他在其他时刻是否目不能视,耳不能闻?



“这些奇迹的存在,

像夏日的云朵征服我们,

不应引起我们特别惊叹吗?”



此时,宇宙变得透明,上帝之律的光芒穿越世界。自从世界出现,这个问题就不断地激发天资聪颖的人去思考和研究,从古代埃及人和印度婆罗门,到毕达哥拉斯、柏拉图、培根、莱布尼兹、斯威登堡,无不如此。斯芬克斯一直蹲踞路旁,一代代的预言家从她身边走过,都要碰碰运气,企图解开她的谜语。看来精神必须凭借物质形态来表现自己。白昼与黑夜、河流与风暴、飞禽与走兽、酸与碱,都预存于上帝的理念中,因为它们是先于精神情感的特点而得以成为物质。可见的物质事实是不可见的精神的最终表现。物质世界是精神世界的终端,或者说精神世界内含于物质世界中。有位法国哲学家这样说:“物质实体必然是造物主思想提炼后的产物,与其母体必定保留着某种关系。换句话说,物质世界的自然必然包含精神和道德的特点。”

这个概念很难理解。尽管以上我们提到的镜子、外衣、提炼等形象可以激发想象,但是我们还需要更精确更重要的方法来解释它。“每条经文都应凭借生成它的精神来解读”——这是批评的基本法则。与自然和谐相处的生活、对真理和美德的热爱,将使人类的双眼得到净化,从而了解自然的含义。我们将逐步理解永恒的自然之物的最初含义,世界就是一本打开的书,每个自然形态都因它隐含的生命和终极缘由而具有意义。

根据以上所说,当我们思考广博的自然世界时,不禁会吃一惊,因为“每个自然物,如果观察得当,都展示了一种新的精神力量。”这种精神力量是无意识的真理,当人类通过自然物来定义和解释它时,它就变成了知识领域的一部分。知识则是获得力量的新武器。



知 识

此时,我们对自然的意义有了新的认识,它是赋予人类知识的导师。以上所说的世界对人类的种种馈赠都包含在这层含义里面。

空间、时间、社会、劳动、气候、食物、运动、动物、机械力,每时每刻都给予人类无限最真实的知识。它们不仅指导人类的感性认识,还帮助他进行理性推断。每一样物质都使人类产生感性认识,如:它的体积、抵抗力、惯性、延展性、形状、可分割性等等。这种感性认识经过一系列的融合变化,最终发现该物质在自然界存在的原因和作用。同时,人类的理性推断力意识到物质与精神的联系,将这些感性认识转变成自己的思想。

第一,自然是人类理解精神世界真理的导师。我们在与自然界万物接触的过程中,不断地学习事物之间的相同和不同、万物的秩序、存在和表象、逐步发展的过程、从个体到一般,以及各种力量的综合。个体越重要,自然的教诲就越细致,所有事物都是如此。日复一日,年复一年,漫长的学习过程从未停止,直到人类拥有了常识;与此同时,烦恼、不便、困境不断出现;为平凡的人而欢欣;对价格争执不休,对利益锱铢必较;所有这一切都是为了给人类添上思想之翼,教导我们“好的思想如果不付诸实施,就不过是黄粱美梦!”

财产及其相关的债权和债务对人类有同样的帮助。债务,可怕的债务,无情的债务使孀妇、孤儿和天才之子对它既怕又恨。它耗尽人的时间,折磨人的心灵,它对人类的作为看上去那么可憎。然而,它是一位训诫者,它对人类的教导决不能丢弃,那些受它折磨的人最需要它。更重要的是,财产曾被恰当地比作雪花——“如果雪花今天落下,明天就会被风吹走。”它是内在机制的外部表现,就像钟表表盘上的指针。虽然人类的理解力受到考验,从更高的精神视角来看,他正在体验更深层次的法则。

个人理解力方面极小的差异,比如对于不同的认识,都影响到性格和运气。人类对时空的理解也是如此,他可能会发现世间万物并不是拥挤地混杂在一起,而是一个个独立的个体。钟和犁各有用途,彼此无法替代。水适于饮用,煤用来燃烧,羊毛可以制衣;但羊毛无法饮用,水不能制衣,煤也不可食用。有智慧的人懂得区分事物,知道给事物排序,他理解的生物与美德像自然一样广博。愚蠢的人不懂得区分,以为人与人都是一样的。他们认为“不好”即是“最差”,“不坏”就是“最好”。

同样,自然对人类的关注是多么细微啊!她不原谅任何的错误,是就是是,否就是否。

农业、天文学、动物学的最基本知识(农民、猎人、水手最初学习的知识)教给我们,自然永远都在掷骰子;自然的垃圾堆里隐藏着明确又有用的果实。

人类理解了一个又一个物理学的法则,是多么平静和快活啊!他走进造物的世界,明白人类生存的特权,多么高贵的情感在他心中激荡啊!洞察力使他更高尚纯净。自然的美在他胸中闪耀。人类明白这些了,他就变得更为高大,宇宙则渺小起来,因为时空关系随着自然法则的揭示而消失。

人类要探索的宇宙是那么浩瀚,再一次使我们震撼,甚至是畏惧。“相比未知的领域,我们已知的只是沧海一粟。”打开一本近期的科学杂志,看看有关光、热、电、磁、生理学、地理学等方面的问题,你就知道人类对自然科学的兴趣是不会很快消失的。

在自然众多的教诲中,我们必须特别指出其中的两点。

自然世界的每一个事件,都教导人类运用意志或力量。孩童渐渐学会驾驭自己的感官意识,直到有一天他说:“我会做到。”他参透了秘密,明白只要他愿意,他不仅可以简化特定的事件,还能分解一系列的事件,使所有事实遵从他。自然完全是一种媒介,它存在的意义即是为人类服务。自然接受人类的主宰,温顺地就像救世主耶稣的毛驴。自然王国就是人类的原材料,他将其加工成有价值的事物。人类将细微精妙的空气变成智慧优美的言语,再添上翅膀,使其成为劝导和命令的天使。人类胜利的思想一个接一个地产生并分解所有的事物,直至世界最终变成一个实现了的意志——人类的自我复制。

第二,可感知的事物符合理性的预感,并反映良知。一切事物都具有道德意义;在它们无限的变化中,精神本性是永恒存在的。自然因为无限的形态、色彩和运动而壮丽华美。遥远寰宇中的每一个天体;最粗糙水晶的每一个化学变化乃至生命的法则;从一片树叶的生长到热带森林和上古的煤矿、每一个植物的变化;从海绵到赫拉克勒斯 ,每一个动物的行为,都以或明或暗的方式教导人类有关正确与错误的法则,与《十诫》相呼应。自然从来都是宗教的盟友,向宗教情感出借所有的壮丽景色和财富。大卫、以赛亚、耶稣,这些预言家和布道者都曾从自然中获得大量帮助。伦理的特点如此深入自然的骨髓,似乎这就是自然存在的目的。无论自然的个体满足了怎样的人类需求,伦理意义是自然公共又普遍的功能,决不可忽视。自然个体的价值从来不会被消耗殆尽。当事物在某方面已经得到最大程度的利用时,对于另一个外部需求来说,它仍是全新的。在上帝眼中,每一个目的都是新的工具。因此,对物资的使用,从它本身来说是卑微可鄙的。但对思想来说,它却教导了人类什么是价值,即:事物必须有用,才是好的;对任何自然的个体来说,各组成部分共同协作,实现最终目的是至关重要的。这个真理最直白的表现就是,我们虽然不喜欢,却必须从玉米和食物中知道什么是价值,什么是需求。

如上所述,所有的自然过程都蕴含道德意义。道德法则是自然的核心,向四周辐射其影响,是所有物质、联系、过程的精髓。我们接触的一切事物都在向我们布道。农场不就是无声的绝对真理吗?谷壳、麦子、野草、庄稼、病害、雨水、昆虫、太阳,从春天的第一条垄沟到冬雪覆盖的残株,一切都是神圣的象征。水手、牧羊人、矿工、商人,在他们各自的领域里体验类似的经历,得出相同的结论:所有的组织都是极相似的。道德的情感在空气中弥漫,在谷物中生长,浸入水流,被人类吸收,沁入心灵,这一点不容置疑。自然对人类的道德影响即是它教导人类的真理。谁能说出这影响有多大呢?谁又猜得出饱受海浪拍打的岩石教给了渔夫多少坚强?碧蓝的天空,纯净澄澈,风摇移朵朵白云,不着一丝痕迹,人类从中感知多少的宁静啊?百兽出演的无言的戏剧,教给了人类多少勤奋、神意和爱啊?多变的健康状况是多么孜孜不倦的自律的布道者啊!

我们要特别理解一下自然的统一性。它是变化中的统一,在自然中随处可遇。万物无穷无尽的变化都给人相同的印象。色诺芬 在晚年时抱怨说,无论他看到的是什么,都展现出统一性。在不同的形态中看到同样的存在,这让他感到厌倦。普洛透斯的寓言蕴含温和的真理。一片树叶、一滴水、一块水晶、一段时间,都与整体相关,与整体的完善密不可分。每个个体都是一个微观世界,真实地体现世界的统一性。

这种统一性不仅存在于类比明显的事物中,比如,我们在化石中发现类似人类手掌的动物脚蹼,还存在于表面上差异很大的事物中。斯塔尔和歌德将建筑称作“凝固的音乐”。维特鲁威认为建筑师也应该是音乐家。柯尔律治说:“哥特式的教堂是石化了的宗教。”米开朗基罗认为,解剖学方面的知识对建筑师来说非常重要。在海顿的清唱剧中,音符不仅使人想象出蛇、鹿、大象的移动,还使人看到明亮的色彩:如绿草。和谐音乐的法则在和谐的色彩中重现。花岗石与冲刷它的河流之不同,只是热量的多少;流动的河水像吹拂它的空气;空气像穿越它的更复杂的光;光像其携带穿透太空的热。每个事物仅仅是另一个事物的变体,它们的相同之处远超过差异,它们的基本法则是同一的。一门艺术或某个组织的法则,在自然中都是适用的。这种统一性极其密切,很容易发现,它藏在自然最深层的衣饰下,显露普遍精神的起源;它同样遍布人类的思想。我们用词语表达的每一个普遍真理,都暗示或推断了另一个真理。所有的真理都是一致的。就像球面上的大圆,包含所有可能的小圆。或者说,一个个小圆构成大圆。从一个侧面看,每一个真理都是绝对的实体。但是,这个绝对的实体却由无数的侧面构成。

世界的统一性在行动中更为明显。词语是对无限思想的有限表达,无法表现真理的全部内涵。词语打断割裂了真理,使它的意义丢失。行动则是思想的外化,是思想的完善。正确的行动似乎可以占据人们的视线,与整个自然联系起来。“睿智的人做一件事,也完成了其他的事;他只做一件正确的事,就发现了所有正确行动的相似性。”

词语和行动并非原始自然的属性,它们使人类形态得以生成。与人类相比,所有其他机体看上去都是退化和堕落。当人类在万物中出现时,上帝偏爱他胜过一切。它说:“我从人类那儿得到快乐和知识;我从人类中发现并看到了自己;我愿向他言语;他能再次言语;他可予我已经成形的鲜活的思想。”事实上,眼睛(即是思维)永远看到人类的形态,男人和女人;这些形态是处于万物核心的力量和秩序最丰富的信息。不幸的是,每个人类形态都带着某种伤害的痕迹,遭到损毁,表面看来是有缺陷的。然而,与周围沉默无声的自然相比,在深不可测的思想海洋中,人类像是泉水的导管,唯有他是通向所有组织形态的入口。

详细探究自然对人类的教诲是一件快乐的事,但哪里有尽头呢?我们在青年和成年生活中有一些朋友,他们就像天空和流水,与我们的思想一致;我们在某方面喜爱他们,他们使我们满意;我们无法将他们置于很近的位置,来改变甚至是分析他们。我们只能选择爱他们。上帝送来一位真实的胜过我们理想的人,我们与他深入交流,得知优秀的标准,对上帝的才智更为尊重;当这位朋友成为思想的对象,尽管他的性格仍保留了所有无意识的影响,他在我们的思维里已变成了真实怡人的智慧。这是一个信号:他的职责即将完成,通常情况下,不久他就会离开我们的视线。



理 念

就这样,自然通过每一个感官的对象,将世界无法言说但又可以理解的实际意义传达给人类,那永生的门徒。在教导人类知识方面,自然的所有组成部分都扮演了某个角色。

一个崇高的疑问始终挥之不去:知识是否宇宙的最终因?外在的自然存在吗?上帝教导人类,使人类获得一系列一致的感觉,我们称之为太阳和月亮、男人和女人、房子和交易,这足以描述我们称为世界的表象。我毫无办法检验感觉的真实性,不知道它们带给我的印象是否与实际的对象相符,这会有什么不同呢?俄里翁 在天堂里吗?有哪一个神灵描画灵魂的外衣吗?万物间的联系和一切事物的终极目标保持不变,区别是什么呢?陆地与海洋相互作用吗?无数的世界不断演化、融合(在绝对空间里,海洋下面接着海洋,星系连着星系),如果时空关系不再存在,人类还会永远信仰同样的表象吗?自然有真实的外在存在吗?还是只存在于思想的启示里?在我看来,它既有用,又脆弱。无论它是什么,只要我无法验证感觉的准确性,自然就是理念。

这种理念论令轻佻的人发笑,好像这种理论很滑稽,好像它影响了自然的稳定性。它当然不会。上帝从不与人类开玩笑,也不会就自然的终极目标妥协,不会允许自然的队列出现任何矛盾。对于永恒自然法则的任何怀疑都会使人类丧失能力。永恒的自然法则受到神圣的尊崇,人类的信仰也因此而完美。人类的力量和活力即是在自然永恒的假设下设定。人类像一座矗立的房子,而不是摇摆的帆船。因此,只要行动的力量超越思想的力量,对于任何自然比精神更短暂、更多变的暗示,我们都将愤怒地反对。经纪人、车匠、木工、收费员对于这种暗示都深为不满。

但是,尽管我们完全认同自然法则是永恒的,自然的绝对存在仍然是一个开放的问题。文明无一例外地使人类坚信特定自然现象的不变性,如:热、水、氮;却又引导我们将自然视为现象,而非存在;将存在归因于精神;认为自然是偶然,是结果。

感官认识和未开化的理解力,使人们本能地相信自然是绝对存在的,人类与自然密不可分,万物是终极结果。未经教化的人,目光从不会超越他居住的区域。理性的存在使人类对绝对自然的信仰受到质疑。思想一开始就试图放松感官认识对人类的束缚,向我们展示自然是浮动的、超然的。直到理性介入,人类的眼睛才精确地看到清晰的轮廓和五彩的表象。理性给这些轮廓和表象增添了优雅,使它们生动起来。这些来自于人类的想象和爱,使万物的棱角变得柔和了。假如理性激发人类更真切的想象,轮廓和表象就变得透明,不见了,人类从中看到的是原因和精神。此时,人类唤醒那更高层次的力量,虔诚地将自然回归它的造物主,这个时刻多么宜人啊!它是人生最美妙的时刻。

让我们来逐一说明文明的作用吧。

一、理念哲学最初产成就是源自自然的暗示。

上帝创造自然,让它与精神一起来解放我们。某些机械的变化,我们所处位置的改变,使我们意识到二元论的存在。在不同情形下看岸边,比如:在航行的帆船上、在热气球上,或是透过色彩奇异的天空,都让我们产生特殊的感受。视角的任何微小变化,都让世界宛若图画。很少乘车的人只需坐上一辆马车,穿过小镇的街道,街景就变成了木偶剧。男人和女人们在交谈、奔跑、交易、打架,诚恳的机械师、散步的人、乞丐、小男孩们、狗,都变得虚幻了,与旁观者不再有任何联系,变透明了,不再是真实的存在。在快速移动的火车车厢里,看到熟悉的乡村,会激发多少新的思考啊!不仅如此,最平常的事物,只需稍稍改变一下视角,就能给我们最大的快乐。在照相机的镜头里,卖肉小贩的马车、我们家人的样子都让我们发笑。某个著名人物的肖像则让我们满足。弯下腰,从两腿中间看远处的风景,你会觉得风景真美啊,尽管在过去二十年里你曾经无数次看到它。

借助机械工具,我们发现了观察者与景色的差别,也就是人类与自然的区别。我们感受到的不只是愉悦,还伴随着敬畏。我可以说,人类明白了:世界是一种现象,人类本身却拥有某种永恒的特质。这一事实让我们感受到某种程度的崇高。

二、诗人以更高的方式传达同样的愉悦。只需寥寥数笔,他就描绘出了太阳、山峦、帐篷、城市、英雄、少女,这些与我们所知的并无不同,只是脱离了地面,浮动在我们眼前,就像在空中一样。他移动土地和海洋,使之围绕他的思想转动,呈现出全新的姿态。英雄的感情占据了他的身心,并将物质作为象征。只听从感觉的人,其思想遵从物质;诗人则使万物符合他的思想。前者认为自然是固定、坚实的;诗人则将自然看作流动的,影响着他的存在。在诗人看来,执拗的世界是灵活易塑的;他赋予灰尘和石头人性的光芒,使它们成为理性的语言。想象力可以定义为理性对物质世界的应用。莎士比亚利用自然来达意的能力居所有诗人之首。自然的万物就像他手中的玩物,可以表达任何思想的变化。自然最偏僻的角落得到造访,最遥远的独立的事物因为复杂的精神上的联系聚在一起。我们得知,物质世界的博大是相对的,所有事物都能缩小或变大来服务于诗人的激情。在莎翁笔下,鸟的歌声、花的芬芳和露珠都是爱人的身影;胸膛喻义时间,它让爱人无法接近;爱人激起疑惑,那是她的饰物:



疑惑,是美的饰物,

像那欢呼划过天堂最甘甜的空气。



莎翁的激情并非一时兴起,当他对一个城市、一个国家诉说时,激情在他心中澎湃。



不,它的产生远非偶然;

虚华的赞美,不满的蹙额,

都对它毫无影响;

它不惧政策,不怕那转瞬即逝的

异教徒,

它是那么睿智和谨慎。



他持之以恒,充满力量。在他看来,金字塔是飘渺、短暂的。青春和爱就像清晨,使他眩晕:



将那双唇移开

放弃它们的甜蜜誓言已经许下;

还有那双眼,它们的光芒划破黎明,

让清晨迷失方向。



我或许可以顺便评论一下,这个比喻的奇美恐怕在文学中很难超越了。

莎翁的激情改变万物,伟岸变成低矮,渺小变得伟大。这样的例子数不胜数。我这里只引《暴风雨》中的几句。



阿里尔:牢固的海角

被我撼动,冲动之下我连根拔起

雪松和青松。



普罗斯珀罗诉诸音乐来安慰发狂的阿隆佐和他的同伴:



神圣的氛围,疯狂幻想最好的慰藉

为你们的头脑疗伤

它如今已在你们的身体里燃烧,再无效用。



此外:



魔力迅速消退,

当白昼尾随黑夜,

溶化黑暗,他们的感官

开始追逐那遮敝理性的

无知的迷雾。

他们的感性认识

开始膨胀:即将成为潮水

迅速填满已经变得肮脏泥泞的

理性的海岸



莎翁对于事件之间真实联系(真实存在的理念上的联系)的认识,使他可以得心应手地处理世界那壮观的形态和表象,肯定精神的主宰地位。

三、诗人用思想让自然灵动起来。他与哲学家的唯一不同在于,前者以美为最终诉求;后者视真理为最终目标。然而,与诗人一样,哲学家将事物之间显而易见的秩序和关系归诸思想的王国。柏拉图如是说,“哲学的问题在于,为一切有条件的存在,找到一个无条件的绝对基础。”哲学的首要信仰是,法则决定现象,人类知晓了法则,就可预知现象。这个法则在人类头脑中出现时,即是理念。理念的美是无限的。真正的哲学家和真正的诗人是合二为一的。美是真,真是美,是二者的共同追求。柏拉图或是亚里士多德的某个定义,与索福克里斯笔下的安提格涅,难道不具有相同的魅力吗?在哲学家的定义和作家的人物中,精神融入了自然;看上去坚实的物质被思想占据、消解;脆弱的人类在灵魂的指导下,渗透自然界的万物,在万物的和谐中发现自我,掌握它们的法则。在物理学里,假如人类掌握了法则,就不必再去记忆浩繁的个体,只需一个公式就可表达人类千百年来的观察结果。

即便在物理学中,精神(法则和理念)也高于物质。天文学家、几何学者相信法则无可争辩的分析,鄙弃对物质的观察。欧拉这样描述他的拱形法则,“它与所有的经验相左,却是真理。”这一神圣的话语已将自然变成思想,徒留下物质的空壳。

四、哲学不可避免地引发人类对物质存在的怀疑。杜尔哥说过,“从未质疑过物质存在的人,不具备进行哲学探索的天赋。”哲学使我们将注意力集中在永恒、必要、未经创造的自然,即理念上;理念的存在让我们感到,外在的环境只是一场梦、一个影子。我们在众神的奥林匹斯山上等候时,就会认识到自然是精神的附属。我们升入理念的王国,明白它们就是上帝的思想。“它们与地球同在。上帝创造天堂,理念已在那里;上帝创造云朵,理念已在那里;上帝创造海洋,理念已在那里。理念在上帝旁边侍立,就像与它同生。上帝向它们寻求建议。”

理念的影响是适当的。作为哲学的对象,仅有少数人可以接近它们。但是,无论是谁,出于虔诚或是热情,都可进入理念的领域。任何人,只要触及这些神圣的自然,在某种程度上都变得神圣起来。理念就像崭新的灵魂,使肉体得到新生。我们的躯体变得敏捷又轻巧;我们在空气中行走;生活不再让人厌烦,我们再也不会生此念头。在理念宁静的陪伴下,无人惧怕暮年、不幸,或是死亡,他已脱离人生变化的司辖。我们揭开理念的面纱,直视正义和真理时,我们发现了绝对与相对的区别。我们理解了什么是绝对,就好像我们第一次存在了。人类变得永恒,因为时空只是物质关系,如若我们知晓真理,或者崇高意志的存在,它们之间不会再有任何联系。

五、最后,宗教和伦理学可以恰当地称为理念的实践,将理念引入人类生活。它们对低级文明的处理是相同的:贬低自然,强调自然对精神的依附。二者的区别在于,伦理学是源于人类的职责体系;宗教则是源于上帝的人类职责体系。宗教包含上帝的存在;伦理学则没有。在当前特定的语境下,二者是统一的,它们都将自然踏在脚下。贯穿宗教始终的教义是:“看得到的事物,都是短暂的;看不到的事物,才是永恒的。”宗教蔑视自然。宗教告诉那些未受教育的人,自然是可鄙的,就像哲学对伯克利和费而萨的教导一样。在最无知的教区里,所有教堂里回荡的话语是:“唾弃世界那毫无意义的表象。它们是虚无、梦境、影子,是不存在的。追求宗教的现实。”宗教信仰者蔑视自然。一些信仰者甚至对物质产生了敌意和愤慨,比如摩尼教徒和普罗提诺。任何时候,回想起埃及烹煮美味的大锅,他们便不再信任自己。普罗提诺甚至为自己的身体感到羞耻。简而言之,米开朗基罗对外在美的评价,可以表达他们对于物质的看法:“它是脆弱疲倦的野草,上帝用它给精神穿上外衣。”

运动、诗歌、物理学、哲学似乎都会影响我们对外在世界真实存在的信念。然而,我承认,如果对这个命题无限扩展,认为一切文明都向我们显示理念的存在,就有些不恰当了。我对自然毫无敌意,只有童稚的爱。我就像玉米和甜瓜一样,在温暖的晴日里生长。让我们公正地对待自然吧。我无意攻击我美丽的母亲,也不愿弄脏我安静的家园。我只想指出自然相对于人类的真实位置,从而以自然为参照物来确定人类的方位,这也是所有正确教导的做法,因为,人类生活想要达到的目标即是建立人与自然的联系。文明颠覆了我们对自然庸俗的看法,它让我们相信,我们以往称之为真实存在的事物只是表象,我们原以为是幻想和空想的事物才是真实的存在。当然,孩童相信外在的世界。我们认为外在世界只是一种表象,这是后来的思考。在文明的教导下,这一信念在我们的思想里生成,就像一开始就存在那样。

与传统的信仰相比,理念论的优势在于,它所展示的世界是人类头脑中最想要的。事实上,这种视角正是理性(无论是深思的哲学,还是实际的美德)的视角。哲学认为,世界永远都是表象。美德同样将世界视为头脑中思想的附属。理念论在世界中看到上帝的存在。在它看来,人物、事物、行动、事件、国家、宗教,并非一点一滴,一个一个艰难地累积成古老迟缓的历史,而是上帝在永恒的画布上绘出的巨幅图画,给精神提供思考的对象。因此,精神对宇宙的探究不会过于琐屑和微观。它尊重结果,不会让自己成为工具。它认为基督教本身要比教会史上的丑闻,或是批评的准确更重要。它对个人或是奇迹毫无兴趣,不会因历史事实的断裂而困扰,它坦然接受上帝画出的现象,认为它是这个世界纯粹而又令人敬畏的宗教形式。它不因自己运气的好坏,他人的支持或反对而或喜或悲。它没有敌人。无论是不幸还是好运,它都平静接受,认为那是上帝的教诲。它更多地是一个观察者,而非行动者。只有在观察的意义上,它才是一位行动者。



精 神

关于自然和人类的真正理论,主要的是必然要具备某种发展性。人类在他勇敢生存的世界里,不断地以合适方式锻炼他的各种能力。这个世界源源不断地给予人类财富,它的事实无法用一句话来涵盖。自然所有的作用可以归结为一点:它赋予了人类活动无限的领域。自然的所有王国,直到事物的外延,都忠实于它的起因。自然一直都在讲述精神,它暗示了绝对存在。它是一种永恒的结果。它就像一个巨大的影子,向我们揭示身后的太阳。

自然是虔诚的。像耶稣那样,自然低头直立,双手交叉放于胸前。谁若向自然学会了信仰,谁就是最快乐的人。

关于我们称为精神的神圣存在,思考最多的人说的就会最少。在粗俗又似乎很遥远的物质现象里,我们可以看到上帝的存在。但是,当我们试图去定义和描述上帝本身时,语言和思想都变得苍白无力,我们就像傻子和野蛮人那样无助。精神无法用命题来描述,然而,如果人类在思想上信奉它,最高贵的自然业绩即是上帝的化身。上帝通过自然与人类交流,并努力使人类回归自然。

我们谈到精神时,上文提到的观点并未涵盖人类的所有关切。这里必须补充一些有关的思考。

自然向智者提出了三个问题:什么是物质?它来自何方?要去向哪方?理念论仅仅回答了第一个问题:物质是现象,不是存在。理念论让我们知道,人类存在的证据与世界存在的证据是全然不一致的。一者是完美的,另一者则无任何确定性。思想是自然万物中的一部分。世界是一个神圣的梦,如今我们从中醒来,面对真实确定而又光辉的白昼。理念论是一种假设,它解释自然的原则与木工和化学的不同。然而,如果它否定物质的存在,就无法满足精神的需求。它使上帝离我而去,使我在感官认识的宏大迷宫中漫无目的地流浪。那么,我们的内心会抗拒这种理论,因为它否定了男人和女人的真实存在,给爱设置了障碍。人类生活填满自然的各个角落,几乎所有的自然个体都浸染了人性。理念论却让自然变得陌生起来,无法解释我们与自然的血缘关系。

那么,限于我们目前的知识水平,我们姑且把理念论当作一个有用的初步假设。它使我们知晓精神与世界永恒的不同。

但是,当我们追随思想那看不见的足迹,询问物质从哪方来,要到哪方去时,许多真理从意识的深处显现出来。我们发现,人类的灵魂可知至高无上者上帝;令人敬畏的上帝并非智慧、爱、美,或力量中的某一个,而是它们的集合,一切事物因它而生,为它而存在;精神是造物主;在自然的背后,精神贯穿自然的全部;精神不是从外在的时空,而是经由我们自身向我们施加影响;因此,精神,也就是无上的天主,并非在人类的周围创设自然,而是经由人类来创设万物,就像树木的旧枝叶掉落,新枝叶在同一位置生发。正如植物根植于大地,人类栖息在上帝的怀抱。永不干涸的泉水滋养着人类,他从上帝那里得到无穷的力量。谁又能给人类的能力设限呢?一旦人类呼吸到精神的空气,获许直视正义和真理的绝对存在,人类就可进入上帝的所有思想领域,他本身就是上帝在有限世界中的存在。这一观点提醒了我智慧和力量的源泉所在,指出美德是



“打开永恒之殿的

金钥匙”



它使我通过灵魂的净化,得以创造自己的世界。这本身就是最高真理的证明。

世界与人类的肉体一样,起源于精神。它是离上帝更远的低级化身,是在无意识领域里对上帝的映射。但是,世界与人类的肉体有一个重要不同,它并不受制于人类的意志,人类无法亵渎它的神圣秩序。因此,对人类来说,世界是对上帝的现时解释。它是一个固定的参照物,我们可以此衡量与上帝的距离。随着我们一步步堕落,我们与自己的居所之间的反差就越来越明显。我们对自然有多陌生,与上帝就有多远。我们听不懂飞鸟的歌唱。狐狸和鹿逃避我们,熊和老虎噬咬人类。许多植物我们不能物尽其用,像玉米、苹果、土豆、葡萄藤等等。乡村的风景无论何时看到,都给人庄严壮丽之感,难道它不是上帝的面孔吗?然而,这也使我们发现人类与自然的不和。因为,如果有农民正在田地里辛苦劳作,你就无法尽情欣赏壮丽的风景。除非人类从他的视线里消失,诗人才不会觉得他的愉悦是荒诞可笑的。



未 来

当我们探究世界的法则和万物的框架时,最高的理性往往是最真实的。那些看上去可能性很小的结论却是最精练的。它之所以看上去不清晰不明确,是因为在永恒的真理中,它处于思想的最深处。经验科学常常会遮蔽人类的视线,关于函数和过程的知识恰恰使人类无法对整体进行思考。学者不再具有诗人的想象力。但是,以全部精力关注真理最博学的博物学家会发现,关于人类与世界的关系还有许多需要学习,而学习的方法并非是对已知事物的加减比较,而是精神自然生发的隽语、持续的自我恢复,以及全然的谦卑。他还会发现,人类的优秀品质不仅限于准确和绝对可靠;猜测常常比无可置疑的肯定更有用;一场梦让我们知晓的自然秘密比一百次实验还要多。

这些要解决的问题恰恰是生理学家和博物学家在表达中遗漏的。人类更需要知道的,并非动物王国中的每一个个体,而是主宰一切的统一性从何处来,要到何处去。这种统一性永远在对事物进行分类和区别,试图将千变万化的形态归结为一种。我面对层次丰富的风景,想做的不是准确复述风景中各层次的顺序和重合,却是想知道为什么所有的思绪都消失在安静的一体感中。如果不能解释事物与思想的关系,我就无法给予精微细节很高的评价;如果贝壳学、植物学、艺术不能展示花朵、贝壳、动物、建筑物的形态与思想的关系,不在理念的基础上建立科学,它们就不具有纯正哲学的光芒。在自然历史的陈列柜中,对于那些最笨重、最奇特的野兽、鱼、昆虫的形态,我们会有某种神秘的认同感和同情感。美国人在国内看到的建筑物都是按照国外的样式建造的。当他步入英国的约克大教堂,或罗马的圣彼得大教堂时,他会感到吃惊。因为他会感到,这些建筑同样是模仿物,隐约复制了某种看不见的原型。如果博物学家忽视了人类与世界奇妙的一致性,科学就不具备充分的人性。人类是世界的主人。这并不是因为人类是世界上最聪明的物种,而是因为,人类是世界的头脑和心灵,他在所有的事物中,在每一层山峦、每一条新的色彩法则、每一个天文学事实或大气的影响(它们的观察或分析都是开放的)中,都会发现自己的影子。这种神秘使诗人乔治·赫尔伯特,17世纪美妙的赞美诗作者获得灵感。以下诗句节选自他关于人类的一首小诗。



人类是完全的对称,

充满了比例,一个肢体相对另一个肢体,

一个世界相对另一个世界。

每一部分都可称呼离它最远的部分,兄弟;

因为头和脚私交颇佳,

二者都与月亮和潮汐交好。



没有哪个事物像人类那样

成功抓获并俘虏了它;

他的双眼使最高的星辰落下:

他就是缩小了的整个世界。

药草快乐地治愈我们的躯体,因为

它们是我们身体的朋友。

为了人类,风儿吹起,

地球休息,天空移动,泉水奔流;

我们看到的一切,都是为了人类,

是我们的快乐,或财富;

一切都是人类的食橱,

或者快乐的陈列柜。



星辰服侍我们睡下:

夜幕拉起窗帘;太阳将其拉开。

音乐和阳光侍奉我们的大脑。

一切事物在存在和低级意义上,

是人类肉体的朋友;在原因和高级意义上,

是人类思想的朋友。



侍奉他的奴仆,

多得超出他的想象。每条路上,

当疾病使人类变得苍白虚弱时,

一切都对他友善。

啊 伟大的爱!人类是一个世界,

另一个世界是他的仆从。



对此类真理的认识使人类对科学感兴趣。然而,对工具的关注使人类无法看到目标。因为科学有限的视野,我们接受柏拉图的结论:“诗歌比历史更接近于真理。”思想的每一个推测和预言都应受到尊重。比起做过整理都无任何宝贵建议的体系,我们更愿意接受不完美的理论和可以瞥见真理身影的语句。聪明的作者会发现,研究和创作最好的目标是宣布未经发现的思想领域,并通过希望,向迟钝的精神传达新的活动。

因此,我愿意以一些关于人与自然的传统概念来结束本文,一位诗人向我吟诵过。它们一直存在于这个世界,或许每位吟游诗人都会遇到。那么,它们既是历史,又是预言。

“人类的根本不在物质,而是精神。精神的元素是永恒的。所以,对于精神来说,最漫长的事件、最古老的编年史都是年轻短暂的。人类的个体繁衍生息,在这个普遍的人类循环中,世纪只是一个个点,所有的历史只是一次堕落的时代。”

“我们从内心怀疑并否认他对自然的认同。我们反复承认和否认自身与自然的关系。我们就像失去王位的尼布甲尼撒,丧失了理智,像牛一样吃草。但谁又能给精神的修复力设限呢?”

“人类是被毁坏了的上帝。人类堕落之前,生命原本可以更长,可以温和地得到永生,就像我们从梦中醒来一样。今时,如果无序和混乱持续几百年,世界将会变得疯狂暴躁。死亡和新生使这一点得到遏制。婴儿的降生是永恒的救世主,它来到堕落的人类的怀抱,乞求和他们一起回到乐园。”

“人类是自身的侏儒。一旦精神充斥他的身心,将他消解,人类之流就弥漫在自然中。太阳和月亮由此而生:男人生成太阳,女人生成月亮。人类思想的法则和行动外化成白昼与黑夜,年岁和四季。但是,自从人类给自己建造了这个巨大的安身之所,他的水流退却了,不再充满大大小小的血管和动脉,他萎缩成了一滴水。他发现,这个住所仍然适合他,但过于庞大。或者说,它曾经是大小合适的,现在却以一种远远俯视的姿态与他交流。人类羞怯地崇拜他自己的作品。如今,男人是太阳的追随者,女人是月亮的追随者。然而,人类有时从沉睡中惊醒,惊奇地打量自己和他的居所,奇怪地深思二者之间的相似之处。他意识到,如果他的法则仍然是至高无上的,如果他仍然具有元素的力量,如果他的话语本质上是纯粹的,这就并非意识的力量,并非低于而是高于人类的意志。这就是本能。”以上便是俄耳普斯诗人对我的吟唱。

今天,人类面对自然只使用了一半力量。他在世界上仅仅运用了感官认识的理解力。他动用极少的智慧来把握生活,并不是完全意义上的人。尽管他双臂强壮、消化良好,他的思想却是未开化的,是自私的野蛮人。人类与自然的关系、驾驭自然的能力是通过理解力来实现的,就像肥料,火、风、水、指南针的经济效用,蒸汽、煤、化学农业,牙医和外科医生对人体的治疗等。这种力量的恢复就像遭到放逐的国王应该一寸一寸地收复失地,而不是立即冲向他的王位。与此同时,在厚重的黑暗中,光明并非绝不存在。人类偶尔会发挥出全部的力量,不仅有理解力,还有理性。这样的例子很多:所有民族最古老的传说中流传的奇迹,耶稣的生平,宗教和政治革命、废除奴隶贸易中原则的胜利,传说中关于斯威登堡、霍恩洛厄、震教教徒的热情的奇迹,许多被归于“动物磁性说”的模糊有争议的事实,祈祷,雄辩,自我痊愈,儿童的智慧等等。在这些例子中,理性暂时掌握了权杖。理性的力量并不在时空中存在,它是瞬时的内流推动力。经院学者对人类实际力量与理性力量的区别作了有趣的比喻:人类的知识是晚上的,上帝的知识却是早晨的。

灵魂的救赎使世界回复原初永恒的美。人类在自然中看到的废墟或是空白仅仅存在于他自己的眼中。人类的视觉之轴与万物之轴并不一致,所以,它们看上去是模糊不透明的。世界缺乏统一性,破碎割裂的原因在于,人类与他自身并不统一。人类只有在满足了精神的所有需求之后,才能成为博物学家。爱与感知一样,同样是精神的需求。的确,二者相互依存,缺一不可。从词语最深的意义上来说,思想是虔诚的,虔诚即是思想。二者互为呼应。然而,在现实生活中,二者的联姻并未得到颂扬。清白无罪的人按照祖先的传统信奉上帝,可是他们对人类责任的认识并不包括应用全部的能力。有些博物学家足够耐心,却仅以冰冷的理解力来看待自然。难道祈祷不是对真理的追逐吗,不是灵魂对无限的未知领域的睿智之语吗?任何人,只要虔诚地祈祷,都会学到知识。但是,若虔诚的思想者决心切断事物与人类的一切联系,使其完全成为思考的对象,那么,他同时以最神圣的爱之火点燃了科学,上帝也将呈现全新的面貌。

当人类思想准备探究自然时,它并不需要寻找对象。智慧不变的标识即是在平凡中发现奇迹。日是什么?年是什么?夏是什么?女人是什么?孩子是什么?睡眠是什么?由于人类的失明,这些事物似乎平淡无奇。人类编造寓言,来遮蔽事实的枯燥,并像我们所称的,使它符合思想的高级法则。但是,当理念的光芒照亮事实时,花哨的寓言就褪色枯萎了,我们得以发现真正的高级法则。所以,对智慧的人来说,事实是真正的诗歌,是最美丽的寓言。这些美景就在我们的门前。你也成为一个人。男人、女人、他们的社会生活、贫穷、劳动、睡眠、恐惧、财富,你都一清二楚。要记住,它们从不肤浅,每个现象都根植于思想的能力和爱。你的理智被抽象的问题占据;自然则带来具体的问题,需要你用双手去解决。逐一比较人类的日常史实与思想中理念的产生和发展,特别是在生命的危机时刻,会是对秘密多么智慧的探索啊。

那么,让我们用新的目光来解读世界吧。臣服于受到教化的意志,自然将回答关于理智和爱的无穷质疑:什么是真理?什么是善?我的诗人这样回答:“自然是流动的,不是固定的。精神改变、塑造、创造自然。自然之所以一成不变,或低俗暴力,是因为精神的缺位。在纯粹的精神看来,自然是流动、多变、温顺的。精神给自己建造居所,居所之外是世界,世界之外是天堂。此时,你明白了世界是为你而存在的。现象为了你而完美。我们只能看到,我们是谁。亚当拥有的一切,你也有;凯撒能做到的,你也能。亚当称他的居所为天地;凯撒称自己的家为罗马。你或许会说,你的居所只是修鞋匠的店铺、百亩耕地、学者的阁楼。但是,你的领土丝毫不亚于他们,一样伟大,只是没有漂亮的名字而已。所以,构建你自己的世界吧。以最快的速度使自己的生活遵从思想的纯粹理念,它将向你展现它的宏大领域。随着精神的流入,万物会发生相应的演变。令人厌恶的现象、猪、蜘蛛、蛇、昆虫、疯人院、监狱、敌人,都很快消失了。它们只是暂时的,再也不复存在。阳光蒸发掉自然的污秽,风将其吹散,使它消失。当夏季从南方来到时,河岸的积雪就消融了,大地呈现绿色。同样,行进中的精神沿途创造自己的饰物,随身携带遇到的美景和听到的迷人歌声。它一路唤起美丽的面容、温暖的心、智慧的语言、英雄的行为,直到恶永远消失。人类对自然的主宰并非来自于观察,这个领域已经超越了人类关于上帝的梦想。就像失明的人逐渐恢复全部的视力,人类进入他的自然王国,不应有更多的惊讶。”



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注释

 希腊神话中的风神。

 希腊神话中爱和丰饶女神。

 古希腊时期的雅典政治家(公元前402—318年)。

 希腊神话中最伟大的英雄,宙斯与底比斯国王之女阿尔克墨涅之子,半人半神,在十二年中完成了十二项英勇业绩。

 约公元前430—354年,古希腊历史学家、作家。

 希腊神话中俊美而强壮的猎人,追求普勒阿德斯的七个女儿,后被狩猎女神阿尔忒弥斯所杀。