CHAPTER XVIII 



Scientists and Philosophers 



I 



NEVER could see eye to eye with my Grandmother 

 Barbour in her great admiration for Thoreau. As I said 

 in my introduction to Concord River by William Brewster, 

 I feel that Thoreau's ego was always too near the surface 

 and he was too constantly crusading. He seems to me 

 smug and self-satisfied, preening himself for his "passive 

 resistance," though why one should seek credit for not 

 paying one's taxes is hard to see. Civil disobedience was as 

 natural to Thoreau as it is to Gandhi, and however saintly 

 the latter may appear to his followers, to most Americans 

 in this struggle for survival he cuts a slightly ridiculous 

 figure. 



Thoreau loved to philosophize, and it has always seemed 

 to me that his natural-history notes, though written in a 

 charming English style, were those of a man with a very 

 inadequate background. WilHam Brewster, for many years 

 the Curator of Birds at the Agassiz Museum, was much 

 better, a peerless observer and one not given to morahzing. 



Some years ago my friend Lawrence Henderson got all 

 tittered up about Pareto. I had my tongue in my cheek, but 

 finally consented to buy Pareto's two huge volumes, Traite 

 de Sociologie General. I simply could not suffer through 

 it. David Fairchild and others of my friends, including 

 Wheeler, ate it alive, but my poor mundane mind saw 



