186 LIBERTY AND A LIVING. 



soul to be bad." To be what we are and to be- 

 come what we are capable of becoming is the end 

 of life. It is " when we fall behind ourselves," 

 that " we are cursed with duties and the neglect 

 of duties." " I love the wild," he says, " not less 

 than the good." The life of a good man will 

 hardly improve us more than the life of a free- 

 booter, for the inevitable laws appear as plainly 

 in the infringement as in the observance, and 

 our lives are sustained by a nearly equal expense 

 of virtue of some kind." "As for doing good," 

 he writes elsewhere, " that is one of the profes- 

 sions that are full. Moreover, I have tried it 

 fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied 

 that it does not agree with my constitution. 

 Probably I should not conscientiously and delib- 

 erately forsake my particular calling to do the 

 good which society demands of me to save the 

 universe from annihilation ; and I believe that 

 a like but infinitely greater steadfastness else- 

 where is all that preserves it now. If you should 

 ever be betrayed into any of these philanthro- 

 pies, do not let your left hand know what your 

 right hand does, for it is not worth knowing." 



In the case of Thoreau so great a show of 

 doctrine contrary to what the world believed, 



