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Natural History of Massachusetts

by Henry D. Thoreau

Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written. Men are knowing enough after their fashion. Every countryman and dairymaid knows that the coats of the fourth stomach of the calf will curdle milk, and what particular mushroom is a safe and nutritious diet. You cannot go into any field or wood, but it will seem as if every stone had been turned, and the bark on every tree ripped up. But, after all, it is much easier to discover than to see when the cover is off! It has been well said that "the attitude of inspection is prone." Wisdom does not inspect, but behold. We must look a long time before we can see. Slow are the beginnings of philosophy. He has something demoniacal in him, who can discern a law or couple two facts. We can imagine a time when,--"Water runs down hill,"--may have been taught in the schools. The true man of science will know nature better by his finer organization; he will smell, taste, see, hear, feel, better than other men. His will be a deeper and finer experience. We do not learn by inference and deduction, and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy. It is with science as with ethics,--we cannot know truth by contrivance and method; the Baconian is as false as any other, and with all the helps of machinery and the arts, the most scientific will still be the healthiest and friendliest man, and possess a more perfect Indian wisdom.

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  • Biography
  • Books:
    • Walden; or, Life in the Woods (172 pages)
    • The Maine Woods (153 pages)
    • Cape Cod (112 pages)
    • A Yankee in Canada (45 pages)
    • A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (197 pages)
  • Major Essays:
    • Civil Disobedience (16 pages)
    • Slavery in Massachusetts (10 pages)
    • Life Without Principle (13 pages)
    • A Walk to Wachusett (10 pages)
    • A Winter Walk (10 pages)
    • Walking (21 pages)
    • Natural History of Massachusetts (14 pages)
    • The Succession of Forest Trees (10 pages)
    • Autumnal Tints (20 pages)
    • Wild Apples (16 pages)
  • Other Essays  »
  • Correspondence  »
  • Poems  »
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