Life Without Principle

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This article is about the essay. For the 2011 Hong Kong film, see Life Without Principle (film).
Henry David Thoreau
Maxham daguerreotype of Henry David Thoreau, aged 39, made in 1856
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"Life Without Principle" is an essay by Henry David Thoreau that offers his program for a righteous livelihood. It was published in 1863.[1]

Overview[]

In his essay, Thoreau questioned whether working was the most important part of life and argued that work is often at odds with poetry and life. He notes that, when he saw his neighbor in the early morning leading a team of oxen, he at first felt guilty because he was watching from the comfort of his home. However, later he saw the result of the laborer's work--a bit of useless yard art, and his opinion changed. He argues that work ought to be worthwhile, and he insists that he has no need for the "police of meaningless labor" to tell him how to spend his time.

"All great enterprises are self supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his poetry, as the boiler in the wood-cutting mill is fed with the shavings it creates. You must get your living by loving." In his own occasional work as a surveyor, he noticed that, when presented with different methods of surveying a piece of land, the owner would ask which method would give the owner the most land rather than which was the most accurate way to do it.

He talks of the constant motion of work and business and how people value making-money above all else. Overall, the essay provides a cogent overview of Thoreau's philosophy of work and life.

Composition and publication history[]

On October 18, 1855, Thoreau was invited to participate in a series of lectures on reform at the Railroad Hall in Providence, Rhode Island. With little time to prepare, he searched his journals for inspiration. He found a passage he had written on September 7, 1851: "I do not so much wish to know how to economize time as how to spent it, by what means to grow rich, that the day may not have been in vain."[2] After some re-working, the end result was a lecture delivered on December 6, 1855, which he titled "What Shall It Profit?".[2] The title, before it was altered to "Life Without Principle", referenced a verse in the Gospel of Mark, 8:36.[3] Thoreau later revised his notes and delivered the lecture under the title "Life Misspent".[2]

Thoreau prepared "Life Without Principle" for publication during the final months of his life based on his journal notes between 1851 and 1855 that originally inspired his lecture. It was published posthumously in 1863.[4] In addition to "Life Without Principle", Thoreau was writing or re-working several other lectures and essays for publication in the final months of his life, including "Walking", "Wild Apples", and "Autumnal Tints".[5]

Analysis[]

Thoreau intended the original title, "What Shall It Profit?", as a Biblical reference ("For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"). A few lines earlier, Mark 8:33, Jesus turns to Peter and says, "Get thee behind me, Satan; for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of man." Thoreau originally alluded to this line as well in the earlier version of his lecture, referencing the California Gold Rush: "Satan, from one of his elevations, showed mankind the kingdom of California, and instead of the cry 'Get thee behind me, Satan,' they shouted, 'Go ahead!' and he had to exert himself to get there first".[6]

Scholar Barbara Packer notes that Thoreau's shifting titles show his shifting pity and contempt for his contemporaries who he felt were employed in ways that degraded life or the country.[6]

Other themes and lessons from Thoreau:

  1. Don't cheat people by conspiring with them to protect their comfort zones.
  2. Don't make religions and other such institutions the sort of intellectual comfort zone that prevents you from entertaining ideas that aren't to be found there.
  3. Don't cheat yourself by working primarily for a paycheck. If what you do with your life free-of-charge is so worthless to you that you'd be convinced to do something else in exchange for a little money or fame, you need better hobbies.
  4. Furthermore, don't hire someone who's only in it for the money. They should be passionate about their work.
  5. Sustain yourself by the life you live, not by exchanging your life for money and living off that.
  6. It is a shame to be living off an inheritance, charity, a government pension, or to gamble your way to prosperity—either through a lottery or by such means as prospecting for gold.
  7. Remember that what is valuable about a thing is not the same as how much money it will fetch on the market.
  8. Don't waste conversation and attention on the superficial trivialities and gossip of the daily news, but attend to things of more import: "Read not the Times. Read the Eternities."
  9. Similarly, politics is something that ought to be a minor and discreet part of life, not the grotesque public sport it has become.
  10. Don't mistake the march of commerce for progress and civilization—especially when that commerce amounts to driving slaves to produce the articles of vice like alcohol and tobacco. There's no shortage of gold, of tobacco, of alcohol, but there is a short supply of "a high and earnest purpose."
  11. Live righteous and worthy lives that are not based on monetary gain.
  12. Live a life driven by virtue instead of by money.

Notes[]

  1. ^ "Life Without Principle". The Atlantic Monthly, A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. XII (LXXII): 484–495. October 1863. Retrieved February 1, 2018 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ a b c Packer, Barbara L. The Transcendentalists. Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2007: 260. ISBN 978-0-8203-2958-1
  3. ^ Robinson, David M. Natural Life: Thoreau's Worldly Transcendentalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004: 162. ISBN 0-8014-4313-X
  4. ^ Schneider, Richard J. Civilizing Thoreau: Human Ecology and the Emerging Social Sciences in the Major Works. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2016: 76. ISBN 978-1-57113-960-3
  5. ^ Robinson, David M. Natural Life: Thoreau's Worldly Transcendentalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004: 7. ISBN 0-8014-4313-X
  6. ^ a b Packer, Barbara L. The Transcendentalists. Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2007: 261. ISBN 978-0-8203-2958-1

External links[]

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