Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/359

Rh July 8, 1840. Doubt and falsehood are yet good preachers. They affirm soundly while they deny partially.

I am pleased to learn that Thales was up and stirring by night not unfrequently, as his astronomical discoveries prove.

It was a saying of Solon that &quot;it is necessary to observe a medium in all things.&quot; The golden mean in ethics as in physics is the centre of the system, that about which all revolve, and though to a distant and plodding planet it is the uttermost extreme, yet when that planet's year is complete, it will be found central. They who are alarmed lest virtue run into extreme good have not yet wholly embraced her, but described only a small arc about her, and from so small a curvature you can calculate no centre whatever. Their mean is no better than meanness, nor their medium than mediocrity. If a brave man observes strictly this golden mean, he may run through all extremes with impunity, like the sun which now appears in the zenith, now in the horizon, and again is faintly reflected from the moon s disk, and has the credit of describing an entire great circle, crossing the equinoctial and solstitial colures, without detriment to his steadfastness.

Every planet asserts its own to be the centre of the system.