The Service is an essay written in 1840 by Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...

. He submitted it to The Dial

The Dial

The Dial was an American magazine published intermittently from 1840 to 1929. In its first form, from 1840 to 1844, it served as the chief publication of the Transcendentalists. In the 1880s it was revived as a political magazine...

for publication, but they declined to print it. It was not published until after Thoreau’s death.

The essay uses war and military discipline as metaphor

Metaphor

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...

s that, as Thoreau would have it, can instruct us in how to order and conduct our lives.

Themes

The Service is in part a contrarian swipe at the many pacifist writers and lecturers whose teachings on “nonresistance

Nonresistance

Nonresistance is generally defined as "the practice or principle of not resisting authority, even when it is unjustly exercised". At its core is discouragement of, even opposition to, physical resistance to an enemy...

” were then very much in vogue, in part thanks to Christian anarchist and pacifist Adin Ballou

Adin Ballou

Adin Ballou was an American prominent proponent of pacifism, socialism and abolitionism, and the founder of the Hopedale Community...

 who spoke on the subject at the Concord Lyceum on occasion and who founded the New England Non-Resistance Society

New England Non-Resistance Society

The New England Non-Resistance Society was founded at a special peace convention organized by William Lloyd Garrison, in Boston in September 1838. Leading up to the convention, conservative members of the American Anti-Slavery Society and the American Peace Society expressed discomfort with...

 (of which William Lloyd Garrison

William Lloyd Garrison

William Lloyd Garrison was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United...

 was also a leader, and a Lyceum speaker as well).

Thoreau debated the subject “Is it ever proper to offer forcible resistance?” in a formal Lyceum debate (arguing the affirmative) in 1841, and surviving records of the Lyceum note that the subject came up many times in debates, discussions, and lectures.

Thoreau’s own views were very much influenced by these non-resistants, and are often confused with them even today. When Amos Bronson Alcott

Amos Bronson Alcott

Amos Bronson Alcott was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and avoided traditional punishment. He hoped to perfect the human spirit and, to that end, advocated a...

 resisted his taxes to protest war and slavery, three years before Thoreau would resist his taxes over the same issues, Alcott’s action was explained within the context of “non-resistant” philosophy. When Thoreau explained his own tax resistance, he took pains to distinguish his theory from theirs, titling his essay Resistance to Civil Government.

In The Service, Thoreau tosses barbs at the non-resistance preachers, warning his readers that pacifism can be a temptation to passivity:

Better that we have some of that testy spirit of knight errantry, and if we are so blind as to think the world is not rich enough nowadays to afford a real foe to combat, with our trusty swords and double-handed maces, hew and mangle some unreal phantom of the brain. In the pale and shivering fogs of the morning, gathering them up betimes, and withdrawing sluggishly to their daylight haunts, I see Falsehood sneaking from the full blaze of truth, and with good relish could do execution on their rearward ranks, with the first brand that came to hand. We too are such puny creatures as to be put to flight by the sun, and suffer our ardor to grow cool in proportion as his increases; our own short-lived chivalry sounds a retreat with the fumes and vapors of the night; and we turn to meet mankind, with its meek face preaching peace, and such non-resistance as the chaff that rides before the whirlwind.

Of such sort, then, be our crusade, which, while it inclines chiefly to the hearty good will and activity of war, rather than the insincerity and sloth of peace, will set an example to both of calmness and energy; as unconcerned for victory as careless of defeat, not seeking to lengthen our term of service, nor to cut it short by a reprieve, but earnestly applying ourselves to the campaign before us.

On-line text

• The Service at sniggle.net.

Printed sources

• My Thoughts are Murder to the State by Henry David Thoreau (ISBN 978-1434804266)
• The Service by Henry David Thoreau (ISBN 978-1410104700)
• The Higher Law: Thoreau on Civil Disobedience and Reform (ISBN 978-0691118765)
• Collected Essays and Poems by Henry David Thoreau (ISBN 978-1-88301195-6)