Thoreau writes in his journal:
I think that the man of science makes this mistake, and the mass of mankind along with him: that you should coolly give your chief attention to the phenomenon which excited you as something independent on you, and not as it is related to you. The important fact is its effect on me. He thinks that I have no business to see anything else but just what he defines the rainbow to be, but I care not whether my vision of truth is a waking thought or dream remembered, whether it is seen in the light or in the dark. It is the subject of the visions, the truth alone, that concerns me. The philosopher for whom rainbows, etc., can be explained away never them. With regard to such objects, I find that it is not the themselves (with which the men of science deal) that concern me; the point of interest is somewhere between me and them (i.e. the objects) . . .
