The experiment and spiritual quest at Walden Pond is concluded and, based upon the truths discovered and revealed, the narrator makes a final exhortation that his readers also begin a new and finer life. He tells us that just because we live in such and such a town, within four walls, we should not conclude that our lives must be limited, shallow, and ordinary. Nor need we travel around the world to have an interesting life. Life can be an enriching "voyage," not necessarily involving the exploration of darkest Africa or the South Seas. Rather, the rich life involves an inward voyage whereby we discover our divine potentialities, our unique possibilities for greatness as men. He advises his readers thus:
Direct your eye right inward, and you'll find
A thousand regions in your mind
Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be
Expert in home-cosmography.
Against the background of contemporary American expansionism, he wonders why so many men trifle away their lives in geographical exploration: "What does Africa — what does the West stand for? Is not our own interior white on the chart / . . . Obey the precept of the old philosopher, and Explore thyself"; there are "continents and seas in the moral world, to which every man is an isthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored by him."
