Natural philosophers in every century of human existence have asked what we owe to each other, to society, or to government. In The Origin of Civil Society, Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that the only natural form of duty is that towards the family and that all other obligations are based on agreement (57). Henry David Thoreau, in 1849, wrote in Resistance to Civil Government (sometimes known as Civil Disobedience): "it is not the duty of a man, of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any wrong whatever it is, even the most enormous; he may still have other concerns that interest him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it and, if he no longer thinks about it, not to give him practical support” (143). This type of conflict, which accompanied all men during the great changes in society, is what fuels the conflict in Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville. Melville, like the Byzantine architects, created a work of art that studies a microcosm of the macrocosm. That is, by examining the relationship between two people, Melville is able to explore the larger context around them, particularly the radical change in society in the mid-19th century. Like Thoreau, Bartleby's famous words, "I would rather not do it," sends a shockwave through contemporary expectations and gives rise to the way a person approaches a situation. Both Bartleby and Thoreau are transcendentalists and seek to return to a Rousseauian state of nature. They both arrived there after a journey of self-examination – most certainly in Thoreau's case, and very likely in Bartleby's – and their maverick attitudes raise questions about what is expected of people regarding their duty to society and to others. Bartleby in particular has the unnamed middle of paper say that Bartleby did nothing, but passive resistance is a powerful tool by which laws have been changed and governments have been overthrown. Thoreau wrote: “[a] man has not all things to do, but something; and because he cannot do everything, there is no need for him to do anything wrong [emphasis in original]” (145). Bartleby, following in the footsteps of the transcendentalist, does nothing and makes a profound statement. Perhaps it was destiny that Bartleby would die the way he died. After all, the narrator has consulted the eminent predestination theologians Priestley and Edwards, and admits to believing that Bartleby's presence "had been predestined from eternity" and that "it was not to a mere mortal like [the narrator] ] to understand it” (167). Accepting the idea that Bartleby is a microcosm of the macrocosm would imply that change is inevitable..