Yes. As Jedediah Purdy adds in a defense of Thoreau,
When Thoreau disdained Europe and claimed that most of the phenomena reported by Arctic explorers could be observed in Concord, he was expressing his universalism, and his belief that consciousness was all. Take a blunt mind to the ends of the earth, and you might as well be at home. Take a keen and receptive mind to a worked-over pond near a railroad track, or to a melting mud-slope, and you will see the universe.
