Ralph W. Emerson (1803-1882) Nature

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Ralph W. Emerson (1803-1882)Nature

• Cecilia H. C. Liu
• American Literature I
• 11/8/2004

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Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82)

• The center of the American transcendental
  movement
• Ordained a minister of the Second Church in
  Boston, shortly before marrying Ellen Tucker in
  1829.
• He resigned in 1832 after Tuckers
  death from tuberculosis, troubled
  by theological
  doctrines such as
  the Lord's Supper, and traveled
  extensively in Europe, returning
  to begin a career of lecturing

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Introduction

• Our age is spiritually dead. Previous generations
  interacted with God directly but our age
  interacts with God only indirectly, by studying
  the past, that is, the Bible. But we can also
  experience God directly. To do so, we have to
  turn away from the past, that is, away from
  church doctrine, and toward nature. So Emerson
  starts with an explicit attack on the Christian
  fundamentalism of his day.
• Nature is self-describing it has no secrets.
• Science tries to find a theory of God's plan or
  design for creation. The key to finding this plan
  is abstract thought"the most abstract truth is
  the most practical."
• Nature is "all that is separate from us" it is
  "the NOT ME, that is, both nature and art, all
  other men and my own body."

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Chapter I NATURE

• 1/ To have a direct relation with nature, with
  God's divine creation, simply go out and look at
  the stars
• 2/ The mind must be open to the appearances of
  nature in order to achieve true wisdom.
• 3/ The mind that is truly open to nature's own
  truth is poetic.
• 4/ "The lover of nature is he whose inward and
  outward senses are still truly adjusted to each
  other."
• 5/ A relation of correspondence or analogy
  between human being and all natural beings
• 6/ What is essential is to be in harmony with
  nature. But to be in harmony with nature is to be
  in harmony with God's design "Nature always
  wears the colors of the spirit."
• Nature is a mirror of the moral state of the
  soul.

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Transparent Eye-ball

• The infinity of nature absorbs the finiteness of
  the human self. The finite self ascends to the
  divine perspective of God, it rises to the
  God's-Eye view of the world "I become a
  transparent eye-ball I am nothing I see all
  the currents of the Universal Being circulate
  through me

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Transparent Eye-ball

• I am part or particle of God.
• In the wilderness there is something that is as
  beautiful as humanity. Emerson's idea of self
  in wilderness as an all-seeing spectator is very
  different than Thoreau's. For Thoreau, the self
  in wilderness is active.

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Chapter II COMMODITY

• 1. Several classes of usefulness "Commodity
  Beauty Language and Discipline."
• 2. Nature exists to serve human needs. Emerson's
  view of nature is Biblical. If we work on our
  Salvation, we can restore ourselves and the earth
  to that original state. We can become like Adam
  and Eve before the Fall, and we can restore the
  Earth to a perfect Garden of Eden.

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Chapter II COMMODITY (2)

• 3/ Nature exists to serve human needs "Nature,
  in its ministry to man, is not only the material,
  but is also the process and the result. All the
  parts incessantly work into each other's hands
  for the profit of man. . . . the endless
  circulations of the divine charity nourish man."
  
• 4/ Technology is the arrangement of natural
  forces and causes for the benefit of humanity, to
  serve human needs Emerson thinks that the true
  relation of humanity with nature is magical.

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Chapter II COMMODITY (3)

• 5/ There is no need to list all the benefits
  humanity gains from its technological or
  practical work. But these benefits are not ends
  in themselves "A man is fed, not that he may be
  fed, but that he may work." The work Emerson has
  in mind is moral work on the soul.
• Science reveals a theoretical correspondence
  (truth) with nature religion reveals a moral
  correspondence (goodness).

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Chapter III BEAUTY

• "A nobler want of man is served by nature,
  namely, the love of Beauty."
• Nature refreshes humanity it restores the human
  spirit.
• The ultimate purpose of natural beauty is
  spiritual and moral it is to raise us to harmony
  with nature's true organization, which is a
  divine moral order natural law is divine law.
• A virtuous man is in unison with natures
  works
• The ultimate purpose of nature is to satisfy the
  human soul.

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Chapter IV LANGUAGE

• 1. Words are signs of natural facts. 2.
  Particular natural facts are symbols of
  particular spiritual facts. 3. Nature is the
  symbol of spirit.
• Natural signs are symbols of spiritual facts.
  Language reveals an analogy between nature and
  spirit, it shows that nature mirrors spirit.
• There are two levels of perception sensual and
  moral-spiritual.

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The Over-soul

• There is both a universal soul in nature and
  yourself this universal soul is Reason. Later
  Emerson will call this universal soul "the
  oversoul". Reason has no particular human
  identity, but it is nevertheless personal (God is
  a person). Reason in nature is Spirit. Spirit is
  a divine creative power in nature. Spirit is
  self-moving (Hegel) it is a vital life-force.

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Moral-spiritual structure

• The moral-spiritual structure in nature really
  does correspond to the moral-spiritual structure
  of humanity.
• There is a moral-spiritual analogy between
  humanity and nature. Other theologians have
  claimed that this analogy exists, so Emerson
  isn't very original so far.

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The truth of the speech

• Initially Emerson is just talking about speech in
  a vague way but he will claim in the end that
  true speech directly commands nature, that true
  speech has magical power over nature. Emerson has
  in mind poetic speech, emotional speech.
• If our desires were truly good, all we would have
  to do to satisfy them would be to say what they
  are. Wishes and dreams that are truly spoken
  would be true in reality just because of the
  truth of the speech. This is the power of
  poetical truth.

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The world is a book written by God

• Pure poetic speech (the speech of the perfectly
  good person) is like a magical spell. Emerson
  knows that science has found that true speech is
  the mathematical formulation of the laws of
  nature, and that if we talk to nature by acting
  on it using mathematical laws, we are able to
  master nature but such action is work, and is
  not yet pure poetical speech.
• "A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth
  and of virtue, will purge the eyes to understand
  her nature's text. By degrees we may come to
  know the primitive sense of the permanent objects
  of nature, so that the world shall be to us an
  open book, and every form significant of its
  hidden life and final cause."

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Chapter V DISCIPLINE

• Scientific reasoning is a kind of moral-spiritual
  discipline this discipline purifies the soul and
  so lets us master nature.
• Science is sensual-intellectual discipline
  because it forces our minds to submit to the
  morally pure order in nature
• Scientific discipline leads to technological
  mastery. Applied science transforms the world
  into an image of the human mind
• The rational scientific order of nature is also a
  rational moral and spiritual order.
• Although we can speak technically and
  scientifically to nature, and it will listen and
  obey our speech, we can also speak poetically or
  spiritually to nature.

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Chapter VI IDEALISM

• True poetic speech is as powerful as the word of
  God that created the world God's speech is
  poetry.
• Thought moves our bodies, but pure thought moves
  the body of the world.
• The fact that nature is mathematically ordered
  shows that physical things "are the thoughts of
  the Supreme Being" here Emerson talks about the
  Platonic forms.

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Chapter VI IDEALISM

• Religion and ethics affirm idealism. They lead to
  direct relations of humans with God.
• Athletics, poetry, science, and religion, all
  affirm idealism. Idealism is true religion
  nature is God's true scripture.

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Chapter VII SPIRIT

• Spirit is the inner reality of nature
  religiously, nature "is the organ through which
  the universal spirit speaks to the individual,
  and strives to lead back the individual to it.
• We have mental power over our own bodies our
  bodies respond directly to our will, as if by
  magic. The world is like our bodies "The world
  proceeds from the same spirit as the body of man.
  It is a remoter and inferior incarnation of God,
  a projection of God in the unconscious."

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Chapter VII SPIRIT (2)

• Religion is able to say why there is something
  rather than nothing, that is, why there is a
  material world.
• It tells us "that spirit creates that spirit,
  the Supreme Being, does not build up nature
  around us, but puts it forth through us."
• Nature is produced in the human mind by the
  action of God God's power enters the human soul,
  where it is transformed by human spiritual
  processes into the system of natural appearances.

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Chapter VIII PROSPECTS

• Science must become poetry "a dream may let us
  deeper into the secret of nature than a hundred
  concerted experiments."
• To gain poetic power over nature, to work
  miracles, we must restore our souls to their
  original condition.
• You can do this work on your soul you don't have
  to be a special person, everybody can achieve
  salvation.

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Chapter VIII Prospects

• When our souls are saved and restored to their
  original condition, then we will have magical
  powers equal to those of God, and we will be able
  to work miracles.
• Instead of existing in nature that has predators
  and diseases and evil, we will exist in heaven,
  for God's power pouring through a purified soul
  will produce heaven in us as it now produces
  nature in our unconsciousnesses "Every spirit
  builds itself a house and beyond its house a
  world and beyond its world, a heaven."

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Some of Emersons Quotes

• A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece
  of nature.
• It was a high counsel that I once heard given to
  a young person, "Always do what you are afraid to
  do."
• "The only reward of virtue is virtue."
• Life is eating us up. We all shall be fables
  presently. Keep cool it will be all one a
  hundred years hence.
• "The less a man thinks or knows about his
  virtues, the better we like him.
• "Every hero becomes a bore at last."
• "The only way to have a friend is to be one."
• "Men are what their mothers made them."

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References

• Commentary on Emerson's Nature
  http//www.wpunj.edu/cohss/philosophy/COURSES/PHIL
  218/ENATURE.HTM
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Transcendentalism
  Web) http//www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/a
  uthors/emerson/index.html
• Ralph Waldo Emersons Quotes http//killdevilhill.
  com/emerson.html