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Transcendentalism in Emerson's Nature

Aaron Huang

Nature's Connection with God

Chapter I

Chapter IV

Language

God/Religion The Soul (3)

Nature + Religion, God

- Soul and nature --> unity

- nature provides self-reflection of the soul

- Interconnection between god and nature

- God is beyond reason - "physical laws"

- Accessed through imagination + intuition

Chapter VI

Idealism

Chapter VII

Spirit

Chapter 1 - Nature

Transparent Eyeball

Interconnection with God

Transparent Eyeball

"I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances,—master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance."(Emerson 2)

Transparent Eyeball

  • "I see all" --> "Part or particle of God"
  • As part of God --> can see Nature "circulating around me"

  • Can become spiritual through nature
  • Absorbing nature --> exploring religion + God

Inteconnection with God

Interconnection with God

"To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun....The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; ... even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food."(Emerson 1)

- Heaven + God allows people to see "Nature"

= Not "SUPERFIALLY"

- Interaction with Heaven is daily

- Religion --> to fully see NATURE

- "part of his daily food"

- Interconnection - God helps one see NATURE

Chapter IV - Language

Spirits of God

Symbols of Nature

Spirits of God

"3. Nature is the symbol of spirit."(Emerson 3)

- Spirit

- divine forces

- God's influence --> creations of nature

- Nature symbolizes God's creations

- interconnection with God and religion

Spirits of God

Symbols of Nature

"Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture. An enraged man is a lion..., a firm man is a rock, a learned man is a torch. ...heat for love."(Emerson 3)

Symbols of Nature

- Spirttual symbol = Nature

- Lion - enraged man

- firm man = rock

- God's spiritual symbols represent nature

- also associated with a state of mind

- shows connection to the soul

Chapter IV - Idealism

"It is the uniform effect of culture on the human mind, not to shake our faith in the stability of particular phenomena, as of heat, water, azote; but to lead us to regard nature as a phenomenon, not a substance; to attribute necessary existence to spirit; to esteem nature as an accident and an effect."

- Nature as a phenomenon

- Existence to spirit (God's creations)

- Attributed to religion

- Shows interconnection between God and Religion

- God created nature as a phenomenon

- Defined by "Cause and effect"

Chapter VIII - Spiritualism

Nature as a Creation

Man Worshipping Nature

Nature as a Creation

"As a plant upon the earth, so a man rests upon the bosom of God; he is nourished by unfailing fountains, and draws, at his need, inexhaustible power. Who can set bounds to the possibilities of man?"(Emerson 14)

Nature as a

Creation

- Through imagination, men are powerful

- there are no "bounds to the possibilities"

- However, this imagination is only achieved through religion and nature

- "unfailing fountains"

- resting "upon god's bosom"

- shows closeness and intimacy with religion

- familiarity

- religion and nature create limitless power

- for men

Man Worshipping Nature

"The aspect of nature is devout. Like the figure of Jesus, she stands with bended head, and hands folded upon the breast. The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship."(Emerson 13)

Man Worshipping Nature

Devout - deeply religious

- shows that nature itself is deeply religious

Through nature, men can learn to respect religion and God

- nature --> helps explore Religion

- worhip God

Intuition VS Reason

Chapter I

Intuition > Reason

- Imagination and relying on emotions and feeling can achieve spirituality

Chapter VI

Idealism

Intuition

vs

Reason

Intuition Reason

- Logic Rationalism

- Philosopher - The Truth

Chapter VII

Spirit

- Imagination, Feelings, emotions

- The Poet - beauty

Chapter 1

"In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life,—no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair."(Emerson 2)

- Intuition and faith

- trusts his intuition that nothing can harm him

- no "calamity" or "disgrace"

- Power of intuition

Chapter IV - Idealism

Reason as an Assistance to Imagination and Intuition

Beauty vs Truth

Intuition to help one "exist"

"When the eye of Reason opens, to outline and surface are at once added, grace and expression. These proceed from imagination and affection, and abate somewhat of the angular distinctness of objects. If the Reason be stimulated to more earnest vision, outlines and surfaces become transparent, and are no longer seen; causes and spirits are seen through them. The best moments of life are these delicious awakenings of the higher powers..."(Emerson 8)

Reason --> Imagination + Intuition

- Reason --> becomes the "best moments of life" when it becomes transparent (transparent eyeball)

- only possible through imagination

- helps vision become "transparent" --> through own eyes

- through IMAGINATION

"Whilst thus the poet animates nature with his own thoughts, he differs from the philosopher only herein, that the one proposes Beauty as his main end; the other Truth. ... "The problem of philosophy," according to Plato, "is, for all that exists conditionally, to find a ground unconditioned and absolute."(Emerson 10)

Beauty vs Truth

- Poet - Beauty/ Intuition

- Philosopher - Truth/Reason

- Flaws within reason

- TO find an "absolute" ground

"Whilst we behold unveiled the nature of Justice and Truth, we learn the difference between the absolute and the conditional or relative. We apprehend the absolute. As it were, for the first time, we exist."(Emerson 11)

Intuition helps one "exist"

- Absolute = Intuition - Conditional = Reason

- Understanding intuition and imagination

= finally existing, living

- Intuition and imagination --> life, existence

Chapter VIII - Spirit

Imagination - Limitless

Imagination > Reason

"Once inhale the upper air, being admitted to behold the absolute natures of justice and truth, and we learn that man has access to the entire mind of the Creator, is himself the creator in the finite. This view, which admonishes me where the sources of wisdom and power lie, and points to virtue as to.."(Emerson 14)

Imagination - Limitless

- Imagination allows man himself to be the "creator in the finite"

- Gives men access to the creation of nature

- Imagining God and creation of nature

- Imagination provides men with "wisdom and power"

- positive connotations

- imagination --> makes men smarter and more powerful

"; the mind is a part of the nature of things; the world is a divine dream, from which we may presently awake to the glories and certainties of day. Idealism is a hypothesis to account for nature by other principles than those of carpentry and chemistry. "(Emerson 13)

Imagination > Reason

- "divine dream"

- the mind is a spiritual image

- created through imagination

- intuition allows the mind to picture the world

- carpentry and chemistry

- represents reason

- Idealism is much more than reason - requires imagination

Nature --> Self-reflection

Chapter I

Chapter IV

Language

Nature --> self-reflection

- Nature allow individuals to self-reflect

- Reflects on the Soul

- Animals, plants, environment

--> self reflection

Chapter VI

Idealism

Chapter I

Symbols + Elements of Nature --> Allow men to reflect

"But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches."(Emerson 1)"

- Alone --> reflection time

- Stars --> natural symbol that serves as a reflection for the soul

- Rays reflect heaven -- God

- allow men to worship religion and self-reflect

- "separate between him and what he touches"

- material world vs mental world

- cannot touch and feel the stars - separated from that material world --> nature

"Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood."(Emerson 1)

Continued...

Nature --> serves as reflection to men

- Flowers, animals, mountains --> all improtant natural symbols

- Reflection for mankind

- Allow men to reflect wisdom during "best hours"

- recount the times when there was wisdom

Chapter IV - language

Reflection of the State of Mind

Reflection of the Moral Truth

"Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture."(Emerson 3 )

State of Mind

- through human imagination

- humans can reflect on their state of mind through nature

- natural symbols (animals, mountains, plants, etc.)

- represent the state of mind

- allow individuals to reflect emotions through nature

"In like manner, the memorable words of history, and the proverbs of nations, consist usually of a natural fact, selected as a picture or parable of a moral truth. Thus; A rolling stone gathers no moss; A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; A cripple in the right way, will beat a racer in the wrong; Make hay while the sun shines..." (Emerson 5)

Moral Truth

- natural fact (nature) represented by a moral truth (universal idea)

- Human morals (moral truth) is therefore reflected

--> through natural facts (nature)

Chapter IV - Idealism

Nature - Appendix

Nature as a reflection

of human culture

"Whilst we wait in this Olympus of gods, we think of nature as an appendix to the soul."(Emerson 11)

- "Appendix to the soul"

- Appendix = reflection, insight

- Appendix to the soul

- Nature reflects and provides insight on human nature

- Huamans look to nature --> insight + reflection

Nature - Appendix

"Culture inverts the vulgar views of nature, and brings the mind to call that apparent, which it uses to call real, and that real, which it uses to call visionary. Children, it is true, believe in the external world. The belief that it appears only, is an afterthought, but with culture, this faith will as surely arise on the mind as did the first."(Emerson 12)

Human Culture

- The external world + nature

- Influences beliefs on views of nature

- Children

- reflects on oneself through the external world

- faith

Image Citations

“English/Language Arts 11.” Course, http://courses.oermn.org/

course/view.php?id=3§ion=5.

Haas, Tao de. “The Importance of Imagination.” About My Brain

Institute, https://www.aboutmybrain.com/blog/the-importance-of-imagination.

Olson, Samantha. “Your Gut Feeling Is Way More than Just a

Feeling: The Science of Intuition.” Medical Daily, 12 Mar. 2015, https://www.medicaldaily.com/your-gut-feeling-way-more-just-feeling-science-intuition-325338.

Rao, Srinivas. “Your State of Mind Is One of Your Most Priceless

Assets.” Medium, Mission.org, 6 Feb. 2017, https://medium.com/the-mission/your-state-of-mind-is-one-of-your-most-priceless-assets-1a9659cf1f8a.

“Transparent Eyeball.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10

Aug. 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparent_eyeball.

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