Nature

Ralph Waldo Emerson first published Nature in 1836. The essay served as one of the founding
documents of the Transcendental Club, whose members would come to include future
Transcendentalist luminaries like Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Bronson Alcott.
The Club convened its first meeting a week after the publication of Nature, led by Emerson.
The critical reception of his seminal work has shifted over time. Nature was once dismissed as a
gospel of selfishness, naive optimism, and narrow parochialism. However, scholars, with the
benefit of hindsight, now understand his work as not only the harbinger of Transcendentalism,
but also a modern rethinking of Stoicism, Plato, and Kant.
In this essay, Emerson outlines his initial ideas about the fundamental relationship of humanity
with nature, which he would develop further in later essays. His conception of this relationship
was revolutionary for its time when many thought of humanity as separate from and above the
rest of the natural world, and of nature as the mere reflection of human will/manipulation, a
means for human ends.
Introduction and Nature
"Our age is retrospective," Emerson begins. "It builds on the sepulchers of the fathers. It writes
biographies, histories, and criticism." While earlier generations "beheld God and nature face to
face," the present merely sees the world through the eyes of the past. Troubled by this trend,
Emerson asks, "Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should
not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation
to us, and not the history of theirs?" After all, "the sun shines to-day also. There is more wool
and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own
works and laws and worship."
In this way, Emerson opens his essay with a sweeping dismissal of those tools of insight based
on the past, and a demand to understand the world - that is, God and nature (two sides of the
same coin for him) - instead through our own personal, direct relationship to and revelations
about the world. The rest of the introduction is spent outlining what such an understanding would
entail and require - its methods, aims, and definitions.
As the title of his essay suggests, he grounds his approach to understanding the world in Nature,
which along with the Soul, composes the universe. By "Nature," Emerson includes everything
that is "not me" (i.e., separate from the Soul), "both nature [as conventionally understood, i.e.,
those essences unchanged by humans, like a tree or a river] and art [those essences mixed with
the will of humans, like a house or a canal], all other men and my own body." Like the Stoics,
Emerson believed that in nature could be found the source of moral principles and well being.
However, in the present age, he argues, "few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not
see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing." For seeing/understanding nature entails
not only asking what nature is or how it operates, but also "to what end is nature?"
To pursue such an understanding of nature - an inquiry he believes allied to science, all of which
aims to "find a theory of nature" - he does not appeal to other authorities on the subject, past or
present, but rather his own experience to craft a theory he believes self-evident and selfvalidating. While this may not seem scientific in terms of objectivity, he argues, "Whenever a
true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is that it will explain all phenomena." His
success in crafting such a theory arguably derives from his ability to immerse his readers in his
own experiences, as with the passage:

Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in
my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am
glad to the brink of fear.
Another famous passage describes his experience as a "transparent eyeball," a conduit for God as
he stands in nature:
Here [in the woods] I feel that nothing can befall me in life, - no disgrace, no calamity (leaving
me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, - my head bathed by the
blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, - all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent
eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am
part or parcel of God.
In the next sections, Emerson outlines in detail and in ascending order of importance the
components of the relationship of humanity and nature: the common uses/aspects of nature (see
"Commodity," "Beauty," and "Language"), our lived experience vis-a-vis nature (see
"Discipline"), and the manifestation of the universal/divine (what he calls, "Reason") in nature
(i.e., Transcendentalism; see "Idealism," "Spirit," and "Prospects").
Commodity
The most obvious and tangible aspect of the relationship between humanity and nature is the
practical usefulness of nature as a source of raw material and energy. Emerson observes that all
parts of nature - as material, process, and result - work toward the benefit of humanity:
The wind sows the seed; the sun evaporates the sea; the wind blows the vapor to the field; the
ice, on the other side of the planet, condenses rain on this; the rain feeds the plant; the plant feeds
the animal; and thus the endless circulations of the divine charity nourish man.
He further illustrates this process in his admiration of a tide-mill, which, on the seashore, makes
the tides drive the wheels and grind corn, and which thus engages the assistance of the moon like
a hired hand, to grind, and wind, and pump, and saw, and split stone, and roll iron.
However, Emerson argues the use of nature as commodity is the lowest of benefits, and quickly
moves on to less material gifts and aspects.
Beauty
In this section, Emerson describes the ways in which nature provides humanity with its ideas and
standards of beauty. The standard beauty is the entire circuit of natural forms the totality of
nature. Emerson asserts this is because "such is the constitution of things, or such the plastic
power of the human eye, that the primary forms, as the sky, the mountain, the tree, the animal,
give us a delight in and for themselves, as evidenced by the creations of artists (e.g., poets,
painters, sculptors, musicians, architects). In other words, it is a given based on the relationship
of humanity with the natural world: "The world thus exists to the soul to satisfy the desire of
beauty. Ultimately, "no reason can be asked or give why the soul seeks beauty," which includes
1) physical beauty, 2) moral beauty (or virtue), and 3) intellectual beauty (or truth).
Language
As beauty is grounded in nature, so is language. Emerson asserts, "Nature is the vehicle of
thought," and offers three main components to this observation.
First, "words are signs of natural facts." Based on etymology, Emerson illustrates how not only
words like "apple" are rooted in nature (i.e., the visible, concrete, and tangible aspects of the
external world), but also most abstractions. For example, "supercilious" is from the Latin super
cilia, which means raising the eyebrow. Another example, not mentioned by Emerson, is
"consider," which comes from the Latin con siderare, meaning to study the stars.
Next, Emerson says, Particular natural facts are symbols of particular spiritual facts, which

emphasizes the use of nature to express our ideas.

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. As enraged man is a lion, a
cunning man is a fox, a firm man is a rock, a learned man is a torch. A lamb is innocence; a
snake is subtle spite; flowers express to us the delicate affections. Light and darkness are our
familiar expression for knowledge and ignorance; and heat for love.
Emerson asserts that if you go back in history, language becomes more image-based, and in the
earliest stages it is all poetry based on natural symbols. In modern times, Emerson argues, our
language has become corrupted by secondary desires - the desires for money, pleasure, power,
and praise - rather than the simple and fundamental desire to communicate our thoughts without
loss (i.e., with the images and symbols of nature). As such, our language has ceased to create
new images based on visible nature, the old words have become perverted and abstracted, and
the obviousness of his point is difficult to see. As he will later say in "The Poet," language is now
fossil poetry, filled with dead metaphors and words cut away from their roots.
Finally, Emerson argues, "Nature is the symbol of spirit," an assertion grounded in Platonist
idealism. Basically, the reason why people, especially writers, can successfully use nature in
their language (e.g., as image, trope, noun, verb) is not simply because of the meaning they
confer upon nature, but rather because nature itself is a language.
Have mountains, and waves, and skies, no significance but what we consciously give them when
we employ them as emblems of our thoughts? The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are
metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.
That is, nature is an expression of the laws and ideas (i.e., the metaphysics) that underpin the
visible world. By tapping into the language of nature, humans are able to in turn express the laws
and ideas of the world. Emerson suggests this is why popular proverbs of different nations
usually consist of a natural fact, like "a rolling stone gathers no moss," "a bird in the hand is
worth two in the bush," and "the last ounce broke the camel's back."
Discipline
In this section, Emerson describes how our lived experience vis-a-vis nature is a discipline, or
rather, a multifaceted education for understanding intellectual truths (Understanding) and moral
truths (Reason).
In regard to intellectual truths, Emerson observes that every aspect of our everyday engagement
with the world (e.g., space, time, food, climate, animals) and matter (e.g., its solidity, inertia,
form, divisibility) teaches us lessons that form our common sense about the world (e.g., about
difference, likeness, order, particularity, generality). Furthermore, each encounter teaches us
about power, about the ability for humans to shape nature according to their will.
Nature is thoroughly mediate. It is made to serve. It receives the dominion of man as meekly as
the ass on which the Savior rode. It offers all its kingdoms to man as the raw material that he
may mold into what is useful.
In regard to moral truths, our engagements with nature teaches us about the "premonitions of
Reason" - by which Emerson means the universal soul, his Transcendentalist conception of God and thus shape our conscience.
Therefore is nature glorious with form, color, and motion; that every globe in the remotest
heaven, every chemical change from the rudest crystal up to the laws of life, every change of
vegetation from the first principle of growth in the eye of a leaf, to the tropical forest and
antediluvian coal-mine, every animal function from the sponge up to Hercules, shall hint or
thunder to man the laws of right and wrong, and echo the Ten Commandments.

This entails that despite the infinite variety of natural processes and forms, they all embody a
version of the moral law of the universe, which illustrates the unity of Nature - its unity in
variety.
The river, as it flows, resembles the air that flows over it; the air resembles the light that
traverses it with more subtle currents; the light resembles the heat that rides with it through
Space. Creatures are only a modification of one another; the likeness between them is more than
the difference, and their radical law is one and the same. A rule of one art, or a law of one
organization, holds true throughout nature. So intimate is this Unity, that, it is easily seen, it lies
under the undermost garment of Nature, and betrays its source in Universal Spirit.
Finally, Emerson asserts the amount of moral influence each encounter has on an individual
depends on the amount of truth it illustrates to the individual, which cannot be easily quantified.
Who can guess how much firmness the sea-beaten rock has taught the fisherman? How much
tranquility has been reflected to man from the azure sky, over whose unspotted deeps the winds
forevermore drive flocks of stormy clouds, and leave no wrinkle or stain?
Idealism
In the preceding sections, Emerson focuses on the uses and benefits of nature. In "Idealism" and
"Spirit," he shifts to questions of what nature is. Such questions are based on his Idealism, and
thus do not mean what is nature composed of, but rather, is there a higher reality or law behind
nature, and does visible nature really exist?
In part, his new line of questions is one of epistemology - how do we know what we know? He
first offers the claim of the radical Idealist, who believes reality is fundamentally constructed by
the mind:
In my utter impotence to test the authenticity of the report of my senses, to know whether the
impressions they make on me correspond with outlying objects, what difference does it make,
whether Orion is up there in heaven, or some god paints the image in the firmament of the soul.
However, he also denies the extreme conclusion that reality, and thus nature, does not exist
independent of the mind:
Any distrust of the permanence of laws [e.g., gravity] would paralyze the faculties of man.
He settles the issue by showing how various aspects of culture - including 1) motion (which
affirms the internal reality of the observer due to the feeling of the sublime that arises from the
difference felt between the observer/human and the spectacle/nature, as when seeing the shore
from a moving ship), 2) poetry (which affirms the reality of the soul by the way in which poets
conform nature to their thoughts and "makes them the words of the Reason" or the soul), 3)
philosophy (which like poetry, affirms the reality of the soul by the way in which philosophers
animate nature with their thoughts and makes them the words of Reason, except in this case for
Truth rather than Beauty), 4) intellectual science (which generates insight based on abstract ideas
and thus the spirit), and 5) religion and ethics (which degrades nature and suggests its
dependence on the spirit) - convince us of the reality of the external world, of nature and spirit,
and thus tend to imbue us with a moderate form of 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, and 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 effect.
Spirit
As a qualification to the discussion of Idealism in the previous section, Emerson asserts that
Idealism is ultimately an introductory hypothesis (like carpentry and chemistry) about nature. If

it only denies the existence of matter, or external reality, as with extreme Idealism, then it of no
use to him, for it does not satisfy the demands of the spirit. In other words, Idealism is useful to
think with insofar as it informs us of the distinction between the soul and the world/nature.
By recognizing this distinction, and the existence of each, we can then understand their relation
to one another - that is, how spirit (the Supreme Being, the Universal Soul) acts through us, "as
the life of the tree puts forth new branches and leaves through the pores of the old," and thus is
not subject to the human will, as with the rest of the world/nature.
Prospects
In this last section, Emerson argues it is better approach the world as a naturalist than as a student
of empirical science. Compared to the precision and experiments of the scientist, the naturalist
employs self-discovery and humility, and thus continues to learn about his relation to the world,
and remains open to the secrets of nature. The naturalist will pay attention to the truth and to the
real problems to be solved:
It is not so pertinent to man to know all the individuals of the animal kingdom, as it is to know
whence and whereto is this tyrannizing unity in his constitution, which evermore separates and
classifies things, endeavoring to reduce the most diverse to one form.
Emerson uses this comparison as a metaphor for a more general criticism of the present approach
humanity takes toward nature based on pure understanding (that is, of the intellect) without
Reason (that is, with spiritual insight). However, there are occasional examples of how humanity
might act with both:
Such examples are, the traditions of miracles in the earliest antiquity of all nations; the history of
Jesus Christ; the achievements of a principle, as in religious and political revolutions, and in the
abolition of the slave-trade; the miracles of enthusiasm, as those reported of Swedenborg,
Hohenlohe, and the Shakers; many obscure and yet contested facts, now arranged under the
name of Animal Magnetism; prayer; eloquence; self-healing; and the wisdom of children.
Until humanity begins to act with both understanding/intellect and reason/spirituality towards
nature, to repair its relationship with nature and the world, humanity remains disunited with itself
and the world lacks unity. To correct this trend, Emerson argues people need to acquire a new,
educated way of seeing the world, by which he means the Transcendentalist approach he has laid
out in the previous sections.
So we shall come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the
intellect (What is truth?), as well as that of the affections (What is good?), by yielding itself
passive to the educated Will.
Self-Reliance
Self-Reliance was first published in 1841 in his collection, Essays: First Series. However,
scholars argue the underlying philosophy of his essay emerged in a sermon given in September
1830 - a month after his first marriage to Ellen (who died the following year of tuberculosis) and in lectures on the philosophy of history given at Boston's Masonic Temple from 1836 to
1837.
The essay, for which Emerson is perhaps the most well known, contains the most thorough
statement of Emersons emphasis on the need for individuals to avoid conformity and false
consistency, and instead follow their own instincts and ideas. The essay illustrates Emerson's
finesse for synthesizing and translating classical philosophy (e.g., self-rule in Stoicism,
the Bildung of Goethe, and the revolution of Kant) into accessible language, and for
demonstrating its relevance to everyday life.

While Emerson does not formally do so, scholars conventionally organize Self-Reliance into
three sections: the value of and barriers to self-reliance (paragraph 1-17), self-reliance and the
individual (paragraph 18-32), and self-reliance and society (paragraph 33-50).
The Value of and Barriers to Self-Reliance (paragraph 1-17)
Emerson opens his essay with the assertion, "To believe in your own thought, to believe that
what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, - that is genius." His statement
captures the essence of what he means by "self-reliance," namely the reliance upon one's own
thoughts and ideas. He argues individuals, like Moses, Plato, and Milton, are held in the highest
regard because they spoke what they thought. They did not rely on the words of others, books, or
tradition. Unfortunately, few people today do so; instead, "he dismisses without notice his
thought, because it is his."
If we do not listen to our own mind, someone else will say what we think and feel, and we shall
be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another. Emerson thus famously counsels
his reader to "Trust thyself." In other words, to accept one's destiny, "the place the divine
providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events." If
such advice seems easier said than done, Emerson prompts his reader to recall the boldness of
youth.
Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we look in their faces we are
disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it; so that one babe commonly makes
four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth and puberty and
manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable and gracious and its
claims not be put by, if it will stand by itself.
The difficulty of trusting our own mind lies in the conspiracy of society against the individual,
for society valorizes conformity. As a youth, we act with independence and irresponsibility, and
issue verdicts based on our genuine thought. We are unencumbered by thoughts about
consequences or interests. However, as we grow older, society teaches us to curb our thoughts
and actions, seek the approval of others, and concern ourselves with names, reputations, and
customs. What some would call "maturity," Emerson would call "conformity."
To be a self-reliant individual then, one must return to the neutrality of youth, and be a
nonconformist. For a nonconformist, "No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good
and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my
constitution; the only wrong what is against it. Emerson does not advocate nonconformity for
the sake of rebellion per se, but rather so the world may know you for who are, and so you may
focus your time and efforts on reinforcing your character in your own terms.
However, the valorization of conformity by society is not the only barrier to self-reliance.
According to Emerson, another barrier is the fear for our own consistency: "a reverence for our
past act or word because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our
past acts, and we are loth to disappoint them. Rather than act with a false consistency to a past
memory, we must always live in the present. We must become, rather than simply be. Emerson
famously argues, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little
statesmen and philosophers and divines." While acting without regard to consistency may lead to
us being misunderstood, the self-reliant individual would be in good company. "Pythagoras was
misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton,
and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."
Self-Reliance and the Individual (paragraph 18-32)
In this section, Emerson expounds on how individuals can achieve self-reliance.

As mentioned earlier, to live self-reliantly with genuine thought and action, one must "trust
thyself." In other words, one must trust in the nature and power of our inherent capacity for
independence, what Emerson calls, "Spontaneity" or "Instinct" - the "essence of genius, of virtue,
and of life." This Spontaneity or Instinct is grounded in our Intuition, our inner knowledge, rather
than "tuitions," the secondhand knowledge we learn from others. In turn, Emerson believed our
Intuition emerged from the relationship between our soul and the divine spirit (i.e., God). To trust
thyself means to also trust in God.
To do so is more difficult than it sounds. It is far easier to follow the footprints of others, to live
according to some known or accustomed way. A self-reliant life "shall be wholly strange and
new. It shall exclude example and experience. You take the way from man, not to man."
As such, one must live as courageously as a rose.
Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say, I think, I am, but
instead quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose.
These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for
what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is
perfect in every moment of its existence But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in
the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him,
stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with
nature in the present, above time.
To live in the present with nature and God, one must not worry about the past or future, compare
oneself to others, or rely on words and thoughts not one's own.
Self-Reliance and Society (paragraph 33-50)
In the concluding paragraphs of Self-Reliance, Emerson argues self-reliance must be applied to
all aspects of life, and illustrates how such an application would benefit society. It is easy to see
that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their
religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their
property; in their speculative views.
In regard to religion, Emerson believes a lack of self-reliance has led prayers to become a
disease of the will and creeds a disease of the intellect. People pray to an external source for
some foreign addition to their life, whereby prayer acts as a means to a private end, such as for a
desired commodity. In this way, prayer has become a form of begging. However, prayer should
be a way to contemplate life and unite with God (i.e., to trust thyself and also in God). Selfreliant individuals do not pray for something, but rather embody prayer (i.e., contemplation and
unification with God) in all their actions. The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed
it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard throughout
nature, though for cheap ends.
Emerson also believes true prayer involves an avoidance of regret and discontent, which indicate
a personal infirmity of will, as well as of sympathy for the suffering of others, which only
prolongs their own infirmity, and instead should be handled with truth and health to return them
to their reason.
As for creeds, his critique focuses on how those who cling to creeds obey the beliefs of a
powerful mind other than their own, rather than listen to how God speaks through their own
minds. In this way, they disconnect with the universe, with God, because the creed becomes
mistaken for the universe.
In regard to education, Emerson asserts the education system fosters a restless mind that causes
people to travel away from themselves in hope of finding something greater than what they know

or have. Educated Americans desire to travel to foreign places like Italy, England, and Egypt for
amusement and culture. They build and decorate their houses with foreign taste, their minds to
the Past and the Distant. Artists imitate the Doric or the Gothic model. Yet, Emerson reminds us,
They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination, did so by sticking fast
where they were, like an axis of the earth. One should not yearn for or imitate that which is
foreign to oneself, for Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force
of a whole lifes cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an
extemporaneous half possession Every great man is unique. (Emerson develops these ideas
further in his essay, The American Scholar, which calls for the creation of a uniquely American
cultural identity distinct from European traditions.)
Finally, Emerson addresses the spirit of society. According to Emerson, society never
advances. Civilization has not led to the improvement of society because with the acquisition of
new arts and technologies comes the loss of old instincts. For example, The civilized man has
built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the
skill to tell the hour by the sun. Society merely changes and shifts like a wave. While a wave
moves onward the water which it is composed does not. As such, people are no greater than
they ever were, and should not smugly rest on the laurels of past artistic and scientific
achievements. They must instead actively work to achieve self-reliance, which entails a return to
oneself, and liberation from the shackles of the religious, learned, and civil institutions that
create a debilitating reliance on property (i.e., things external from the self).
Emerson concludes, Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but
the triumph of principles.