Later on, Emerson continued to explore these spiritual ideas and that became the backbone of Transcendentalism. This spiritual movement influenced many other thinkers and writers including Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Bronson Alcott.
In 1833, Emerson toured Europe where he came in close contact with William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas Carlyle. He was influenced by the literary, artistic, and philosophical movement of Romanticism in Europe. His ideas expressed in Nature can be compared with those of William Wordsworth’s ideas in his poems ‘Expostulation and Reply’ and ‘The Tables Turned.’
Summary of Nature by Emerson:
In the Preface's first edition published in 1836, Emerson used a passage from the Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus which suggests the primacy of spirit and human understanding over nature. In the second edition published in 1840, he changed the Introduction and used one of his own poems instead which emphasizes the unity of all manifestations of nature, nature's symbolism, and the perpetual development of all of nature's forms toward the highest expression as embodied in man.
Emerson divided his transcendentalist essay into an introduction and eight following parts while outlining his initial ideas about the fundamental relationship of humanity with nature. These eight parts are Nature, Commodity, Beauty, Language, Discipline, Idealism, Spirit and Prospects.
Introduction:
In the introduction, he expresses his ideas while stressing that the current generation must avoid using the traditional knowledge and information given by the past, rather we should explore and find the hidden treasures of nature on our own. He says that God or nature are the two sides of the same coin that we should explore through our own personal, direct relationship to and revelations about the world. He advocates for spending time alone in nature.
Chapter 1 Nature:
He asserts that all our queries about the Universe can be answered by our experience of life and by the world around us. Emerson identifies nature and spirit as the components of the universe. He defines nature (the "NOT ME") as everything separate from the inner individual — nature, art, other men, and our own bodies. In common usage, nature refers to the material world unchanged by man. Art is nature in combination with the will of man. Emerson says that he will use both the meanings of Nature in his essay. Emerson supports the Stoic idea that nature could be found as the source of moral principles and well-being. However, in the present age, he argues, "few adult persons can see nature. Most people do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing." Seeing/understanding nature entails not only asking what nature is or how it operates, but also "To what end is nature?" Emerson says that while alone in nature when he becomes detached from everything, “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.”
Chapter 2 Commodity:
In this chapter, Emerson treats the most basic uses of nature as commodities for heat, food, water, shelter, and transportation. He discusses the practical usefulness of nature as a source of raw material and energy and says that all parts of nature - as material, process, and result - work toward the benefit of humanity. However, Emerson argues the use of nature as a commodity is the lowest of benefits, and moves on to less material gifts and aspects of nature.
Chapter 3 Beauty:
In the third chapter, Emerson asserts that nature provides humanity with its ideas and standards of beauty. “The standard beauty is the entire circuit of natural forms – the totality of nature.” He says that nature not only works as a base commodity but it also satisfies another human requirement, the desire for beauty. He defines beauty as the idea that something can produce delight in the viewer in and of itself, and not for the usefulness it can provide. He says that nature’s beauty invigorates the soul and hence, "no reason can be asked or given why the soul seeks beauty." He classifies beauty as physical beauty, moral beauty (or virtue), and intellectual beauty (or truth). Every object in nature has its own beauty, which is magnified when perspective allows a comprehensive vision of the whole. Emerson says that beauty stimulates the intellect and generates creativity. He defines ‘art’ as the creation of beauty and says that all art is either the product of nature or the expression of it.
Chapter 4 Language:
In this chapter, Emerson says that just like beauty, language too, is grounded in nature. He says that for a man, nature is a vehicle for thought. He supports his assertion in three steps. Firstly, he says that all words represent particular facts in nature, which exist in part to give us language to express ourselves. Even the words conveying intellectual or moral meaning can be etymologically traced back to roots originally attached to material objects or their qualities. He offers some examples of this as "supercilious" is from the Latin super cilia, which means raising the eyebrow. He says that not only words are symbolic but the natural objects that they represent are symbolic of particular spiritual states. Human intellectual processes are, of necessity, expressed through language, which in its primal form was integrally connected to nature. 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 cunning man is a fox, a firm man is a rock, and a learned man is a torch. A lamb is an innocence; a snake is a subtle spite; flowers express to us delicate affections. Light and darkness are our familiar expression for knowledge and ignorance; and heat for love. Emerson argues that people who have been corrupted by their various desires use corrupted language. But a person with good character, who’s grown up close to nature, has a skillful grasp of language and is more creative.
Chapter 5 Discipline:
In this chapter, Emerson suggests that our experiences of Nature are a discipline, a multifaceted education for understanding intellectual truths (Understanding) and moral truths (Reason). All of nature serves to educate man through both the rational, logical "Understanding" and the intuitive, mystical "Reason." Through the more rational understanding, we constantly learn lessons about the similarities and differences between objects, about reality and unreality, about order, arrangement, progression, and combination. The ultimate result of such lessons is common sense. Emerson says that nature is bound to human will and is meant to serve men. We take what is useful from it in forming a sense of the universe, giving greater or lesser weight to particular aspects to suit our purposes, even framing nature according to our own image of it. Our intuitive reason provides spiritual and ethical ideas behind nature. Emerson says that all things are moral as nature is divine itself therefore every aspect of nature conveys "the laws of right and wrong." While studying nature, we make laws, ethics, and religions and abide by them.
Chapter 6 Idealism:
In this chapter, Emerson again explores what nature is and wonders if it is real, whether nature actually exists, or if God may have created it only as a perception in the human mind. However, he says that such a doubt does not diminish the usefulness of nature as an aid to human comprehension of the universe. He stresses that it is unknowable if nature really exists or if it is just a human construct and says that irrespective of it, nature is Ideal. Even if nature is not real, the natural laws are verifiable and applicable. However, he says that such questions hint that nature is not real, and harm the faith of the common man in the permanence of natural laws. Any distrust of the permanence of laws [e.g., gravity] would paralyze the faculties of man. It doesn’t really matter whether there is an external reality or whether everything we perceive to be real is just an illusion. Idealism imposes the superiority of spirit over nature. He mentions Kantian philosophy which suggests that matter is a phenomenon.
Chapter 7 Spirit:
In this chapter, Emerson asserts that a true theory of nature and man must allow progressive, dynamic comprehension. Emerson says that while extreme idealism denies the existence of matter or external reality, it is of no use if there is no distinction between the soul and the world/nature. When we recognize this distinction, we approve of individual liberty and the existence of each and it makes it easy to 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.
Chapter 8 Prospects:
In the last chapter, Emerson suggests that it is better to observe the world as a naturalist rather than a student of empirical science. He says that Empirical science hinders true perception by focusing too much on particulars and too little on the broader picture. "Untaught sallies of the spirit" advances the learned naturalist further than does precise analysis of detail. Different branches of science (e.g., geology) use observations, measurements, and calculations to study nature, and they also isolate different elements of nature (like rocks and minerals) to study instead of considering those parts within the larger whole of nature. Emerson advocates for a more holistic, intuitive approach to studying nature. But he suggests that there is value in the kind of observation that scientists use (he calls this observation “Understanding”), because people need to understand, or observe, the world before they can use their intuition to interpret those observations (he calls intuition “Reason”).
At the end of his book, Emerson says that in the past, we used to live in complete harmony with nature as a unit. But over time, we stopped paying attention to the spiritual truths that nature teaches and grew distant from nature. To remedy this, people must spend time in nature and use their intuition to understand it—this will unify humankind with nature again.
So this is t for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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