LITR 5535: American Romanticism
 
Sample Student Research Project 2005

Robert Hoffman

March 20, 2004

Ralph W. Emerson: Interpreter of Natural Law

            One of the most mystical and philosophical time periods in Western culture is the Romantic era of the 1800’s. During this time, many writers rejected orthodox teachings and investigated alternative views about religion, philosophy, and the idea of human experience. Ralph W. Emerson, a writer, poet, and philosopher, is one individual that left an everlasting impression on everyone who knew him as well as future writers. Modern writers still pay homage to him as an original thinker. Ralph W. Emerson’s essay Nature expresses profound insight into the mysteries of natural law by unifying physical phenomena with the numinous, and by teaching humanity the ameliorating virtues of obedience to it.

            Ralph W. Emerson lived in the early 1800's during the beginnings of what became known as the Romantic era. The previous era called the Age of Reason had many amazing developments in the fields of math, science, and technology.   Emerson, however, believed the individual human experience of an event or a material object is far more substantial to understanding it than any mathematical abstraction or calculation. He doubted the philosophical idea that both mathematics and science were going to explain everything about nature. Instead of science being the panacea of humanity, Emerson viewed these areas of study as superficial because they did not penetrate the true essence of life. Rather than humans using quantitative calculations to measure distances and refractions of moonlight, for example, Emerson taught people to trust their own intuitions, and enjoy the experience of a moonlit evening.  The use of instrumentation and measurement to study natural sense objects are broadly impersonal, detached, and one-sided in comparison to the aesthetic feelings, emotions, and intuitions created by the simple love and enjoyment of nature.

In Emerson's view, the totality of nature is grandeur in comparison to just its physical aspects. It a much higher meaning than simply a physical entity. Although nature provides aesthetically pleasing visual sights and raw materials for humans, there is an infinite intelligence behind the physical parts of it that humans can understand by a metaphysical experience. The outside senses give humans knowledge of the physical world while the transcendental part of humans permits them to understand their divinity with everything in nature. It is this combined view of nature that makes life significantly greater than just material phenomena. If nature is both physical and spiritual, then it is sacred and holy because it provides humans both physical and spiritual needs. Emerson, for example, in his book   Nature states "The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other…" (11). Furthermore, Staebler in his book Ralph Waldo Emerson comments on Emerson's dual perspective of nature:

"The elements of nature were symbols. In their physicality they offered beauty to man and were of use in many ways. In what underlay their physicality, they reflected something of the divine intelligence, the Universal Mind which had created all things which was all things. They had a double reality-one evidenced by man's senses and another higher, by far, affirmable only by his mind" (87).

Thus, an amalgamated perspective of nature makes human beings realize that nature is a sacrament.

            Although Ralph Emerson lived in a materialistic society that transformed the physical environment, he tried to change it by his philosophical writing and lecturing about the spiritual qualities of nature. The beginning of the industrial revolution is the era that Emerson lived in. During the early 1800s, human beings of western culture focused on creating and developing innovations and inventions for the expanding materialistic populace. Emerson met and interacted with many people interested in only gaining material wealth at the expense of exploiting humans and natural resources. He also saw the increasing amount of disease and shortened life span because of the failure of individuals to follow the laws of nutrition, hygiene, and temperance. Emerson concluded this extensive focus on secular and worldly pleasures only brought fugacious happiness, and it created worse long-term problems for both the individual and society. Pollution of the air, water, and soil increase, and human beings become impenitent about their iniquitous behavior and conduct. This callowness, apathy, and indifference eventually lead to suffering and misery. Emerson tried to change this one-sided materialistic view by calling attention to people that sensible objects also have spiritual virtues and ethical considerations. In Nature, for example, he states:

“All things are moral; and in their boundless changes have an unceasing reference to spiritual nature (51) … The moral law lies at the centre of nature and radiates to the circumference. It is the pith and marrow of every substance, every relation, and every process” (53).

Edwin D. Mead praises Emerson for his ethical teachings during the changing industrial society in his book The Genius and Character of Emerson. He agrees with Emerson’s view that material objects amalgamate with moral qualities by stating:

“…morality is the law of the universe as it is operative and consciously adopted in the soul of man, just as gravitation and the chemic forces are the same law of the universe operating otherwise” (235).

Therefore, society’s transformation to materialism prompted Emerson to write about the spiritual qualities of nature so humanity could realize the virtues of a simple, natural life.

            Emerson encourages his readers to take a boundless perspective about their views of commodities. Humans should not evaluate them as wares, products, or articles of commerce. They are not something to buy and sell in a marketplace. Instead, Emerson magnificently portrays commodities as spiritual gifts to assist humans in their evolution to higher degrees of perfection. People should view them as something more than physical objects. He inspires people to see commodities as a creative process of the universal natural law. Emerson, for example, says:

"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 others hands for the profit of man" (16).

Accordingly, Emerson unceasingly persuades his followers to evaluate commodities as both a product and a process.

            Emerson knew that despite the advances of the industrial revolution, humankind still has not reached an appreciable stage of psychological maturity. Although humans increased their scientific knowledge in the 1700s and 1800s, they still live by their basic atavistic instincts. War occurs every year in the history of humanity, and hatred, violence, and vile prejudice continues to plague humankind. Human beings have not developed and changed their subconscious impulses into creative powers. Emerson knew this would be a long process and would take many generations. Once all of humanity realizes the universe works by natural law and all their deeds are subject to consequences, they will take their first step to improving the human condition on the planet.  Emerson, for example, forecasts these profound truths in Nature by stating:

"A life of harmony with nature, the love of truth and of virtue will purge the eyes to understand her text. By degrees we may come to know the primitive sense of the permanent objects in nature, so that the world shall be to us an open book, and every form significant of its hidden life and final cause" (45).

Although humanity has made vast progress, it still has many generations to go before realizing its nobility as the highest creation on the planet.

            Even though Ralph W. Emerson was an ordained minister, he rejected the beliefs of traditional Christian religion because of its dogmatic teachings and irrational views about God. Emerson, a pastor in the Church of Boston, gradually began to question the validity of the precepts, tenets, and historical facts of Christianity. He could not understand why God only revealed and manifested to certain people as reported in the Bible. In addition, he did not believe in the biblical teaching of anthropomorphism. Emerson eventually concluded the Bible is a collection of books written by many authors that have no unity or sufficient validity. This doubt and uncertainty prompted him to renounce his faith and leave his position as a minister. In an article titled “The Crisis of Alienation in Emerson’s Early Thought" by Lewis P. Simpson in the book Emerson’s Relevance Today: A Symposium, he remarks:

“Accepting a call to the Second Church of Boston, he had within less than four years announced he could not celebrate the Lord’s Supper and had resigned his pastorate” (35).

Accordingly, since traditional bible based Christianity did not conform to reality and left many unanswered questions, Emerson rejected it.

            Emerson believed that nature is a unified natural law that is infinite. All the various parts of nature represent segments of this universal law. Human beings, in their scientific studies, fragment each part to analyze each component. Each part examined is similar to links in a chain. This bewilders scientists, and there is no view of wholeness. This view, however, is erroneous according to Emerson. Instead, humans need to view life as the oneness of both physical as well as spiritual forces. Emerson, for example, stresses this in his essay Nature by asserting:

“Herein is especially apprehended the unity of nature-the unity in variety which meets us everywhere. All the endless variety of things make an identical impression…Each particle is a microcosm, and faithfully renders the likeness of the world”.

 The roots of Emerson’s views have traces back to his visit to Europe. While on his trip, he visited both botanical gardens and museums. Julie Ellison, for example, in the book Emerson’s Romantic Style infers this is where Emerson developed his view about the oneness of all reality in life. She remarks:

“…visits to the Musee Nationale d’Histoire Naturelle and the Jardin des Plantes during his 1833 visit to Paris suggests that he was inspired by a sudden vision of the coherence of nature.” (85)

It is this view of nature that made Emerson a progressive thinker of the 1800’s, and he unceasingly taught and lectured on this new philosophical idea of life.

            Ralph W. Emerson’s beliefs in the universal natural law began with his many walks in the woods when he was in his twenties. It was during his visits to the forest that he had a mystical experience. While experiencing the beauties of the plants and trees, he felt there was something infinitely more behind the physical manifestations. Both the vegetative life and the landscape were restlessly bustling with vitality. Each day that he strolled through the woods, he noticed that nature never remained the same. There is a correlative interplay of both living and nonliving forces. Emerson observed the processes of birth, growth, development, decline, and eventual death and disappearance of physical reality. He also noticed that his nonmaterial consciousness of feelings, intuitions, and emotions followed this same active procession. Emerson inferred from his observations there is an invisible force behind it all that is fundamentally universal and unchanging. It is at this point in Emerson’s experience that he realized “the currents of the universal being circulated through me; I am part or particle of God” (Nature, 13). In the book The Life of Emerson by Van Wyck Brooks, he describes Emerson’s divine revelation:

“Strange thoughts came to him as he idled about the pastures. The trees, the flowers, the hills seemed somehow alive. Not merely as trees and flowers, they suggested some general life of which his own was a part. He would suddenly lose the sense of personality, and then his general general life rose up within him. It was stronger and better than his own; and when he relaxed and gave it the freest passage, he felt an infinite force traversing his soul” (44).

Therefore, it was Emerson’s many long walks in the woods and his mystical experience that inspired his philosophy about life.

            Emerson’s discovery was a grand achievement, but in his writings and lectures, he tried to tell the importance of living in harmony with the universal law. It has the same qualities and attributes about God that traditional, organized religion promotes. The universal law is omnipotent because it is all-powerful. In addition, it is omniscient because it contains infinite knowledge. Moreover, it is omnipresent and humanity itself is an exhibition of the universal law. Everything that happens both physically and consciously in humans follow it. Finally, the universal law is uncreated; it never began nor it will ever end. When describing the universal law of which all individual laws are a part of in his book Nature, Emerson perceptively notes, “Their permanence is sacredly respected… (61)…we apprehend the absolute” (71).  Thus, Emerson’s view about God is a universal law that unifies all individual laws of nature.

Critics may object that Emerson’s idea of the universal law is a cold and impersonal one, and does not fit in with the popular image of a Christian God being warm and intimate with humans. Such a misconception, however, is a failure to appreciate the universal law in all of its fullness. The universal natural law teaches humans profound truths about life each passing moment of existence. These truths guide humans through all problems, obstacles, and difficulties. Universal law rewards humans when they live in harmony with it, and punishes when they deviate from it. Even when humans experience a punishment, the punishment is a positive one because human beings create it by not obeying the universal law. By humanity’s deviation and punishment, they acquire experience that creates the preconditions for a future success. It is this future success through experience that allows humanity to grow and evolve to even greater creative achievements and wisdom. When human beings realize that natural law is their teacher, they begin to understand that their mistakes in life are only steps to reaching their success.

            As Emerson developed a philosophy about the universal law, he defined the purpose of individual human life. Since humans developed consciousness and higher forms of reasoning capacity, each individual is to carry forward the work of creation on the planet. There are many ways that human beings can perform this. One of the most common methods is to procreate children. There are, however, other creative acts that humans engage in. Within their consciousness, individuals create new forms of artwork. Throughout history, human beings have created masterpieces of music, painting, prose, and verse. These masterworks contribute to culture ageless truths about the various experiences of humanity. The birth of these classics occurs when humans connect with the universal law with their deep intuitions, feelings, and emotions. Emerson remarks about this transformation in Nature when he states “…we learn that man has access to the entire mind of the Creator, is himself the creator in the infinite” (80). Gay Allen upholds Emerson’s view in his book Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Biography by stating “All human minds form a community which exists by the grace of an Infinite Mind” (455). Hence, the philosophy of human beings as co-creators with the universal law is Emerson’s view of the purpose of individual life.

Emerson abstractly explains how experiencing events creates reality for individuals.  He stressed the role of individual experience to explain the laws of creation. Nature gives humans the basic, natural resources to build and form their own world. As humans experience various events with their feelings, intuitions, and emotions, it creates varying degrees of positive and negative responses. This influences people and creates culture in different artistic forms. It takes both an individual and the object to create new forms of thoughts. These two parts are correlative because they reciprocally complement each other. Humans use these fundamental resources and their historical experiences to create, mold, and shape their own world by their thoughts and ideas. When discussing the effects, for example, of exalted thoughts or awe-inspiring emotions while experiencing nature, Emerson profoundly remarks:

"Yet, it is certain that the power to produce this delight does not reside in nature, but in man or in a harmony of both" (14).

Therefore, individual experience is the crux of creating reality for every living human being in Emerson's philosophy.

            The economic system of the United States during the 1800s promoted both slavery and exploitation, and Emerson considered this unjust and inequitable. He knew these two practices would finally lead to more extensive future difficulties and conflicts. In his lectures, he showed how the current economic system was a deviation of the universal law of equality, and produced aggression and contentious disaccord. Emerson understood the evolving capitalistic economic system took advantage of human beings for immoral purposes. It created distinct social classes between the rulers and slaves, and exploited humans for economic gain. Both the rulers and ruled are guilty under these economic and social conditions. The ruler's ignorance shows in his defense of his interests and position, while a slave's ignorance is his fear of the unknown. The northern and southern cultures of the United States could not resolve their hostility, and eventually this social problem lead to the Civil War.

            Emerson's Nature and his teachings about the universal law have great truth and value to humanity today as well as the future. Emerson believed in the eternal effluvium of vital forces both in nature and in humans. He believed in a dynamic universe, and he considered humans and the universe not as units of matter, but as units of energy. Emerson knew that harmony appeared whenever this vital effluvium that is present everywhere in the universe, is unhampered. To illustrate, George Woodberry acknowledges Emerson's belief in this vital force in his book Ralph Waldo Emerson by stating, "Nature is therefore regarded as an inexhaustible overflow of power without determination-pure energy" (60). Sixty years after Emerson passed away, another philosopher named Henri Bergson identified this natural law and called this energy "élan vital". Modern scientists in the early 1800's and 1900's called this vitality or the life principle of every living organism. Even today, scientists are beginning to realize there are forces of life that exist throughout nature.

            Humans in society can live a harmonious life by obeying the laws of nature to extend their life span. This includes following the laws of proper nutrition and hygiene. When individuals keep their health and strength late into life with proper diet and exercise, they prevent weakness and disease. Emerson, a vegetarian and consumer of natural foods, taught his readers to eat fresh, natural foods to preserve health throughout life. In addition, having a creative life increases longevity because it brings knowledge of the laws of life, of nature, and of the human consciousness that result in harmonious living and equal harmony in death. Emerson in Nature identified this harmony in humans when they create art:

"The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musician, the architect seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point, and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to produce" (30).

Thus, Emerson's teachings about the laws of longevity apply to all human beings in the past, present, and future.

            Emerson's message about life and death is also universal in its meaning. Most organized religions promote death as a terrifying event because of an unknown judgment awaiting humankind. They separate the final resting place into the categories of heaven and hell. When a person lives a noble life, God rewards them by acceptance into heaven. Traditional Christian religions use the term hell to describe an everlasting condemning place for people who sin. However, Emerson no longer accepted these dogmatic ideas about the afterlife of human souls. Instead, he believed that death is a natural and rhythmic transformation of certain energies into other forms of power, and each individual is an inseparable part of an infinite universe and a part of eternity. He rejected the idea of a theological punishment after death, and knew the only hell is what human beings create when they deviate from the universal law. Contrary to the teachings of traditional religion, this process of birth and death has continued infinitely in the universe and will continue without ending.

            To conclude, Ralph W. Emerson's book Nature is a philosophical treatise that is profoundly avant-garde. It gives deep insight into the riddle of the mysterious force called natural law. Humans must conform to natural law to attain enhanced rectitude in their life. Emerson stresses the immutable necessity of understanding the universal natural law as a totality. When human beings apprehend this unified concept, they realize they share an indissoluble brotherhood with everything in life. This level of intellectual maturity about natural law in a unified, infinite universe allows humanity to conclude they are part of an endless eternity. Emerson gave humans an enhanced view of materialism by teaching the spiritual qualities associated with it. As Samuel Osgood concluded in his 1837 article titled, "It Certainly Will Be Called Remarkable" published in the book Emerson's Nature-Origin, Growth, Meaning:

"He sees the world as it really is. He looks on the temporal in the light of the eternal. So he comes to look on the world with new eyes. So he learns the high truths which nature teaches. Let us therefore hear the Orphic poets saying 'Build therefore, your own world' "(80).

Works Cited

Allen, Gay. Waldo Emerson: A Biography. New York: The Vicking Press, 1981.

Brooks, Van Wyck. The Life of Emerson. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1933.

Carlson, Eric and Lasley J. eds. Emerson's Relevance Today: A Symposium. Hartfort, CT: Transcendental Books, 1971.

Ellison, Julie. Emerson's Romantic Style. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Emerson, Ralph W. Nature. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989.

Sealts, Morton and Alfred Ferguson eds. Emerson's Nature: Origin, Growth, Meaning. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1969.

Staeblor, Warren. Ralph Waldo Emerson. London: Macmillan & Company LTD., 1914.