Emerson Nature's Importance Of Nature

Every one of these men had a function and one “must take society to find the whole man. Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is all.”(1) In a perfect world, society would work together, each individual fulfilling his or her responsibility, in order to function as one. Over time, however, society has subdivided, was “[…] spilled into drops and cannot be gathered.”(2) Because of this division, society no longer serves the good of its citizens. According to Emerson, the scholar deteriorated as well. When speaking of how the scholar was and what he has become he remarks that “In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the

According to Emerson Nature’s influence on the scholar is the most important. ”The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature.” Nature is another example of how the world is meant to be re-unified.

“To the young mind, every thing is individual, stands by itself. By and by, it finds how to join two things, and see in them one nature; then three, then three thousand; and so, tyrannized over by its own unifying instinct, it goes on tying things together, diminishing anomalies, discovering roots running under ground, whereby contrary and remote things cohere, and flower out from one stem.”(2)

When observed closely nature can act as a teacher. The scholar must become aware of nature in order to see how all things come from “one stem” just as me were originally “one man.” The scholar can learn from nature, that nature and the world are similar because neither of them have a beginning or an ending and are therefore eternal. The order that can be found in nature must be reflected in the scholar’s mind. A true scholar learns to classify chaos by putting it into categories, and by making comparisons and distinctions. This leads to a discovery and understanding of nature’s laws. According to Emerson, nature and the soul stem from “one root”(3) and are opposites. The better man understands nature, the better he understands himself and his role in bringing unity

By relying too heavily on past thinkers, the scholar is discouraged from exploring new ideas or seeking individualized truths. Emerson calls such a slave to the past “the bookworm” (4), who focuses on the trivial and ignores universal ideas. The bookworm is passive, uncreative and unoriginal. He is the antithesis of Emerson’s American Scholar. He criticises that this is what America has been expecting of its scholars thus far. The nation has been looking backwards, relying on European knowledge, when it could gain a large amount of knowledge from America itself. It is essential that the scholar creates books for the present age by discovering truths for him or herself. Therefore, Emerson suggests to only resorting to books if one’s own creative genius is dried up or blocked, as not to fall into such traps. However, Emerson further states: “Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst,”(4) indicating that reading can be beneficial and essential if it is done correctly. The educated person must read history, science or similar subjects in order to learn. Books defeat time because authors throughout time felt as people do today. This is, according to Emerson, evidence of the transcendental oneness of human minds. “But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead,