What Is Emerson's Discrimination Of Nature

The Combination of Nature and the Self
As Thoreau said in Higher Laws, “ There is never an instant’s truce between virtue and vice. Goodness is the only investment that never fails” (5). In both Emerson and Thoreau’s essays they argue that through nature they can understand themselves. What differentiates Emerson’s thinking is that he believes that God is within and that by isolating oneself with Nature one learns to trust one’s instincts and become “ part or particle of God” (Emerson: Nature from Chapter 1). While Thoreau believes that leading a simple life is the cure to man’s primitive instincts. Emerson believes that in Nature, man is free to discover his best self and in so doing experience God, who resides within. By comparison, Thoreau

He believes that by being a slave to other people’s opinions you ultimately sacrifice your soul. He believes that every man must come to the decision, “that evy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion” (Self- Reliance pg.1). Throughout his essay he continuously comes back to the notion that independent thought is the key to a man’s soul. He believes that one should embrace the power of their single voice and not succumb to the societal pressure of conformity. Emersons trusts that being an individual is the way to God. Emerson wants every man, “to believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men - that is genius” (SR:1). He believes that every man must trust in themselves. It is easy for this happen in solitude, but it becomes more difficult when people coexist because with community because the sense of shared values and opinions. Emersons ultimate goal is to get across the point that “whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist”

Thoreau understands that “We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers. It is reptile and sensual, and perhaps cannot be wholly expelled; like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy our bodies” (5). He believes that only through truly experiencing nature do the true instincts of man come to light. Even though he thinks it is necessary for man to suppress these inclinations he also believes it is necessary for them to go into nature and experience them. Something that is very prominent in Thoreau’s personality is his ability to abstain from indulgence. He believes that through nature and in his everyday life, “I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and a savage one, and I reverence them both” (HL:1). Thoreau believes in going to the extremes, he expresses his disgust in eating meat and the belief that everyone must refrain from taking food or resources from nature. Thoreau argues that this form of life is the only way to