Emerson's, "Nature"

            Ralph Waldo Emerson is remembered as one particularly influential thinker of the transcendental movement. Transcendentalism generally rejects intellectual preoccupation, and preaches the inherent purity and goodness of nature. Emerson’s text “Nature” reflects on the potential powerful harmony between man and nature that can only be accessed by rejecting intellectual impulses, and through the marriage of internal and external senses. Specifically, he tacitly criticizes the desire to know all, and implies that regaining childlike simplicity of spirit is at the heart of genuinely and fully engaging with the natural world. The first chapter of Emerson’s “Nature” left me questioning the way that nature is approached and appreciated today. 

            Emerson believes that knowing everything about nature is detrimental to the potential harmony he discusses. He notes that the wisest man never “lose(s) his curiosity by finding out all (nature’s) perfection.” Through this section, he argues that curiosity and awe of nature is essential fuel for expanding the mind and senses. Just as nature “delighted the simplicity of … childhood,” it should induce that same “poetical sense in the mind.” Similarly, he argues that man should not be preoccupied with owning land, because only “the poet” can truly integrate the land and the landscape... a true appreciation for nature incorporates awareness for the landscape that cannot truly be owned or bought. In that sense, man must be, to some extent, submissive to nature, allowing it to “authorize a different state of the mind.”

            This last quote pinpoints Emerson’s take on mans’ potential relationship with nature. To Emerson, a genuine harmonious interaction between man and nature has much to do with the state of mind, rather than with knowledge, observation, or intellect. He later discusses how one’s encounters with nature depends entirely on the mental state it is approached with. He notes that, “the lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood,” reiterating that the pursuits of the brain are not enough, that harmony is attained by engaging all senses.

            Emerson’s approach to appreciating nature sounds quite spiritual, and though there is reference to God, I don’t believe it is entirely so. I hope that most of us have embodied the experience of liberation, clarity or sudden wisdom brought about my opening the mind to “uncontained and immortal beauty.” Scientists, researchers, conservationists and park rangers create a lens of considering nature by its scientific intricacies, largely due to current environmental issues and inherent curiosity. While the scientific viewpoint is integral to conservation efforts and action, I personally think Emerson’s ideas are of equal validity. Is it truly worth conserving the natural world if we lose the sense of how to appreciate it? Emerson writes, “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.” Our relationship with nature is inseparable from efforts to conserve it, and it’s important that that seeking that pure, genuine fulfillment is never lost or overlooked by observing nature by its objective qualities.

Read the first chapter of "Nature" here:

http://www.emersoncentral.com/nature1.htm