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Self Reliance  Emerson is the seminal intellectual, philosophical voice of the nineteenth century in America. Although readers today may find his thought slightly facile, even unrealistic--times do change--his influence among his contemporaries and those who followed immediately after him
was enormous. Emerson was the spokesman for the American Transcendentalists, a group of New England romantic writers, which included Thoreau, who believed that intuition was the means to truth, that God is revealed through intuition to each individual. They celebrated the independent individual and strongly supported democracy. The essay "Self-Reliance," is the clearest, most memorable example of Emerson's philosophy of individualism, an idea that
is deeply embedded in American culture. His variety of individualism grows of the self's intuitive connection with the Over-Soul and is not simply a matter of self-centered assertion or immature narcissism. More
The Oversoul
Emerson's Oversoul has become a philosophical teaching as well as an Associative Religion, tracing its roots all the way back to the writings of Job, Moses, Plato, Socrates, Kant, Hagel, Eckhart, and Swedenborg. While the American "common belief system" was advanced by Emerson in his essays: Over soul, Nature and Self-Reliance, the transcendental thoughts go back to 1517, the Reformation and
Martin Luther, which affirmed the justification of faith within the inner man.
Emerson taught that the basic concept of religion, received from our forefathers, was the inalienable ability of an individual to communicate with his/her Creator, one on one, in Nature. Be that as it may, Emerson felt that the social activities of religion were very beneficial to the well being and good feelings one achieves from attending such activities.
Oversoul religiosity is essentially a moral philosophy. It proclaims the dignity of the individual; cuts the roots of institutional tyranny; and turns the mind to imagination, hope, exploration and self-reliance. This philosophy embodies the very essence of American values and is taught in virtually every Western University of the free world. These concepts are usually taught in association with American Literature and the great American heritage. More Spiritual Laws When the act of reflection takes place in the mind, when we look at ourselves in the light of thought, we discover that our life is embosomed in beauty. Behind us,
as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do far off. Not only things familiar and stale, but even the tragic and terrible, are comely, as they take their place in the pictures of memory. The river-bank, the weed at the water-side, the old house, the foolish person, — however neglected in the passing, — have a grace in the past. Even the corpse that has lain in the chambers has added a solemn ornament to the house. The soul will not know either deformity or pain. If, in the
hours of clear reason, we should speak the severest truth, we should say, that we had never made a sacrifice. In these hours the mind seems so great, that nothing can be taken from us that seems much. All loss, all pain, is particular; the universe remains to the heart unhurt. Neither vexations nor calamities abate our trust. No man ever stated his griefs as lightly as he might. Allow for exaggeration in the most patient and sorely ridden hack that ever was driven. For it is only the finite
that has wrought and suffered; the infinite lies stretched in smiling repose. More
Intellect Every substance is negatively electric to that which stands above it in the chemical
tables, positively to that which stands below it. Water dissolves wood, and iron, and salt; air dissolves water; electric fire dissolves air, but the intellect dissolves fire, gravity, laws, method, and the subtlest unnamed relations of nature, in its resistless menstruum. Intellect lies behind genius, which is intellect constructive. Intellect is the simple power anterior to all action or construction. Gladly would I
unfold in calm degrees a natural history of the intellect, but what man has yet been able to mark the steps and boundaries of that transparent essence? The first questions are always to be asked, and the wisest doctor is gravelled by the inquisitiveness of a child. How can we speak of the action of the mind under any divisions, as of its knowledge, of its ethics, of its works, and so forth, since it melts will into perception, knowledge into act? Each becomes the other. Itself alone
is. Its vision is not like the vision of the eye, but is union with the things known. More
Essay about Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson was an essayist, philosopher, poet, and leader of the New
England Transcendentalists. Seven of his ancestors were ministers, and in 1829 Emerson himself became minister of the Second Church (Unitarian) of Boston. In 1832, however, after a critical period of questioning the wisdom and authority of the Christian church, he determined that he could no longer fulfill the responsibilities of the pulpit in good conscience. More Top of Page
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