Chapter 3 The New England Philosophy: Transcendentalism
3.2 New England Transcendentalism
3.2.5 Transcendentalism: a Four-Faceted Intellectual Movement
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revolution fell into the hands of the Transcendentalists (96). Jennifer Powell contends that the Transcendentalists’ “insistence on direct action to bring about social change”
(177) could have been one of the factors that led to the outbreak of the Civil War.
Meanwhile, according to Habich and Nowatzki, “Transcendentalism’s influence began to wane” (90) after the Civil War. Even though some Transcendentalists (including Emerson, Thoreau, and Fuller) were “upheld as cultural icons” (90), the new generation faced new challenges (industrialization, scientific innovation, and evolutionism) that made Transcendentalism seem “a quaint irrelevance” (90).
3.2.5 Transcendentalism: a Four-Faceted Intellectual Movement
Transcendentalism is an American religious, philosophical, literary, and political movement of the early nineteenth century. Its religious dimension stemmed from the fact that many Transcendentalists were clergymen with similar intellectual tastes and moral dispositions; they formed a Transcendental Club, the members of which kept their Puritan heritage – living practically, simply, and honestly. The Transcendentalists borrowed certain forms and phrases from German Idealism to develop their own loose philosophy. Its literary dimension was inspired by Coleridge and Carlyle.
Transcendentalists embraced their roles as men of letters, wrote prose that they published prodigiously in periodicals, and created an American Literary Renaissance.
Politically, they initiated Brook Farm and Fruitland as experimental communities in the 1840s and joined the abolitionist movement and the Civil War in the 1860s, after which the movement essentially ended.
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Chapter 4
Transcendentalist Principles: Analytical Framework
This chapter aims to establish a Transcendentalist theoretical framework derived from Emerson’s Essays. I begin by explaining why I focus on Emersonian
Transcendentalism and Essays, and then outline the four principles that I believe are central to a Transcendentalist analytical framework:1) the Over-Soul, 2) Inner Divinity, 3) Anti-authority, and 4) Self-Reliance. These principles interlink and collectively form the cornerstone of Transcendentalism.
4.1 The Importance of Emerson
Emerson occupied a special position in the Transcendental Movement. He was:
1) a representative of the movement, 2) someone who introduced Transcendentalism to the public, and 3) a patron of younger Transcendentalists. First of all, with his various works and lectures including Nature (1836), Essays (1841, 1844), “The American Scholar” (1837), the “Divinity School Address” (1838), and “The Transcendentalists” (1841), Emerson served as both a spokesperson and an iconic figure of the entire movement. He was so influential that his name is often considered synonymous with the Transcendental Movement. He also served as the main conduit for the introduction of Transcendentalism to the public. After quitting the clergy, he became a professional lecturer, constantly traveling around the world to spread the word of Transcendentalism. Were it not for Emerson, Transcendentalism would have been a short-lived, regional experiment that received little attention. Emerson aroused the curiosity of people around the world. In Our Common Dwelling, Lance Newman even comments: “American thought begins with Emerson. Emerson is the major Transcendentalist” (35).
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Most importantly, he served as a patron for many younger liberal thinkers, the most famous being Henry David Thoreau. When Thoreau encountered financial and literary difficulties in his twenties, Emerson invited him to live with the Emerson family, gave him a job as a tutor, encouraged him to keep writing, and even allowed him to build and live in a cabin on the shore of Walden Pond. They remained lifelong friends, supporting each other through the vicissitudes of life. In short, Emerson was significant to the movement, to the public, and to the coterie of the Transcendentalists.
Emersonian Transcendentalism is representative and typical; it is therefore sensible and meaningful to use it as the source of my analytical framework.
4.2 The Importance of Essays
Among all of Emerson’s works, I concentrate on Essays—the first series in 1841, the second series in 1844—as the source of Emersonianism because it: 1) represents the fruit of Emerson’s literary maturity, 2) explores a wider spectrum of topics than his other works, and 3) provides Americans with tools to deal with their contemporary social condition. Even though Nature made Emerson famous in his thirties, the high-water mark of Emerson’s literary accomplishment was his first full-length book, Essays (Day 85; Gura 133). According to Packer, Essays consists of passages from Emerson’s store of unpublished writings—his journals, sermons, and lectures—that he worked and reworked to make them more concise, vivid, and powerful (138). By the time Emerson seriously devoted himself to compiling Essays for publication, he had already been writing professionally for thirteen years: first as a minister, then as a lyceum lecturer, and finally as an independent entrepreneur producing courses of lectures (138). Thus, unlike Nature, which Emerson published anonymously as a literary novice, Essays is the fruit of Emerson’s toil as an experienced, professional writer, representing his literary maturity.
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Essays also explores a wider spectrum of topics than Nature; Packer summarizes the book’s diverse contents in terms of Emerson’s metaphysics, his interest in natural history, and his ideas about the emergence and meaning of human art and civilization:
Some of them (“Prudence”; “Compensation”) offer solid wisdom about the world of senses, while others (“Intellect”; “The Over-Soul”) rise insistently beyond it. Some essays celebrate personal courage (“Heroism”; “Self-Reliance”), while others urge a wise passivity and an entire trust in the self-executing laws of the universe (“Spiritual Laws”). Some examine the records of human civilization and human achievement (“History”; “Art”), while at least one (“Circles”) celebrates time’s power to swallow all traces of civilization and achievement alike as it ceaselessly generates new forms and new men. (139)
In considering all these topics, Emerson explores and extends the world of Transcendentalism, making Essays an ideal text to establish the movement’s theoretical framework.
Finally, Essays impressed Emerson’s contemporaries both inside and outside his intellectual circle. For example, Orestes Brownson, a ferocious critic, who had attacked Emerson for nearly everything, admitted that Essays impressed him not just into admiration but also into reverence. He praised the book’s transformative power – its ability to make one feel “transcendent and immortal” (Packer 139). Outside
academia, Essays provided common readers with ways to “cope with the attendant change and confusion” (Gura 214) of the mid-nineteenth century. Gura claims that Essays helped Americans “adapt to their novel conditions, [by] neither resisting nor condemning them” (214) in a culture that was “in the midst of upheaval” (214). In short, Essays is the high-water mark of Emerson’s literary achievement and the product of his decades-long career as a professional writer. Addressing a wide
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spectrum of topics and a panoply of ideas, Essays moves readers from both the scholarly and ordinary worlds, making it an ideal source for theorizing
Transcendentalism.
4.3 The Four Transcendentalist Principles
I emphasize four fundamental principles in Emersonian Transcendentalism: the Soul, Inner divinity, Anti-authority, and Self-Reliance. The concept of the Over-Soul stems from a mystical belief that every soul is part of a universal soul and therefore all souls are connected souls. Inner Divinity is a moral belief that each individual is born with a godlike nature and guided by a Higher Law. Anti-Authority manifests as political skepticism regarding the absolute authority of human
institutions (e.g., legal and political institutions). Self-Reliance is a practical belief that all individuals should cultivate self-sufficiency and independence. Together, these four doctrines constitute the foundation of Emersonian Transcendentalism and
underlie almost all the works of the Transcendentalists.
4.3.1 Three Disclaimers
Before beginning a deeper investigation of Emersonian Transcendentalism, I offer three disclaimers for clarity’s sake: 1) this is not a study of influence, 2) this is not a comparative essay, and 3) the four fundamental principles are provisional and not meant as absolute categories. In the first place, this paper does not trace
Emersonian influence on Thoreau in order to prove that Emerson was the literary father and Thoreau his disciple. The employment of Emersonianism provides a framework for analysis, not a means to establish the idolization of Emerson. It would be more accurate to say that this essay traces Transcendentalism in Thoreau’s political works rather than that it traces Emerson’s influence on Thoreau. Second, this essay does not provide a comparative analysis of Emerson and Thoreau. If this were a
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comparative essay, it would be more appropriate to juxtapose Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” with one of Emerson’s essay, such as “Politics,” since both are political tracts that express similar ideas. However, a comparison of two relatively similar articles would amount to a negligible academic contribution.
Instead of tracing influence or establishing Emerson as the forefather of the movement, this thesis aims to determine the role Transcendentalist Principles play in Thoreauvian civil disobedience. While the four principles defined above may seem arbitrary or overly absolute, I view them as a provisional means of establishing the movement’s core principles. Transcendentalism is an organic and fluid philosophy that lacks a strict theoretical framework; however, a certain degree of categorization remains necessary when analyzing a text. The four principles—the Over-Soul, Inner Divinity, Anti-Authority, and Self-Reliance—do not exclude one another; they are sub-classifications under the umbrella of Transcendentalism. Together, they help to constitute Transcendentalism; apart, they help to distinguish different aspects within the larger movement. Even though the categories are provisional, they facilitate a more systematic analysis of Transcendentalism.
4.3.2 The First Principle/ the Mystical Principle: the Over-Soul
Positing the existence of a fluid universal soul, the concept of the Over-Soul is based on a mystical belief that all individual souls are deeply connected to the soul of the Universe. The Over-Soul is the soul of the Universe, the creator, or the God that permeates all individual souls. The Over-Soul produces all souls, and all souls
comprise the Over-Soul. All individual souls are the different aspects of the Over-Soul and yet all belong to this greater Over-Soul. The soul of each individual is identical to the soul of the world and latently contains all that it contains.
4.3.2.1 The Essence of the Over-Soul
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Emerson uses the ocean as a key metaphor to explain the Over-Soul. Both the Over-Soul and the ocean have shared features: 1) they exist everywhere and remain the same essentially, 2) they play both beginning and end roles, and 3) they are fluid and flexible without definite physical boundaries. Emerson’s opening sentence in Essays introduces this notion: “There is one mind common to all individual men.
Every man is an inlet to the same and to all the same” (1). First, the soul is essentially the same whether it is the universal soul or an individual soul, just as water is
substantially the same whether it is in an ocean or in rivers, lakes, or inlets. If the Over-Soul is an ocean, then all individual souls are rivers, lakes, or inlets. No matter the scale, souls are all the same, just as water is the same in all different bodies of water. Next, the Over-Soul is the origin and the conclusion of each individual soul, just as an ocean is both the start and the end of each drop of water. The Over-Soul is the birthplace of an individual soul, and all individual souls complement the universal soul; the one (individual soul) and the all (Over-Soul) complete each other. Lastly, like water in its various forms, the Over-Soul is fluid rather than fixed, unconstrained by physical boundaries. Individual souls can freely access the Over-Soul, and vice versa. The macrocosm and microcosm communicate with one another regardless of physical boundaries. In short, Emerson uses the image of the ocean (the Over-Soul) and its inlets (individual souls) to characterize the Over-Soul as the same everywhere, as both beginning and the end, and as fluid and without boundaries.
4.3.2.2 Accessing the Over-Soul
I believe that Emerson’s description of 1) the Universe, 2) others, and 3) Nature reveal his understanding of the operation of the Over-Soul in relation to individuals.
To begin with, each individual is connected to the soul of the Universe. Emerson claims that “within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal
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beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE” (190).
This eternal ONE is the soul of the Universe that stays “at the centre of nature and over the will of every man” (99), waiting to be discovered by people. Once a soul links to the Universe, it becomes part of the past, present, and future of the world.
Moreover, Emerson states that the “power of man consists in the multitude of his affinities, in the fact that his life is intertwined with the whole chain of organic and inorganic being” (26). With these affinities, an individual finds a proper position in the Universe.
Second, individual souls can sympathize with one another at both personal and national levels regardless of temporal or spatial barriers. At the personal level, one can understand an ancient or foreign philosopher, despite differences in time and space.
Emerson writes: “What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand” (1). Likewise, one can understand a nation by examining the experience of an individual. Emerson claims: “The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man” (2). The nation is a
macrocosm whereas the individual is a microcosm, and both are essentially the same, differing only in scale. In other words, the ability to sympathize with others reveals a Transcendentalist belief in how the Over-Soul works in relations among people.
Emerson’s assertion that individuals should foster awareness of the fluidity of Nature exemplifies the Transcendentalist belief that the ever-lasting spirit is more important than transient appearances. Emerson claims: “There are no fixtures in nature” (212). Adopting the metaphor of a cloud, Emerson writes that “Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same” (9) and that people are
surrounded by “this all-creating nature, soft and fluid as a cloud or the air” (9). The provisional, shallow, changeable, physical, and perishable nature of appearances and
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earthly concerns prompts Emerson to assert that “the soul knows them not” (9)
because it only knows their ever-lasting spirit. Nature, as the embodiment of the Over-Soul, reveals the distinction between the material and spiritual worlds.
4.3.3 The Second Principle/ the Moral Principle: Inner-Divinity
The mystical belief in the shared soul of the Universe – that everyone shares the universal mind and therefore a divine existence – leads to a moral belief in Inner Divinity. Inner Divinity is based on two basic premises: 1) all men are divine, and 2) a Higher Law exists. Emerson claims: “all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable all days holy, all men divine” (8). Sometimes people do not realize their latent divinity because their inner God is veiled. Emerson writes: “Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool” (23). Before individuals discover their latent divinity, they are but fools; only by recognizing the indwelling sacredness can they become holy. Moreover, Emerson wants people not only to recognize their Inner Divinity but also to live out their godliness. He claims: “A man shall be the Temple of Fame. He shall walk, as the poets have described that goddess, in a robe painted all over with wonderful events and experiences” (28). In other words, Inner Divinity elevates individuals to the level of gods and goddesses.
This optimistic view of humanity’s innate divinity distinguishes
Transcendentalism from traditional Christian beliefs. As Goddard explains, like its Unitarian precursor, Transcendentalism breaks sharply with traditional Calvinism:
The Calvinists believed that human nature is totally depraved; the
Unitarians denied this, their denial carrying with it the positive implication that human nature is essentially good; the transcendentalists believed that human nature is divine. (Goddard 28)
Whereas Christians traditionally adopted a pessimistic view of humanity as sinful and
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in need of rescue, the Transcendentalists adopted the optimistic view that individuals possess inborn divinity. Emerson optimistically believed that people can become divine by putting their latent divinity to good use.
Higher Law, also known as Higher Principle or Spiritual Law, is the other important component of Inner Divinity. Higher Law is neither physical nor human-made nor civil; it is the law of the Universe, of the spirit, of righteousness, and sometimes it can be understood as conscience or morality. Higher Law denotes a spiritual or natural law that serves both as a fair regulator of the world at the universal scale and as a conscientious guide for individuals. On the macrocosmic level, “a higher law than that of our will regulates events” (99); on the microcosmic level,
“[t]here is a guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening, we shall hear the right word” (99). Everyone has access to this Higher Law, and “the Highest dwells with him” (209), so everyone can distinguish right from wrong without exterior resources.
Inner Divinity is a moral principle based on the Transcendentalist belief that every individual possesses divine potential, and Higher Law is an indispensable element in the operation of this Inner Divinity as it emanates into and constitutes itself in matter.
4.3.4 The Third Principle/ the Political Principle: Anti-Authority
Embracing the notion that every human is part of the Over-Soul and born with Inner Divinity, Transcendentalists prefer seeking counsel from the interior rather than the exterior. Consequently, they detest any dominion outside the innermost world, rejecting historical, institutional, and political authorities. Common people regard these authorities as the foundation of civilization and respect and observe their
dictates; however, Transcendentalists are so alert and skeptical of authorities that they choose to keep a distance and not compromise their personal autonomy. Emerson’s proverb captures this belief: “Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist” (35).
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This nonconformity stems directly from an affirmation of Inner Divinity, manifesting the principle of Anti-Authority.
4.3.4.1 Anti-Past
Emerson derides blind worship of the past and people who regard history as the supreme authority. In “Circle,” he argues that the old days are not worth celebrating – that they only represent negativity:
Why should we import rags and relics into the new hour? Nature abhors the old, and old age seems the only disease: all others run into this one. We call it by many names—fever, intemperance, insanity, stupidity, and crime: they are all forms of old age: they are rest, conservatism, appropriation, inertia;
not newness, not the way onward. (225)
Instead of idolizing the past and seeking to divulge history, Emerson treats history neutrally as a lesson that teaches and remedies “the defect of our too great nearness to ourselves” (3); Emerson chooses to remain in the present moment, and, from that vantage, to explain its significance to his contemporaries.
4.3.4.2 Anti-Institution
The Transcendentalists view the existence of institutions impartially but oppose them when they become authoritarian and rigid. Institutions include churches, schools, and society, respectively representing religious, educational, and social authorities. Emerson claims: “Our Sunday schools and churches and pauper-societies are yokes to the neck” (97). Unlike common people who praise the positive functions of schools and churches, Emerson points out that these institutions are 1) “paralyzing the understanding” of children, 2) obstructing the creativity of children, and 3)
producing “only fear and obedience, and even much sympathy with the tyranny” (21).
producing “only fear and obedience, and even much sympathy with the tyranny” (21).