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TRANS-

Revue de littérature générale et comparée


12 | 2011
La trace

The Metaphysical Correspondence between Nature


and Spirit in the Visions of the American
Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and
Henry David Thoreau
Vesselina Runkwitz

Electronic version
URL: https://journals.openedition.org/trans/473
DOI: 10.4000/trans.473
ISSN: 1778-3887

Publisher
Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle

Electronic reference
Vesselina Runkwitz, “The Metaphysical Correspondence between Nature and Spirit in the Visions of
the American Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau”, TRANS- [Online],
12 | 2011, Online since 08 July 2011, connection on 09 October 2024. URL: http://
journals.openedition.org/trans/473 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/trans.473

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The Metaphysical Correspondence between Nature and Spirit in the Visions of t... 1

The Metaphysical Correspondence


between Nature and Spirit in the
Visions of the American
Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo
Emerson and Henry David Thoreau
Vesselina Runkwitz

Introduction
1 Man’s attempt to solve the riddle of his existence – of the surrounding world and his
inner states by means of his mental activity – is rooted in his very nature and has been
a strong desire for centuries. With the awakening of the conscious mind, this
endeavour led him into the spheres of philosophy and religion. Each person creates his
own philosophy and belief to match his own character and personal experiences. Thus
it is the individual’s inner response that determines his way of living and thinking.

Historical background and origin of the concept


‘transcendentalism’
2 American transcendentalism in all of its literary expressions was the response of a
group of intellectuals in the 1830s to the spiritual and social state of their time. They
were primarily unified by their protest against theoretical dogmatism and by their
philosophical-religious visions. Nevertheless, their personal views differed, just as their
theoretical beliefs differed and even contradicted one another. Hence,
transcendentalism was not a monolithic movement. Its representatives did not hold to
any formal philosophical idea or religious doctrine. It was rather a composite of

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The Metaphysical Correspondence between Nature and Spirit in the Visions of t... 2

different spiritual streams and liberal ideas of the Enlightenment, which revolutionized
and provided new impetus to the the spirit and thought of the time.
3 This essay will explore the visions of the main representatives of transcendentalism,
Ralph Waldo Emerson and his companion Henry David Thoreau. In order to understand
which fundamental ideas underlie their theory, it will first be first necessary to gain an
insight into the specific historical context of the movement and into the origins of the
term “transcendental”. The essay will further discuss Emerson’s “intuitional
philosophy”, which is based on the belief that spiritual truth may be conceived
intuitively and directly from God. Subsequently, Emerson’s mystical spiritual
experience of nature will be considered and his concept of the “Over Soul” will be
discussed with reference to the idealistic view of the German poet Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe, as illustrated by one of the latter’s poems. Finally, this work will examine how
Thoreau saw man’s relation to nature and what his transcendental vision of the
correspondence between spirit and nature was.

The religious-historical background of American Transcendentalism

4 When Goddard described the 18th century as an ’age of prose and reason‘, 1 he was
primarily referring to the rigid Calvinistic dogmatism and its anti-emotional attitude,
which dominated the spirit of North America at the time. Although New England had
won political freedom with the Declaration of Independence in 1776, America was still
strongly bound to the intellectual, cultural and religious convictions of her mother
colony 50 years later.
5 Calvinism emerged in the late 16th century as a rejection of the prevailing lax moral
standards, the lavishness and extravagance of the Church, and the infinite starvation of
the epoch. The reformatory religious doctrine established by the clergymen Johannes
Calvin was later adopted by the Puritans, who rejected the authority of the Church and
sought to overcome the social demoralization of their time2. The Puritans derived their
name from the translation of the Greek term ’catharus‘, meaning ‘pure‘. They argued in
favour of a purification of the Church from sin and immorality. The main thesis of
Calvinism centred on the assumption of an absolute predestination of the human being
to eternal life or eternal death according to God’s will. Furthermore, it held to the
conviction that man’s nature was sinful and depraved since the fall from grace. They
therefore saw the human being as incapable of finding redemption by means of his own
will and effort. He was required to undertake a moral regeneration through rigorous
self-discipline and devoutness. Since the human being was supposed to be spiritually
blinded, he could recognize the will of God only by a strenuous study of the Holy
Scripture. The Calvinists called for an emotionless, rational interpretation of the Bible
by authorized clergymen. Believers were compelled to adhere to particular analytic
requirements and were therefore not able to attain dialectic knowledge of diverse
biblical readings3. At the end of the 18th century, a ’spiritual deadness’ 4 prevailed in
North America, due to the objectified, sceptical perspective, which condemned all
enthusiasm.
6 When, as a result of the French revolution, egalitarian ideas and humanitarian
endeavours reached New England, it lead to major divisions in religious and intellectual
beliefs. A group of liberal Christians, who were intensely influenced by those ideas,
sought to unify reason and enthusiasm in an ethical system that allowed for self-

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contained and enlightened judgement. In this system ‘moral sense‘ formed the central
element. The most significant representative of this religious insight was the Unitarian5
William Ellery Chaning (1780 – 1840), who is also regarded as the forerunner of
transcendentalism. In 1818 he wrote in his journal, ‘Unitarian Christianity‘, that the
belief in predestination tended to “pervert the moral faculty”.6 Instead, he preached
salvation through active exertion and through striving for spiritual evolution or
unfolding, which he called “self-culture”.7 The Unitarians rejected the idea of the
depravity of man, and claimed that the human being was good by nature. They
propagated a critical confrontation with theological questions in order to console the
religious crisis of their time. Believing that a scientifically based view could give firm
evidence of biblical revelation, they attached themselves to the Empiricist doctrine of
John Locke8. According to Locke, human intuitive knowledge is restricted to the
confines of deductive logic, which means that all assertion can only be deduced
through information gained by our sensory perception. As a consequence, he
considered human cognitive competence as very constrained, as it is only based on
empirical knowledge. He viewed the miracles of the Old and New Testament as
historical evidence of Divine Revelation. Consequently, this view rejected the
assumption that Divine Truth may be received directly by the human soul without any
exertion of the faculty of judgement9.
7 Since the Unitarians substituted religious experience for the process of rational
judgement, and assigned Divine Revelation to the historical figure of Jesus, they
separated Faith from its metaphysical element. Their emphasized principle of
reasoning helped overcome the bigotry of the Puritans, but on the other hand, it
suggested that religious practice in New England was doomed to freeze into dogmatism
and social materialism.10 The desire for spiritual liberation was already seeded into the
minds of Americans by the French revolution. European Enlightenment and the
democratic concept of liberty was revived on a spiritual level by the emergence of
transcendentalism. Its members criticized the stubborn adherence of the Unitarians to
the Bible as the only and direct relation to God, since they regarded it as an historical
document of a less enlightened time. They believed in the proclamation of Jesus’
doctrine, but they looked for spiritual guidance which could match the needs of an
enlightened individual. Averting themselves from historically based dogmatism, they
turned towards the inner life of the individual and towards the intuitive font of Truth.
They believed in the vocation of man to recognize Divine Revelation within himself,
beyond empirical experience.11 Nevertheless, they accepted the critically logical
method of the Unitarians and filled it with emotional content in order to transform it
into a method of spiritual intuition.12 As a result they approached the evangelical
statement of faith from a new philosophical perspective. The following statement by
the transcendentalist George Ripley could well summarize the religious standpoint of
the group: “it is to the heart or inward nature of man, in a state of purity or freedom
from subjection to the lower passions, that the presence of God is manifested”.13

Emerson’s formation of vision and the philosophical origin of the


concept of ’transcendentalism’

8 Descending from a puritan family in which his forefathers were clergymen for
generations, Emerson studied to become a clerk and took up the ministry in 1829.14 But
even during his studies at Harvard Divinity School he showed little interest in

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Unitarian instructional material, as Richardson remarks.15 A special role in Emerson’s


sceptical attitude towards traditional dogmatism came from his aunt Mary Moody
Emerson, who took charge of the intellectual education of young Emerson after the loss
of his father at the age of 14. As a very well-read woman and a strong, impulsive and
vivid character, she incited Emerson to think critically and to maintain a liberal
religious attitude.16 In 1832 he resigned from the ministry, explaining that he could not
uphold the Unitarian view with conviction any longer. He rejected the ritual of the
Lord’s Supper, claiming that it had become reduced to ”worship in the dead forms of
our forefathers”17. He considered it a formality without any truthful spiritual
significance.18 Thus he moved from conventional theology and paved the way for the
new spirit of the time.
9 His inner decision to break with tradition and to take on a new religious orientation
was to a great extent triggered by a personal tragedy. This was the death of his wife,
Ellen Louisa Tucker, only two years after their marriage. As a result of this tragic
experience, the young Emerson fell into a deep emotional crisis, which he strived to
overcome by his search for the existence of God, as his famous biographer Richardson
describes.19
10 A crucial part of the formation of Emerson’s new belief was his one-year trip to Europe
during which he made personal acquaintance with the British romantics Wordsworth,
Coleridge and Carlyle. In their writings he finally found confirmation and
reinforcement of his vision of an intuitive philosophy and of his personal desire for an
unrestricted relationship with God. Recognizing that their ideas were grounded in the
revolutionary a priori doctrine of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804),
Emerson built his religious theory upon the adaptation of Kant’s ideas.20 Kant gave an
especially clear account of what he meant by the concept 'transcendental' in his work,
The Critique of Pure Reason (1781)21. According to his definition, the word transcendental
means not something that lies outside of all experience, but indeed that which
precedes experience (a priori), even though it is destined to nothing more than to make
cognition of experience possible.
11 A priori knowledge, then, emerges in Kantian theory as a function of the subconscious
that initiates cognitive processes. The transcendental question turns towards the
subject, assuming that the subject in the process of cognition constitutes the object in
his consciousness. Accordingly, cognition is not to be understood as a passive
acceptance of a given fact, but as an active accomplishment of the subject. Thus, Kant
deduces that we are able to recognize certain general regularities and phenomena of
reality, because they already exist a priori in our cognitive faculty and are projected
into objects.22 Kant also confronted a priori and empiric cognition, and divided the
human mental faculty into ‘Reason‘ and ‘Understanding‘. He saw reason as a higher
spiritual faculty, where ideas in their significance - according to Plato23 - as unique,
true and original images dwell. ’Understanding‘, on the other hand, is the capacity to
recognize categories or concepts, which refer only to objects which we deduce from
experience, and are thus a posteriori by nature. This implies our capacity for logical
thinking or the ability to understand the creation of ’apperceptive’24 connections.
Adhering to Coleridge’s and Carlyle’s acceptance of Kantian ideas, Emerson adopted
these concepts into his romantic vision. As Buell remarks, “Higher Reason became the
heart of what came to be called transcendental and was used by the New England
transcendentalists as synonymous for the concepts Spirit, Mind, Soul.25

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Nature and Spirit in the transcendental visions of


Emerson and Thoreau
Emerson’s mystic relationship with nature

12 New England Transcendentalism flourished especially in 1836, when Ralph Waldo


Emerson's essay Nature was published. This essay contains the author’s general
transcendental ideas in an accomplished form, and is therefore considered as “the
philosophical constitution of transcendentalism“26. The opening sentences of the essay
have a spontaneous and self-reliant character in their denial of all tradition. “Our Age
is retrospective. It builds the sepulchers of our fathers. It writes biographies, histories,
and criticism.”27
13 At the same time, they express the strong desire for self-definition and spiritual
liberation of ageneration which suffers from the rationally marked age. Emerson calls
for breaking with conformity, and insists on becoming more self-reliant. When
declaring “The sun shines today also”28, he metaphorically invokes the return to one’s
own creativity. But, at the same time, he wants to shake people’s awareness of the
concretely perceptible wonders of Creation, like the sun; the lawful order of principles
and compensation; the numerous lineages between different species. As manifestations
of Divine Creation, they are all accessible to the human mind. Considering the human
being also as a creation of God, Emerson calls for an inner and direct relation to the
Universe when opening one’s spirit to the mystical force of nature. “The foregoing
generations beheld God and nature face to face. We, through their eyes. Why should
not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe”29.
14 In nature, the individual leaves behind all preoccupying activities as well as social
necessities. Gazing at the stars, he becomes aware of his own separateness from the
material world. The stars allow him to perceive the ’perpetual presence of the
sublime’30. Visible every night, they demonstrate that God is ever-present. Emerson saw
a special bond between the object of observation and the observer, especially in the
human capacity to rejoice in something. He conceived that the human’s sense of delight
and the particular property of the object that evokes this feeling in the eye of the
beholder are the proof of their common origin.
15 “The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister is the suggestion of an occult
relation between man and the vegetable.”31
16 Emerson identifies nature and spirit as components of the universe. When retreating
oneself in nature, the individual can experience them as parallel creations of the same
omnipresent Spirit. He discloses that the human being is endowed with a particular
property which enables him to recognize the identity of man and nature. Thus, the
image of the subject and object sharing one particular property is similar to the
Kantian a priori idea: “The waving of the boughs in the storm is new to me and old. It
takes me by surprise and yet is not unknown”32.
17 This occult experience demands the openness, ingenuity and curiosity of a child’s
mind, and is therefore only accessible for those who have retained the spirit of infancy.
Thus, Emerson asserts: “The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into
the eye and into the heart of the child”33. In nature, the individual casts off his earthly

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existence and experiences the divine universal spirit as a force which flows through
man and nature. Due to this energy which dwells also in man, the individual is able to
experience a moment of confidence and delight in the eternal universal energy:
In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what
period so ever of life is always a child. In the woods there is a perpetual youth.
Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival
is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years.34
18 The visionary man may immerse himself in the universe, losing his I-consciousness. He
may become a receptive “transparent eyeball” through which the “Universal Being”
transmits itself into his consciousness, and makes him sense his oneness with God:
I am standing on the bare ground, - my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted
into the infinite space, - all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball;
I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I
am part and particle of God.35
19 The enthusiastic tone and poetic illustration reveal not only Emerson’s personal
spiritual experience of immersion into the spheres of the eternal when surrounded by
nature, but also shows his strong desire to reach and inspire his addressees in the hope
that his realized vision might jump inside them like a spark and ignite. In the
contemplative removal of all ontological restrictions between subjectivity and the
absolute being by abolishment of all egotistic aspirations, the individual experiences a
sameness among nature, God and himself. The assumption that there is one universal
Spirit that dwells in all living creations forms a central element in Emerson’s religious
vision, and is the basis for the direct relation between the individual’s soul and God. In
the moment of immersion with the Universal Soul, the individual encounters the
greatest form of blessedness.
20 Emerson’s religious vision stands in contrast to the Christian doctrine of revelation,
according to which the soul experiences salvation from the outside. To experience awe
in the presence of nature, means to approach it with a balance between our inner and
outer senses. Therefore, it is the particular harmony between man's inner processes
and the outer world that enables the soul to elevate itself. Thus, Emerson shifts
religious significance towards the moral responsibility of the individual. He makes clear
that only he, who pays attention to his conscience, may live in harmony with his own
self and the surrounding world:
He who does a good deed is instantly ennobled. He who does a mean deed is by the
action itself contracted […] If a man dissemble, deceive, he deceives himself, and
goes out of acquaintance with his own being.36
21 Emerson saw nature’s principles of compensation incarnated in human nature as well.
Thus, he discerns that every decision, every action has its equilibrating counterpart in
the universe of causality. In this self-regulating system each action is followed by its
consequence and falls back on the actor himself. Reward and punishment are not
issued by an external divine power, but are the result of a continuously balancing
universe: ”Every act rewards itself, or in other words integrates itself. […] The causal
retribution is in the thing and is seen by the soul“.37
22 To follow the inner moral sentiment therefore meant to fulfil the Divine within himself:
the becoming one with God.
There is no other separate, ultimate resource, for God is within him, God about him,
he is a part of God himself. […] Hence, the first ground of moral obligation is this;
that the Being who ordained [obedience] is the Source, the Support and Principle of

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our existence, and it would be a kind of denying our Nature to reject that which is
agreeable to him.38
23 ‘Conscience’ was not a natural scientific construct, but was conceived as the voice of
God within the soul. “There is no other way for you to arrive at the voice of God but by
patient listening to your own conscience”39. In order to be perpetually open to its
sound, the soul must be free from material attachments and egotistic interests. The
individual should be self-sufficient, self-reliant and should be able to rest within his
own self.

Emerson’s afÏnity to Goethe’s approach to nature

24 The German poet and writer Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) contrasted the
conceptualization of empiricism as a rational, objective, and dispassionate
investigation of nature with that of the intuitively guided and emotionally dominated
artistic genius. In the poem ‘Were the eye not like the sun’, we can identify a parallel to
Emerson’s natural attitude. Here the idea of a divine spirit dwelling in the individual is
manifested:

Wär’ nicht das Auge sonnenhaft, Were the eye not like the sun,

Die Sonne könnt’ es nie erblicken; How could my eye then see it?

Lebt’ nicht in uns des Gottes eigene Were we not endowed with God’s own
Kraft, power,

Wie könnt uns Göttliches entzücken? How could the divine delight us?
40

25 The poem implies the Kantian idea that we only come to know objects in the world
because their forms are present in us a priori.At the same time, it carries the idea
forward, representing the subject not only as the originator, but grounding the
relationship pertaining to cognition in the shared essence between man and nature. It
therefore accentuates the identity between man, nature and God.
26 As Harry Merkle remarks, Goethe assigns a particular significance to the phenomenon
of light. Describing it as the ’Urphänomen der Reinheit‘ (original phenomenon of
purity), he sees it as a visible, divine and simultaneously mystic phenomenon. Goethe’s
religious worship of light also ennobles the eye as the loftiest human sense. It is
important to note that Goethe combines platonic elements with the idea of Plotinus’41
emanation doctrine in this verse. As maintained by this theory, the genesis of the world
is a repercussion of the emanation of the Highest Being. This emanation occurred
gradually, wherein lower forms emerged from higher stages of existence. In line with
this system, the individual is part of the world soul, which implies, vice versa, that the
world soul is inherent in each individual soul.42 Furthermore, Goethe’s poem follows
Plato’s theory of perception, according to which rays are emitted by both the perceived
object and the perceiving eye, and are both related to the fire of daily light.43 By means
of the influx of divine light into the empty receiving vessel, the mind is illuminated and
the soul rejoices in partaking in the sublime. This mystical experience requires the
identity of the individual soul with the world soul.44 Aside from Goethe’s theory,
Emerson relies on Plotinus’ central ideas in the formation of his philosophy: ”Like must
know like“- or ”the same can only be known by the same”45, he states in his Journal.

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Furthermore, he identifies the human soul as an emanation of the universally existent


sublime spirit: ”God without can only be known by God within”46.
27 Emerson found a like-minded companion in Goethe, mainly in his revolt against the
unilateral rationally based sciences. Nevertheless, he did not accept him entirely,
because Goethe had not committed himself to the moral instance of the individual.
Emerson writes: ”Goethe had not a moral perception proportionate to his other
powers“47.

Thoreau’s transcendental attitude to nature

28 Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862) is considered as one of Emerson’s closest


companions and transcendental adherers. It is important to notice that Thoreau was so
impressed by Emerson’s ideas that he was eager to try living in the woods apart from
civilization. In 1845 he withdrew from society for more than two years and, building a
simple cabin at Walden Pond,48 sought a deep and true relation to life. His account of
this experience was recorded in Walden; or, Life in the Woods(1854):
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential
facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came
to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is
so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I
wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.49
29 Thoreau studied the natural world as well as the effects it has upon the human’s state
of mind. He discovered that simplicity in the physical aspects of life brings depth to our
mind, carries our soul to its fullest potential, and causes our imagination to be uplifted
in sucha a way as to change our lives. Like Emerson, he recognized that, in nature,
mean egotism vanishes and primitive needs do not arise. In his chapter on economics
he reveals the first premise of his philosophy: that economic life has to be reduced to
its bare essentials. He saw in the simplicity of life a major condition of the achievement
of a natural relation between man and nature:
I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs
even the wisest man thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he
thinks he must omit. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and
the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots are.50
30 Thoreau claimed that when man aligned his life with material possession, he wasted his
time with unnecessary activities which would impede him from maintaining a deep
relation to nature. Like Emerson, therefore, he saw in nature a mystical as well as
indispensable significance for the individual’s life. Hence, he propagated a close
observation of the natural world and, in particular, of the various interrelations
between animals, plants and birds. Thoreau himself filled numerous pages with the
most detailed observation of the natural phenomena and processes which were
displayed in front of his eyes during his stay in the woods. He illustrates the cyclical
course of the seasons, giving each observation his personal note of impression. The
most abundant and delightful portrayal is devoted to the spring. Here his rejoicing in
the majesty of nature as well as in the harmony of renewal is most evident:51
At length the sun's rays have attained the right angle, and warm winds blow up
mist and rain and melt the snowbanks, and the sun, dispersing the mist, smiles on a
checkered landscape of russet and white smoking with incense, through which the
traveller picks his way from islet to islet, cheered by the music of a thousand

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tinkling rills and rivulets whose veins are filled with the blood of winter which they
are bearing off.52
31 For Thoreau, being wholly involved in nature, perceiving it with all his senses is a state
of generous interchange which can only be experienced through intuition. In order to
partake in nature this way we must let go of our thoughts because they tend to separate
us from nature: “With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. […] We are
not wholly involved in Nature. I may be either the drift-wood in the stream, or Indra in
the sky looking down on it”53. To establish an intimate relation to nature, the human
needs to detach himself from his observant position and surrender himself to the
respect due to the very source of his being. In this state of mind the individual is able to
achieve a balanced and thoughtful happiness.54
32 In spite of various correspondences in their visions, such as the worship of nature and
the assumption of the supremacy of the mind, Emerson and Thoreau strongly diverged
from one another. While Emerson dwelt somewhere between metaphor and
metaphysics, Thoreau had little taste for metaphysics.55 Although his initial works in
the 1840’s were primarily marked by the idealistic influence of Emerson, Thoreau’s
apprehension of reality in the early 1850’s underwent a radical shift in emphasis. He
was increasingly concerned with affirming the visible, intending to depict nature in its
concrete appearance. It is thus conspicuous that through his immersion in nature he
experienced a heightened awareness of the world of matter56. This however did not
confine itself to the surface of things. Rather, by aiming at man’s concrete relationship
to wild, primeval nature, he postulated the answer to his personal quest for the
ultimate grounds of reality:
Think of our life in nature, - daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, -
rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! the actual earth! the common
sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?57
33 Advocating an active contact with the natural world, Thoreau did not attribute to
nature a symbolic meaning for spiritual truth as Emerson did. Instead, he developed a
realistic perspective on the natural world. Hence he apprehended nature rather as the
truth itself, the soil of man and his concrete activity.58
Men nowhere east or west, live yet a natural life, round which the vine clings, and
which the elm willingly shadows. Man would desecrate it by his touch, and so the
beauty of the world remains veiled to him. He needs not only be spiritualized, but
naturalized, on the soil of earth.59
34 Thoreau’s uncompromising realistic view induced him to take a firm position against
the grievances caused in the course of industrialization in the nineteenth century.
Observing the continuous destruction of the natural environment by the construction
of the railroad as well as other forms of economic exploitation of nature, Thoreau
expressed his rage and his disapproval of this development as well as his grievances.
Knowing the value Thoreau placed on the relation of man to nature, it is
understandable that he came to the conclusion that this alienation from nature
entailed the alienation of man from himself60.

Conclusion
35 Considering the religious-philosophical attitude which determined spiritual life in New
England in the early nineteenth century, we can understand the revolutionary quality

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of the transcendentalist movement. The more Calvinism and Empiricism sought to


deprive the individual of his self-reliance and of his belief in his own spirituality, the
stronger and the more compelling were the assertions of the transcendentalists in their
acknowledgement of the mind’s sublimity. This implied the capacity to perceive
spiritual truth by intuition. It is therefore evident that Emerson had not rid himself of
his puritan heritage. Rather, he freed the original and virtuous puritan ideals from the
restrictions which impeded a direct relation to God. Using them as a basis for his moral
concept of self-reliance, he managed to restore their original strength and purity. His
significance for the development of American individualism is thus immeasurable.
Although the concept of self-reliance was later easily converted into egotistical
individualism which served to justify ruthless capitalism, Emerson and Thoreau re-
established the belief in the moral dignity of the individual in a great many of their
adherers, not least by their own self-realization. In this concept, nature plays a crucial
role, since it is the font which satisfies the soul’s desire for true and pure delight.
Whether it inspires the individual to experience its oneness with the universal soul by
an occult transcendence of the material world – as stated by Emerson - or it leads the
individual to the very centre of his being through a direct perceptual contact – as
displayed by Thoreau - the human’s correspondence to nature remains a mysterious
experience which raises the spirit to self-sufficiency and moral commitment.

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Writing 1820- 1865. Ed. Sacvan Bercovitch. 1995. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Bosco, Ronald A. “Ralph Waldo Emerson. A Brief Biography”. In: A Historical Guide to Ralph Waldo
Emerson. Ed.Joel Myerson. New York: Oxford University Press.

Buell, Lawrence. „Ralph Waldo Emerson“. In: Myerson, Joel/Wesley T. Mott. The American
Renaissance in New England. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Co., 1978.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Complete Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ed. Edward W. Emerson, New
York: Wm. H. Wise&Co, 1929.

__________. Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Edit. William H.
Gilman,Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Ed. 1, 1960-1982.

Gayet, Claude. The intellectual development of Henry David Thoreau. Acta Universitalis Uppsaliensis,
Uppsala, 1981.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. Sämtliche Werke in 18 Bänden. Bd. 1: Sämtliche Gedichte. Zürich: Artemis.

Gray, H. David. Emerson. A Statement Of New England Transcendentalism As Expressed In The Philosophy
Of Its Chief Exponent. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1917.

Goddard, H. Clarke. Studies In New England Transcendentalism. New York: Hillary House Publishers,
1960.

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Harrison, John Smith. The Techers of Emerson. California: Sturgis&Walton Company, 1910.

McIntosh, James. Thoreau as a romantic naturalist. His shifting stance toward nature.Cornell
University Press. London, 1974.

Merkle, Harry. Die künstlichen Blinden. Blinde Figuren in Texten sehender Autoren. Würzburg:
Königshausen & Neumann, 2000.

Mott, T. Wesley. Encyclopedia of Transcendentalism. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996.

Neuser, Wilhelm. „Calvins Theologie“. In: Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Handwörterbuch für
Theologie und Religionswissenschaft. Hrsg. Hans D. Betz. 4 Aufl. Bd. 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck
Verlag, 1999.

Raeithel, Gert. Geschichte der Nordamerikanischen Kultur. Vom Puritanismus zum Bürgerkrieg 1600-
1860. Bd. 1. Weinheim: Quadriga Verlag.

Richardson, Robert D. Emerson: The Mind on Fire. University of California Press. California, 1995.

Rose, Anne C. Transcendentalism as a Social Movement 1830- 1850. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1981.

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden: Or, life in the Woods. Houghton Mifflin Company. New York, 1995.

__________. The heart of Thoreau’s Journals, Edit. Odell Shepard. Dover Publications. New York,
1961

NOTES
1. Goddard, H. Clarke. 1960. Studies In New England Transcendentalism. New York: Hillary House
Publishers. p. 13.
2. Raeithel, Gert. Geschichte der Nordamerikanischen Kultur. Vom Puritanismus zum Bürgerkrieg 1600-
1860. Bd.1 Weinheim: Quadriga Verlag. p. 31.
3. Ibid. P. 31-33.
4. Goddard, p. 20.
5. Due to their rejection of the Trinity and their belief in the unity of God, Jesus and the Holy
Spirit, this liberal Christian movement was named Unitarianism. They regarded Jesus as a
mediator between man and God, but without seeing him as God himself. (Bercovitch, Sacvan.
“Unitarian Beginnings” In: The Cambridge History of American Literature. Prose Writing 1820- 1865. Ed.
Sacvan Bercovitch. 1995. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 334).
6. Ibid p. 335.
7. Ibid p. 335.
8. Raeithel, p. 186.
9. Bercovitch,p. 336.
10. The tolerant religious view of the Unitarians was much favoured among Americans at the
beginning of industrialization, mainly due to their positive attitude toward material prosperity,
which contrasted with the puritan discarding of economic wealth. Because of an immense
increase of adherents from wealthy social circles and fewer from the indigent, the commercial
side began to dominate the intellectual one (Bercovitch, p. 335, 337-338).
11. Bercovitch, p. 337 - 338.
12. Goddard, p. 31-33.
13. Quotation is retrieved from Rose, Anne C. 1981. Transcendentalism as a Social Movement 1830-
1850. New Haven: Yale University Press.p.41.

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14. Bosco, Ronald A. “Ralph Waldo Emerson. A Brief Biography”. In: A Historical Guide to Ralph
Waldo Emerson. Ed. Joel Myerson. New York: Oxford University Press.” p.11.
15. Instead he dedicated himself to the study of classical, modern, scientific and philosophical
writings. His leisure time he spent with long promenades in nature and by writing extensive
letters dealing with theological and philosophical topics to his aunt Mary Moody Emerson. Ibid.
p.11.
16. As Emerson states: “His early reading was Milton, Young, Akenside, Samuel Clarke, Jonathan
Edwards and always the Bible. Later Plato, Plotinus, Marcus Antonius, Stewart, Coleridge, Cousin,
Herder, Locke, Mme de Stael, Channing, Mackintosh, Byron” (quotation according to Goddard,
1960,p. 63).
17. Ibid. p.13.
18. Emerson observed this ritual as a profane ceremony which did not correspond to the purely
spiritual experience of incorporation of the Spirit of Jesus. (Richardson, Robert D. Emerson: The
Mind on Fire. University of California Press. California.1995. p.114).
19. Richardson, p.110.
20. The following excerpt from Emerson’s Essay “The Transcendentalist” shows how Emerson
constituted his concept of intuitive thought on the basis of Kantian philosophy: “It is well known
to most of my audience, that the Idealism of the present day acquired the name Transcendental,
from the use of that term by Immanuel Kant of Königsberg, who replied to the sceptical
philosophy of Locke […] The extraordinary profoundness and precision of that man’s thinking
have given vogue to his nomenclature, in Europe and America, to that extent, that whatever
belongs to the class of intuitive thought is popularly called at the present day Trancendental.”
(“The Transcendentalist” In: The Complete Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ed. Edward W.
Emerson, New York: Wm. H. Wise&Co.1929, p.104, in the following abbreviated as CW.).
21. „Ich nenne alle Erkenntnis transzendental, die sich nicht so wohl mit Gegenständen, sondern
mit unsern Begriffen a priori von Gegenständen überhaupt beschäftigt. Ein System solcher Begriffe
würde Transzendental-Philosophie heißen“ (Kant, Immanuel. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Ed. Jens
Timmermann.1998. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag (A13/B26) p. 83).
22. Coreth, Emerich/ Harald Schöndorf. 1983. Philosophie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart:
Verlag W. Kohlhammer Ed. 3.p. 174-176.
23. Plato designated ‘ideas’ the non-perishable archetypical images of an invisible world
according to which our sensuously perceptible world is subordinated. The ideas do not stand for
a materialistically abstract imagination of being but for spiritual existence. Plato differentiated
between collective terms which can be abstracted from the directly experienced world,
spiritually ideal concepts which cannot be deduced from the materialistically imagined because
they are immaterial by nature. (Störig, H. Joachim. 2002. Kleine Weltgeschichte der Philosophie.
Stuttgart: Fischer Verlag, p. 181).
24. „apperceptive“- able to relate new percepts to past experience. (Oxford Dictionary of
English. Edit. Catherine Soanes, Angus Stevenson. Oxford University Press, 2005.
25. Buell, Lawrence. 1978. „Ralph Waldo Emerson“. In: Myerson, Joel/Wesley T. Mott. The
American Renaissance in New England. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Co. p.5.
26. Goddard, p. 33.
27. “Nature” In: The Complete Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ed. Edward W. Emerson, New York:
Wm. H. Wise&Co.1929, subsequently abbreviated as CW, p. 1.
28. Ibid. p.1.
29. Ibid, p.2.
30. Ibid. p.2.
31. Ibid. p.3.
32. Ibid, p.3.
33. Ibid. p.2.

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34. Ibid. p.2.


35. Ibid. p.2.
36. „An Address“ in CW, p. 39.
37. Ibid. p. 156.
38. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Edit.
William H. Gilman.1960-1982Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Ed. 1, p. 253, subsequently
abbreviated as JMN.
39. „The Over-Soul“ in CW, p. 214.
40. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. Sämtliche Werke in 18 Bänden. Bd. 1: Sämtliche Gedichte. Zürich:
Artemis. p. 629
41. Plotinus, 3rd century B.C. is considered the founder of Neo-Platonism, building upon the
basis of his teacher Ammonius Sakkas of Alexandria. His 54 writings were published by his
scholar Porphyrios in the Enneaden. The subjects of his works were primarily God, Soul, Spirit and
ethics (Störig. p. 227-228).
42. Ibid, p. 229
43. Merkle, Harry. 2000. Die künstlichen Blinden. Blinde Figuren in Texten sehender Autoren.
Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. p. 73
44. Harrison, John Smith. 1910. The Teachers of Emerson. California: Sturgis&Walton Company p.
89
45. JMN III, p.186
46. JMN III, p. 186
47. “Thoughts on modern Literature” in CW, p. 1348.
48. Walden Pond is a lake located in Concord, Massachusetts which at that time was owned by
Emerson.
49. Thoreau, Henry David. 1995. Walden: Or, life in the Woods. Houghton Mifflin Company. New
York. p.87
50. Ibid, p. 89.
51. McIntosh, James.1974. Thoreau as a romantic naturalist. His shifting stance toward nature. Cornell
University Press. London. p, 245-247.
52. Walden, p. 296.
53. Ibid, p. 131 – 132.
Thoreau’s rejoicing in the rebirth and growth of nature evokes feelings of humbleness and
respect: “At the approach of spring the red squirrels got under my house, two at a time, directly
under my feet as I sat reading or writing, and kept up the queerest chuckling and chirruping and
vocal pirouetting and gurgling sounds that ever were heard; and when I stamped they only
chirruped the louder, as if past all fear and respect in their mad pranks, defying humanity to stop
them. No, you don't — chickaree — chickaree. They were wholly deaf to my arguments, or failed
to perceive their force, and fell into a strain of invective that was irresistible” (Walden, p. 308).
54. Thoreau saw the individual’s capacity to estimate nature as a sign of the mind’s sublimity:
“The ultimate expression of fruit or any creating thing is a fine effluence which only the most
ingenious worshiper perceives at a reverent distance from its surface even” (Walden, p. 328).
55. Gayet, Claude. 1981. The intellectual development of Henry David Thoreau. Acta Universitalis
Uppsaliensis, Uppsala. p. 61.
56. “Ah those youthful days! Are they never to return? When the walker does not too curiously
observe particulars, but sees, hears, scents, tastes, and feels only himself, - the phenomena that
show themselves in him, - his expanding body, his intellect and heart. No worm or insect,
quadruped or bird, confined his view, but the unbounded universe was his.” (Thoreau, Henry
David. 1961. The heart of Thoreau’s Journals, Edit. Odell Shepard. Dover Publications. New York. p.
110).
57. Waldo, p. 79.

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58. Gayet, 67-68.


59. Waldo, p. 237.
60. “…. for at the same time that we exclude mankind from gathering berries in our field, we
exclude them from gathering health and happiness and inspiration and a hundred other far finer
and nobler fruits than berries, which yet we should not gather ourselves there, nor even carry to
market. We strike only one more blow at simple and wholesome relation to nature.” (Journals, p.
164).

ABSTRACTS
Man’s attempt to solve the riddle of his existence – of the surrounding world and his inner states
by means of his mental activity – is rooted in his very nature and has been a strong desire for
centuries. With the awakening of the conscious mind, this endeavour led him into the spheres of
philosophy and religion. Each person creates his own philosophy and belief to match his own
character and personal experiences. From this point of view, we will consider the writings of
Emerson, Thoreau and Goethe, focussing on their mystical attitude towards nature.

La question qui porte sur la manière de résoudre la question de notre existence – du soi et de
notre rapport au monde – a occupé l’homme depuis ses origines. La religion et la philosophie ont
précisément pour centre cette interrogation. D’après son caractère et ses expériences
personnelles, chaque homme se crée sa propre philosophie. Ainsi du transcendentaliste Ralph
Waldo Emerson : nous voulons interroger sa vision du monde par rapport à celles d’Henri
Thoreau et de Johann Wolfgang Goethe à partir de la question de la correspondance mystique
entre l’homme et la Nature.

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