Essays: First Series (1841)

AUTHOR: Emerson, Ralph Waldo

The essays express Emerson's concept of the One-All upon which most Transcendentalist theorizing is based; for example, in A. Bronson Alcott's Tablets and Concord Days as well as several of Charles Lane's writings such as “The Third Dispensation”. In his essays Emerson also criticizes what he perceives as an incorrect emphasis in reform movements.

KEYWORDS: food, animals, land usage, environmentalism, reform, Transcendentalism

SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin & Aïcha Bouchelaghem; edited Deborah Madsen):

The essays collected in this volume emphasize the interconnectedness of all beings, animate and inanimate, as different expressions of the ideal One-All. This is expressed most succinctly in “The Over-Soul,” the title of which already alludes to this unifying principle: “We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul” (269). This whole is not a transcendent realm unto itself, but immanently present everywhere, expressed in every thing: in “Compensation” Emerson writes, “God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb” (101). “Whilst the world is thus dual,” Emerson explains in the same essay, “so is every one of its parts. The entire system of things gets represented in every particle. There is somewhat that resembles the ebb and flow of the sea, day and night, man and woman, in a single needle of the pine, in a kernel of corn, in each individual of every animal tribe” (97). Everything is thus entangled; in a fundamental sense, everything is the same, nothing but the One-All.

In the first essay of the collection, Emerson makes clear that through the faculty of genius, the human has the capacity to unlock and see this unity and is thus, in principle, attuned to the interconnectedness of Being in all its forms. For Emerson, such attunement is predominantly an ethical task. But it is not attainable by the sole means of empirical study; it is not enough simply to observe nature, for mere empirical observation does not get at the ground of things and thus also misses  the ethical import of interconnected Being. To remain on the level of empirical observation is to remain disconnected both from individual beings and, importantly, from the One-All. For Emerson, the most important task is to foster and train our capacity of "genius."

In this context Emerson frequently expresses skepticism towards contemporary social reform efforts of his day as being too concerned with non-essential externalities. These include arguments for dietary reform and Temperance. He is quite clear on this point in “Spiritual Laws”: “The poor mind does not seem to itself to be any thing unless it have an outside badge,—some Gentoo diet, or Quaker coat, or Calvinistic prayer-meeting, or philanthropic society, or a great donation, or a high office, or, any how, some wild contrasting action to testify that it is somewhat. The rich mind lies in the sun and sleeps, and is Nature” (163). And in “Self-Reliance,” Emerson complains: “Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. […] I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. […] I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding” (52-53). What Emerson thought of as dogmatic, external injunctions to abstain would be valid only as part of an inner drive towards the attainment of the One-All, as Emerson makes clear in the essay “Heroism”:

The temperance of the hero, proceeds from the same wish to do no dishonor to the worthiness he has. But he loves it for its elegancy, not for its austerity. It seems not worth his while to be solemn, and denounce with bitterness flesh-eating, or wine-drinking, the use of tobacco, or opium, or tea, or silk, or gold. A great man scarcely knows how he dines, how he dresses; but without railing or precision his living is natural and poetic. [...]  The heroic soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. It does not ask to dine nicely and to sleep warm. The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament. It does not need plenty, and can very well abide its loss (254-255).

Temperance and abstention must be truly ethical and serve attunement to the One-All, otherwise they can be deeply unethical.

 

Last updated on March 2nd, 2024

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