Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays--First and Second Series
Reading notes--Adam Kissel
NATURE [cf. 1837 Nature]
pp. 346-65 (Riverside edn. = R, 167-196)
(R 330-31 thanks Dr. Ralph Barton Perry for tracing the use of terms like natura naturata and natura naturans, following Aristotle through Averroës, Cusanus, Bruno, and Spinoza.)
harmonious trance of external nature, entrancing present,
346-49
even memory is obliterated, 347
nature heals us of city and society, 347
the financially rich not truly rich with nature’s riches, 350
beauty found everywhere, 351
natura naturata alone, is mere dilettantism; need active nature in addition,
351
Nature loved by what’s best in us, as the city of God, 352
nature as aspiration, though we should ultimately be above it!, 352
natura naturans exists in boundless space and time, 353
evolution and gradualism; inevitable progress, 353
nature: one stuff, all in motion/change or in identity/rest, consistent, 354:
consistent direction, transcending onward; system
in constant transition, 354-55
even the so-called artificial comes out of
nature, 355
all nature as thoughts in man’s head [see often above, esp. First Series], 356
identity and action both run into organization, 356
Emerson agnostic about First Mover, 356
all things have some excess of proper quality
that gives them motion to realize their full being, 357
we are deceived by the falsehood of exaggeration in nature, for our own good
(serves aspiration), 357-58
nature is superabundant to excess, so that it at
least comes through when necessary for maintenance, 358
like successful preaching/rhetoric, nature
projects itself as higher than it is, 358-59
or like private journals: even if experience is
rich, expression may be lacking, 359
promise outruns performance, 360
eschatology: always a greater end unattained, 360
Nature in reality does not meet its ideal; can
never reach true beauty through it
rather should see nature as promise, or feel that
the soul of Nature streams also through us, 363
particulars yet carry innate universal laws
(macro in micro; motion together with rest), 363
the laws exist as ideas
in the mind, 363, which are embodied in nature, 364
Old ends of effort in using nature: for thought, virtue beauty; now, we have forgotten those ends and have made the mere removal of friction the end, in itself--but this is nothing except absence of restriction [negative freedom], 360-61
Man exists both in mind and in matter, 364
There is wisdom in all things, 365