Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
the inexplicable continuity "of what I call God, and fools nature," as
Browning expressed it.]
[Footnote 13: His expanding knowledge will become a creator.]
[Footnote 14: Know thyself. Plutarch ascribes this saying to Plato. It
is also ascribed to Pythagoras, Chilo, Thales, Cleobulus, Bias, and
Socrates; also to Phemonië, a mythical Greek poetess of the
ante-Homeric period. Juvenal (Satire XI. 27) says that this precept
descended from heaven. "Know thyself" and "Nothing too much" were
inscribed upon the Delphic oracle.
"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man."
]
[Footnote 15: Observe the brisk movement of these sentences. How they
catch and hold the attention, giving a new impulse to the reader's
interest!]
[Footnote 16: Nature abhors a vacuum.]
[Footnote 17: Noxious. Harmful.]
[Footnote 18: John Locke (1632-1704), an English philosopher whose
work was of especial significance in the development of modern
philosophy. The work he is best known by is the exhaustive "Essay on
the Human Understanding," in which he combated the theory of
Descartes, that every man has certain "innate ideas." The innate-idea
theory was first proved by the philosopher Descartes in this way.
Descartes began his speculations from a standpoint of absolute doubt.
Then he said, "I think, therefore I am," and from this formula he
built up a number of ideas innate to the human mind, ideas which we
cannot but hold. Locke's "Essay on the Human Understanding" did much
to discredit Descartes' innate ideas, which had been very generally
accepted in Europe before.]
[Footnote 19: Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, Viscount Saint Alban's
(1561-1626), a famous English statesman and philosopher. He occupied
high public offices, but in 1621 was convicted of taking bribes in his
office of Lord Chancellor. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to
imprisonment and a fine of forty thousand pounds. Both these sentences
were remitted, however. In the seventeenth century, judicial
corruption was so common that Bacon's offence was not considered so
gross as it would now be. As a philosopher Bacon's rank has been much
disputed. While some claim that to his improved method of studying
nature are chiefly to be attributed the prodigious strides taken by
modern science, others deny him all merit in this respect. His best
known works are: "The Novum Organum," a philosophical treatise; "The
Advancement of Learning," a remarkable argument in favor of
scholarship; and the short essays on subjects of common interest,
usually printed under the simple title "Bacon's Essays."]
[Footnote 20: Third Estate. The thirteenth century was the age when
the national assemblies of most European countries were putting on
their definite shape. In most of them the system of _estates_
prevailed. These in most countries were three--nobles, clergy, and
commons, the commons being the third estate. During the French
Revolution the Third Estate, or Tiers Etat, asserted its rights and
became a powerful factor in French politics, choosing its own leaders
and effecting the downfall of its oppressors.]
[Footnote 21: Restorers of readings. Men who spend their lives trying
to improve and correct the texts of classical authors, by comparing
the old editions with each other and picking out the version which
seem most in accordance with the authors' original work.]
[Footnote 22: Emendators. The same as restorers of readings.]
[Footnote 23: Bibliomaniacs. Men with a mania for collecting rare and
beautiful books. Not a bad sort of mania, though Emerson never had any
sympathy for it.]
[Footnote 24: To many readers Emerson's own works richly fulfill this
obligation. He himself lived continually in such a lofty mental
atmosphere that no one can come within the circle of his influence
without being stimulated and elevated.]
[Footnote 25: Genius, the possession of a thoroughly active soul,
ought not to be the special privilege of favorites of fortune, but the
right of every sound man.]
[Footnote 26: They stunt my mental growth. A man should not accept
another man's conclusions, but merely use them as steps on his upward
path.]
[Footnote 27: If you do not employ such talent as you have in original
labor, in bearing the mental fruit of which you are capable, then you
do not vindicate your claim to a share in the divine nature.]
[Footnote 28: Disservice. Injury.]
[Footnote 29: In original composition of any sort our efforts
naturally flow in the channels worn for us by the first dominating
streams of early genius. The conventional is the continual foe of all
true art.]
[Footnote 30: Emerson is continually stimulating us to look at things
in new ways. Here, for instance, at once the thought comes: "Is it not
perhaps possible that the transcendent genius of Shakespeare has been
rather noxious than beneficent in its influence on the mind of the
world? Has not the all-pervading Shakespearian influence flooded and
drowned out a great deal of original genius?"]
[Footnote 31: That is,--when in his clear, seeing moments he can
distil some drops of truth from the world about him, let him not waste
his time in studying other men's records of what they have seen.]
[Footnote 32: While Emerson's verse is frequently unmusical, in his
prose we often find passages like this instinct with the fairest
poetry.]
[Footnote 33: Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400). The father of English
poetry. Chaucer's chief work is the "Canterbury Tales," a series of
stories told by pilgrims traveling in company to Canterbury.
Coleridge, the poet, wrote of Chaucer: "I take unceasing delight in
Chaucer; his manly cheerfulness is especially delicious to me in my
old age. How exquisitely tender he is, yet how free from the least
touch of sickly melancholy or morbid drooping." Chaucer's poetry is
above all things fresh. It breathes of the morning of literature. Like
Homer he had at his command all the riches of a new language undefiled
by usage from which to choose.
"Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,
On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled."
]
[Footnote 34: Andrew Marvell (1620-1678). An eminent English patriot
and satirist. As a writer he is chiefly known by his "Rehearsal
Transposed," written in answer to a fanatical defender of absolute
power. When a young man he was assistant to the poet Milton, who was
then Latin secretary to Oliver Cromwell. Marvell's wit and
distinguished abilities rendered him formidable to the corrupt
administration of Charles II., who attempted without success to buy
his friendship. Emerson's literary perspective is a bit unusual when
he speaks of Marvell as "one of the great English poets." Marvell
hardly ranks with Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton.]
[Footnote 35: John Dryden (1631-1700). A celebrated English poet.
Early in life he wrote almost entirely for the stage and achieved
great success. In the latter part of his life, however, according to
Macaulay, he "turned his powers in a new direction with success the
most splendid and decisive. The first rank in poetry was beyond his
reach, but he secured the most honorable place in the second.... With
him died the secret of the old poetical diction of England,--the art
of producing rich effects by familiar words."]
[Footnote 36: Plato (429-347 B.C.). One of the most illustrious
philosophers of all time. Probably no other philosopher has
contributed so much as Plato to the moral and intellectual training of
the human race. This pre-eminence is due not solely to his
transcendent intellect, but also in no small measure to his poetic
power and to that unrivaled grace of style which led the ancients to
say that if Jove should speak Greek he would speak like Plato. He was
a remarkable example of that universal culture of body and mind which
characterized the last period of ancient Greece. He was proficient in
every branch of art and learning and was such a brilliant athlete that
he contended in the Isthmian and Pythian games.]
[Footnote 37: Gowns. The black gown worn occasionally in America and
always in England at the universities; the distinctive academic dress
is a cap and gown.]
[Footnote 38: Pecuniary foundations. Gifts of money for the support of
institutions of learning.]
[Footnote 39: Wit is here used in its early sense of intellect, good
understanding.]
[Footnote 40: Valetudinarian. A person of a weak, sickly
constitution.]
[Footnote 41: Mincing. Affected.]
[Footnote 42: Preamble. A preface or introduction.]
[Footnote 43: Dumb abyss. That vast immensity of the universe about us
which we can never understand.]
[Footnote 44: I comprehend its laws; I lose my fear of it.]
[Footnote 45: Silkworms feed on mulberry-leaves. Emerson describes
what science calls "unconscious cerebration."]
[Footnote 46: Ripe fruit. Emerson's ripe fruit found its way into his
diary, where it lay until he needed it in the preparation of some
lecture or essay.]
[Footnote 47: I. Corinthians xv. 53.]
[Footnote 48: Empyrean. The region of pure light and fire; the ninth
heaven of ancient astronomy.
"The deep-domed empyrean
Rings to the roar of an angel onset."
]
[Footnote 49: Ferules. According to the methods of education fifty
years ago, it was quite customary for the teacher to punish a
school-child with his ferule or ruler.]
[Footnote 50: Oliver Wendell Holmes cites this last sentence as the
most extreme development of the distinctively Emersonian style. Such
things must be read not too literally but rapidly, with alert
attention to what the previous train of thought has been.]
[Footnote 51: Savoyards. The people of Savoy, south of Lake Geneva in
Switzerland.]
[Footnote 52: Emerson's style is characterized by the frequent use of
pithy epigrams like this.]
[Footnote 53: Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). A great English
philosopher and mathematician. He is famous as having discovered the
law of gravitation.]
[Footnote 54: Unhandselled. Uncultivated, without natural advantages.
A handsel is a gift.]
[Footnote 55: Druids. The ancient priesthood of the Britons in Cæsar's
time. They had immense power among these primitive peoples. They were
the judges as well as the priests and decided all questions. It is
believed that they made human sacrifices to their gods in the depths
of the primeval forest, but not much is known of their rites.]
[Footnote 56: Berserkers. Berserker was a redoubtable hero in
Scandinavian mythology, the grandson of the eight-handed Starkodder
and the beautiful Alfhilde. He had twelve sons who inherited the
wild-battle frenzy, or berserker rage. The sagas, the great
Scandinavian epics, are full of stories of heroes who are seized with
this fierce longing for battle, murder, and sudden death. The name
means bear-shirt and has been connected with the old _were-wolf_
tradition, the myth that certain people were able to change into
man-devouring wolves with a wolfish mad desire to rend and kill.]
[Footnote 57: Alfred, surnamed the Great (848-901), king of the West
Saxons in England. When he ascended the throne his country was in a
deplorable condition from the repeated inroads of northern invaders.
He eventually drove them out and established a secure government.
England owes much to the efforts of Alfred. He not only fought his
country's battles, but also founded schools, translated Latin books
into his native tongue, and did much for the intellectual improvement
of his people.]
[Footnote 58: The hoe and the spade. "In spite of Emerson's habit of
introducing the names of agricultural objects into his writing ('Hay,
corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool, and wood' is a line from one of
his poems), his familiarity therewith is evidently not so great as he