Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

How did Emerson through his thinking experience man’s relationto nature in this period? In 1831, at the age of twenty-eight, he writes in hisjournal, “Suicidal is the distrust of reason; this fear to think. … To reflectis to receive truth immediately from God without medium. That is livingfaith. To take on trust certain facts is a dead faith, inoperative.” Encouragedby Coleridge, Emerson knows early on the need for the sword of thought,to distinguish without dividing. One must think actively or succumb todead usages that scatter one’s forces. In Nature, Emerson declares, “Naturestretches out her arms to embrace man, only let his thoughts be of equalgreatness … only let his thoughts be of equal scope, and the frame will suitthe picture. … In proportion to the energy of his thought and will, he takesup the world into himself.”In proportion to the energy of man’s thought, nature will unlockthe thinking faculty of his soul. Action, mutual activity, thinking action.As nature exercises man’s will in every event, it also is “a discipline of theunderstanding in intellectual truths. Our dealing with sensible objects is aconstant exercise in the necessary lessons of difference, of likeness of order.”Nature hones the edge of the discerning sword. Yet Emerson senses and ishelped again by Coleridge to articulate that the sharp, cold steel of understandingdoes not suffice. For,to the senses and the understanding belongs a sort of instinctive beliefin the absolute existence of nature. In their view man and Nature areindissolubly joined. Things are ultimates, and they never look beyondtheir spheres. The presence of Reason mars this faith. The first effortof thought tends to relax this despotism of the senses which bindsus to nature as if we were a part of it, and shows us nature aloof,and, as it were, afloat. When the eye of Reason opens to outline andsurface are at once added grace and expression. These proceed fromimagination and affection.Through understanding, man perceives nature as it appears. In thelight of reason nature is revealed as phenomenon, not substance, not morethan the accident or effect of spirit. Understanding, the knowledge of man,is an evening knowledge, vespertina cognitio; reason is akin to the knowledgeof God, or morning knowledge, matutina cognitio. As Emerson had assertedto himself that the lover of truth must keep himself aloof from all mooringsand afloat, so for the lover of truth must nature remain aloof, afloat, protean,unfixed. Otherwise it falls. Vishnu’s Maya must elude Vishnu. Kindled by163