Divinity School Address

“In this refulgent summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life. The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with fire and gold in the tint of flowers.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s first line of his speech places his speech within certain philosophical boundaries. Noticing the natural world around him exemplifies the Transcendentalist call to renew oneself by finding solitude in nature. Poetic and indulgent, his language in the first paragraph is meant to draw the listener in, as it portrays lush and colorful imagery of abundant nature in motion.

“What am I? and What is? asks the human spirit with a curiosity new-kindled, but never to be quenched.”

This quote marks Emerson’s transition from discussion of the natural world to discussion of the inner world. This is a key moment in Emerson’s structure, as he oscillates between the outer and inner world for the rest of the essay.

“These facts have always suggested to man the sublime creed, that the world is not the product of manifold power, but of one will, of one mind; and that one mind is everywhere active, in each ray of the star, in each wavelet of the pool; and whatever opposes that will, is everywhere balked and baffled, because things are made so, and not otherwise.”

This quote reveals Emerson’s primary theme of the Inherent Virtue of All Beings because it invokes the oneness of all living things. He uses natural imagery of the star and the pool to make this idea appear vast (from heaven to the earth) and immutable. He believes that whatever opposes this oneness is working against man and God and therefore contrary to nature. This philosophy of “one mind” is a driving theme in all his work and a core tenet of Transcendentalist thought.