Divinity School Address

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s primary theme is the inherent virtue of all things. Primarily a philosophical idea, Emerson uses it theologically to tell his audience to preach from their own conscience and life experience. Inherent virtue is self-evident to Emerson through natural laws, human intuition, and the prophets of the past.

Emerson states that humans’ inherent understanding of morality “is an insight of the perfection of the laws of the soul” (3). Therefore, people can be self-reliant in their attempt at divinity because the very laws that govern their soul govern the universe. Humans can then become their own God because of their own virtue. For Emerson, this is not a dethroning of a higher power but in line with divine laws. When people do good, it is because they have followed divine laws. People who do good deeds receive a spiritual benefit, and people who do bad deeds must pay the price in their soul. Such worldly experience teaches people that these laws are true.

It is also human intuition that expounds divine laws. Since humanity, God, and the natural world all share an inherent virtue, they share she same intuition. Emerson uses the image of a single will and a single mind.