Nature

A key component of Emerson’s Transcendentalism is his belief that the individual is full of potential for virtue and creativity but that these traits are hampered by the corrupting influence of society. Emerson’s notion of society is broad, encompassing all the social structures that act as intermediaries between man, his intuition, and nature. These include human settlements such as cities, organized religion, and academic institutions that promote the classics over a contemporary approach to life.

Nature is the counterforce to society’s corruption and restores man to the fullness of his intuitive powers. Alone in nature, Emerson’s narrator becomes a depersonalized “transparent eye-ball” who is so receptive to God and his creation that he becomes a “particle of God” (18). Compared to the sublimeness of such a distinction, the man’s societal relations are rendered minimal and irrelevant, as “to be brothers, to be acquaintances,—master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance” (18). The disturbance refers to the fact that societal relations and hierarchies can get in the way of spiritual enlightenment and a direct relationship with God. Indeed, Emerson shows how nature reverses traditional hierarchies, as the child, with their lack of preconceptions about the world, stands to become more enlightened from nature than the learned philosopher.