Distinctive features of Emerson’s transcendentalism. How far is it related to his individualism?

Transcendentalism is a word which has been variously interpreted. “Transcendent” means ‘beyond’ and ‘above’, hence a transcendentalist is one who believes in the existence of a divine world, beyond and above the world of the senses. The divine cannot be known by reason or rational analysis, but it can be felt and experienced by the spirit through intuition. The divine is referred to as ‘the over-soul’ by Emerson and it was referred to as the “Soul of all the Worlds” by Wordsworth. The external world is but the raiment or outer covering of the divine. Men can know the divine and ultimately become one with it through the agony of Nature which speaks to the soul and not to the reasoning faculty. If man comes to Nature in a mood of ‘wise passivity’ and allows influences from Nature to enter into his soul, he can see into “the heart of thing.” Thus there is oneness of God. Man and Nature. Emerson stressed the worth of the individual, the dignity of the human soul. He taught Man to rely on himself, on his own intuitions, natural instincts and impulses, and not on any authority outside himself or on tradition, however sacred or old. Thus his transcendentalism is closely linked with his individualism.

His teachings harmonised with the rise of democracy, the rise of romanticism, and the revolt against Puritan Orthodoxy which was begun by the Unitarians and carried by the transcendentalist to its natural conclusion. The Unitarians asserted the doctrine of the freedom of the will. In so doing, they laid the foundations for Emerson’s central doctrines of self-reliance, the moral sense, and the exact correspondence between natural and moral law. An intense faith in the individual is at the root of his faith in religious liberalism, in political democracy, and in literary romanticism. In this way, he produced works of art from the substance of American experience. Emerson’s Transcendentalism is an amalgam of various philosophies or ways of thought, both of the east and the west, both ancient and modern.

The transcendentalists believed in the unity of man. Nature and god, and the immanence of God in the world. Because of this indwelling of divinity, everything in the world is a microcosm containing within itself all the laws and meaning of existence. Likewise, the soul of each individual is identical with the soul of the world (or over-soul) which contains all that the world contains. Man may fulfil his divine potentiality either through a mystical state, in which the divine is infused into the human; or through coming into contact with the truth, beauty and goodness embodied in nature and originating in the Oversoul. “Thus originated the doctrine of correspondence between the tangible world and the human mind and the identity of moral and physical laws. Through belief in the divine authority of the soul’s intuitions and impulses, based on this identification of the individual and his soul with God, there developed the doctrine of self-reliance and individualism, the disregard of external authority and tradition, and logical demonstration and absolute optimism of the movement.”

Emerson’s Nature—“the Bible of Transcendentalism”—states his basic concept of the unity of Man, Nature and God. His subsequent lectures and essays are primarily illustrations or elaborations of those concepts with the help of new insights he gained. In Nature, Emerson has tried to locate man in relation to nature, on the one hand, and God, on the other. He has also made an attempt to see how man fulfils his destiny and realises his end. He places man at the centre of nature. Nature is helpful to him in the realisation of his higher ends and in the fulfilment of his destiny. At the physical level, it caters to his bodily needs and the needs of the senses. He considers body as a part of nature and, therefore, like it, an inferior incarnation of God in the unconscious. Man is God’s superior incarnation in the conscious. Nature is the shadow that we, our essential selves, cast. It is even the creation of our own mind. When we perceive the underlying principle in Nature, we come to know our essential self. Through the perception of the exterior beauty of Nature man becomes conscious of the spiritual beauty of the Universe. This is not automatic, but only when our senses are properly sharpened and harmonised with our inner self that we begin to see more than mere outward beauty. This is the moment when we are awakened to our essential being. Through Nature’s beauty we begin to see our own selves. This is the way in which Nature is made “to conspire with spirit to emancipate us”. The ground of our being is this beauty, this underlying principle and once we apprehend this truth we begin really to exist.

To Emerson, beauty and truth are one and the same things. When he says, “our life is embosomed in beauty” he means by beauty the over-soul, within which every man’s particular being is contained. Once we realise this we do not see surface facts alone, but the Soul that is immanent. Through the triangular relationship of man and Nature and of man and God, the position of man is explained and ascertained. However, Emerson knows it is not possible for him to explain why and how the universal Soul incarnates in man and thus the major part of this mystery cannot be unravelled. But there is no uncertainty in Emerson’s thought as to the over-soul being the ground of man’s existence. The foundation of man are not in matter, but in Spirit. “Because of the soul’s participation in the Divine substance, there is no limit to the possibilities in man’s life. Emerson called it the “infinitude of the private man,” and this he preached all his life. This means that man’s essential self is capable of transcending the finitude of existence and of becoming one with the infinite. Ineffable bliss is the union of man and god. One great miracle is the daily rebirth of God in the individual soul. “The purpose of man’s life, therefore, is to recognize his own essential self and the cosmic unity. It is in the very constitution of man to speak and strive in order to realise this unity in his life.”

Freedom of the individual is dear to Emerson, it is man’s most precious inheritance. Man has various faculties, they must be given free scope to develop to the fullest extent. The soul must have a free play. “When it (man’s soul) breathes through his intellect, it is genius; when it breathes through his will, it is virtue; when it flows through his affection, it is love.” No doubt great men are representatives of the essential humanity and, therefore, their “thought and feeling cannot be impounded by any fence of personality.” But great men are also those who have their special faculty developed to the highest pitch, and who never remind us of others. Such men are born once in centuries. On the other hand, every individual is left free to grow independently. “Nature wishes everything to remain itself” and it “steadily aims to protect each against every others.” Each is self-defended. Nothing is more marked than the power by which individuals are safeguarded from other individuals.