Emerson and Transcendentalism

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Emerson and Transcendentalism
In The Pulley George Herbert stated “He would adore my gifts instead of me; And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature”. Quite often people make this mistake of not seeing the forest through the trees. Be that as it may, there are many that only see one aspect of the whole scheme and focus all of their lives and energy into that feature. Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of these, devoting his existence to the concept there is divinity in nature and humanity. Emerson exemplifies these points in his writings “The Poet” and “Self-Reliance”.
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s beliefs are grouped in a category called transcendentality. This idea started a philosophical and literary movement that flourished in New England from about 1836 to 1860. It began in a small group of intellectuals who were debating against the orthodoxy of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian Church, developing their own faith centering on the divinity of humanity and the natural world. Because he surrounded himself with intellectuals he started to believe that his words were infallible. One can see this in the following passage:
We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organ of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing by ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all philosophy is at fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can affirm. (Self-Reliance 1163)
In the preceding passage reference to the divinity of humanity is made when he states “When we discern justice, we discern truth”.
Another “truth” he discusses is the divinity of nature and mankind’s oneness with it. Ralph Waldo Emerson believes that there is Divinity in Nature, and everything makes a circle back to a unity with the universe.
The universe is the externsation of the soul. Whereve...