It is this which distinguishes the stick of timber of the wood-cutter, from the tree of the poet. We mean the integrity of impression made by manifold natural objects.
When we speak of nature in this manner, we have a distinct but most poetical sense in the mind. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out theseĮnvoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile. The stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would menīelieve and adore and preserve for many generations the remembrance Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me.īut if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. Art is applied to the mixture of his will with the same things, as in a house, a canal, a statue, a picture.īut his operations taken together are so insignificant, a little chipping, baking, patching, and washing, that in an impression so grand as that of the world on the human mind, they do not vary the result. Nature, in the common sense, refers to essences unchanged by man space, the air, the river, the leaf. In inquiries so general as our present one, the inaccuracy is not material no confusion of thought will occur. In enumerating the values of nature and casting up their sum, I shall use the word in both senses - in its common and in its philosophical import. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the NOT ME, that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, NATURE. Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Now many are thought not only unexplained but inexplicable as language, sleep, madness, dreams, beasts, sex. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena. But to a sound judgment, the mostĪbstract truth is the most practical. Religious teachers dispute and hate each other, and speculative menĪre esteemed unsound and frivolous. We are now so far from the road to truth, that Theories of races and of functions, but scarcely yet a remote approach Let us inquire, to what end is nature?Īll science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of nature. The great apparition, that shines so peacefully around us. In its forms and tendencies, describing its own design. He acts it as life,īefore he apprehends it as truth. Is a solution in hieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put. In our minds, the order of things can satisfy. We must trust the perfection of the creation soįar, as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable. There is more wool and flax in the fields. Living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the To us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed forĪ season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us,Īnd invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetryĪnd philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face we, through their eyes. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. Ralph Waldo Emerson Nature An introduction to Nature
0 kommentar(er)
