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Chapter 3: Beauty
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Nature, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Unity and Interconnectedness
The Transformative Power of Nature
Religion, Science, and Individualism
Reason, Understanding, and Truth
Summary
Analysis
The third way that Nature serves humankind is through language. Emerson breaks down nature’s impact on language into three parts. First, he notes that abstract words actually grew out of words for physical objects. For instance, “wrong means twisted,” and “Spirit primarily means wind.”
Modern linguists have discredited Emerson’s argument about how abstract words grew out of words for physical objects. But nevertheless, Emerson’s point is again that all things are connected, and that the natural world is foundational to human life.
Themes
Literary Devices
These physical objects are consequently reflective of spiritual truths. According to Emerson, every “state of the mind” is reflected in nature and described as such. For example, “An enraged man is a lion,” while “A lamb is innocence; a snake is subtle spite; flowers express to use the delicate affections.”
Here, Emerson begins to edge toward the argument that nature is imbued with spiritual truths that extend beyond what a person might learn through mere observation.
Themes
Literary Devices
When a person throws a rock into a stream and watches the ripples on the water, they notice “the flux of all things” and begin to grasp that there is a “universal soul” underpinning their own existence—something that connects them to Nature and to all other people. Emerson calls this Reason. He suggests that the analogies and symbols he’s outlined in this section are universal across time and place and even across different languages.
The “universal soul” (also called the over-soul) refers to the life force that runs through all people and things, animating them and connecting them to one another—a clear articulation of Emerson’s suggestion that everything and everyone is connected. On another note, when Emerson uses the word Reason throughout the essay, he's not using it in the common sense (e.g., logic or rationality)—he means something more like intuition.
Themes
Nature is an interpreter between people. But Emerson cautions that a person’s grasp of language largely depends on their character. If a person is corrupted—meaning that they’ve given into their various desires (e.g., for wealth, power, praise, or pleasure)—then the language they use to communicate is corrupted, too. A corrupted person can’t create new ideas or imagery; they misuse words, and their language is less impactful.
Similar to the previous chapter, Emerson is drawing a connection between several seemingly separate things: nature, language, and morality. But to Emerson, these three things are intimately connected. Essentially, a person’s character depends on their connection to nature, and a person’s use of language depends on their character.
Themes
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In contrast, wise people have a more grounded approach to language because they “fasten words again to visible things,” and their language is aligned with truth and with God. Such people are able to create new imagery spontaneously. Emerson suggests that living in the country is therefore better for the mind than living in the city—a poet who’s grown up in the woods has a powerful grasp on language.
In the introduction, Emerson stressed that there are many new places to explore, new thoughts to think, and new people to meet—and that clinging to antiquated teachings is unhelpful. He makes a similar argument here by stressing the need for new imagery, which can only be created if a person is aligned with God and lives close to nature.
Themes
Next, Emerson examines how our use of language gives nature a spiritual element. He suggests that “the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.” Similarly, human laws (e.g., scientific laws about matter) and laws of nature mirror one another, as “The axioms of physics translate the laws of ethics.” In line with this, he notes that common proverbs and famous sayings often contain a natural fact—for instance, “A rolling stone gathers no moss,” or “The last ounce broke the camel’s back.”
According to Emerson, science and ethics are like two sides of the same coin. With this, he’s gesturing to the idea that people can learn intellectual truths or objective facts from observing nature, but there’s also a more spiritual layer of nature that they can learn from, too.
Themes
If a person lives in harmony with nature, they will come to understand nature “by degrees.” Eventually, the natural world will be like an “open book.”
Emerson suggests that learning about and learning from nature is a piecemeal process, but a person will gradually come to see nature clearly and learn from nature effortlessly.
Themes
