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Chapter 4: Language
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
Nature is a discipline—meaning that nature is a field of study, and it’s also a teacher. Every aspect of nature has something to teach and can educate a person’s Understanding and Reason.
First, Emerson examines how nature teaches people intellectual truths. In our day-to-day lives, we learn lessons about how natural objects are different from or similar to one another, as well as lessons about order and generality. Emerson uses debt and property as examples of natural objects that are instructive, and he suggests that those who suffer the most from debt are the ones who need to learn from it the most.
Since Emerson defined Nature so broadly in the introduction (Nature with a capital -N refers to everything that’s not the Soul), he then categories debt and property as natural objects.
Themes
Every interaction we have with the world also teaches us about how we can shape nature according to our human will. This is because nature is meant to serve mankind, just like “the ass on which the Saviour rode.”
Emerson is referring to the story in the Gospels of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey while crowds cheered. With this biblical reference, Emerson is aligning humankind with Jesus, and nature with the donkey. Much of “Nature” is about how nature and humankind are interconnected and need to return to their former state of unity. But here, Emerson separates humankind and nature by suggesting that nature is subservient, and that people are meant to have dominion over it.
Themes
Literary Devices
Nature, as the “ally of Religion,” also teaches moral lessons—even prophets and religious figures like David and Jesus have turned to nature for moral instruction. Moral truth is imbued in nature (Emerson suggests that a farm is like a silent gospel), but the amount of moral influence nature has is different for each person.
In this passage, Emerson speaks directly to the idea that nature can teach spiritual or moral lessons, just like religion might, if only a person spends time in nature alone. This approach is individualistic because people must go alone into nature and learn these lessons for themselves, but the lessons will also influence each person differently.
Themes
Literary Devices
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Emerson then underscores the “Unity of Nature,” and he references the lesson underpinning the Greek myth of the prophet Proteus. Every element of nature (e.g., a leaf or a raindrop), Emerson explains, is part of a broader whole and is like a microcosm (a small-scale representation) of that whole. Even elements of nature that seem dissimilar are still related and imbued with the universal Spirit, or God. To illustrate this point, Emerson uses the example of a circle that has “innumerable sides.”
According to Greek mythology, Proteus knew everything about the past, present, and future but guarded this knowledge fiercely. The only way to get him to divulge what he knew was to sneak up on him while he was sleeping and hold onto him tightly while he tried to shape-shift and escape. Because of his shape-shifting abilities, he’s essentially a symbol of the matter or substance that all things are made of—that is, the “Unity of Nature.” Nature, like a circle and like the shape-shifting Proteus, has “innumerable sides” but is all part of the same overarching whole.
Themes
Extending the concept of unity to words and actions, Emerson suggests that “Words are finite organs of the infinite mind” and can corrupt truth. But action—and particularly a good, moral action—is the “perfection and publication of thought” and connects with the whole of nature. Emerson suggests that words and actions are what set people apart from (and allow them to domineer over) other elements of nature.
Once again, Emerson connects morality, language, and nature. His reasoning is complex, but he’s essentially suggesting that actions are purer and more virtuous than words. Both are important, though, in that they both set humankind apart from other elements of nature (e.g., plants and animals).
Themes
