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Chapter 5: Discipline
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
Next, Emerson examines external reality, questioning whether the world we perceive with our senses is actually real, or if it’s just an illusion. But Emerson suggests that it doesn’t really matter if nature truly exists or is just an illusion that exists in people’s minds. Either way, nature is still “useful” and “venerable.”
Emerson makes deep, philosophical arguments throughout “Nature,” but there’s one particular philosophical question that he doesn’t care to know the answer to: whether or not there is an external reality. To Emerson, all that matters is that we do perceive nature with our senses. Even if this perception is just an illusion, we nevertheless can use and learn from nature.
Themes
Most people take comfort in permanence, including the permanence of humankind and that of natural laws. After all, humankind generally believes that it’s “not built like a ship to be tossed, but like a house to stand.” In other words, people see themselves as separate from nature. But still, Emerson points out, this doesn’t answer the question of nature’s “absolute existence.” The only way for a person to really see things clearly (and shed their faith in permanence) is if they use Reason.
While most people see themselves as “a house to stand” (that is, fairly permanent) Emerson will later side with a poet who suggests that nature is actually the house, while we are the residents who come and go.
Themes
Emerson suggests that looking at nature from a different physical perspective—like seeing the shoreline from a ship or hot air balloon—makes the world look “pictorial” and fills us with both delight and wonder.
The two key ways of learning about and learning from nature, according to Emerson, are Understanding (using observation to learn intellectual truths) and Reason (using intuition to learn spiritual or moral truths). In other words, Emerson is concerned with perspective: the same natural landscape can teach intellectual, moral, or spiritual truths based on a person’s perspective and approach. Here, he makes perspective more literal by showing how seeing nature from new heights or new angles is uniquely satisfying and captivating.
Themes
Poets are skilled at manipulating perspective in this way. Through words and literary devices, the poet “unfixes the land and the sea” and shapes the natural world into symbols. Emerson cites Shakespeare’s Tempest as an example of poetry that uses natural imagery and symbolism skillfully.
Earlier in the essay, Emerson emphasized that people who are virtuous and spend a lot of time in nature are thus skillful and creative in their use of language (especially as it relates to imagery and symbolism).
Themes
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Emerson points out that the poet’s goal is to illuminate beauty, while the philosopher’s goal is to illuminate truth. Quoting Plato, Emerson underscores that philosophy’s biggest shortcoming is that it, too, subscribes to the idea of permanence. He suggests that the “true poet” and the “true philosopher” are two iterations of the same being, and that truth and beauty are also two sides of the same coin.
Emerson’s primary goal in the essay is to stress how all things are connected—even if they seem dissimilar on the surface. He does so here by suggesting that both poets and philosophers are in the business of illuminating something, whether that be truth or beauty—and that truth and beauty themselves are similar concepts, too.
Themes
Literary Devices
Emerson then discusses “intellectual science.” According to Emerson, science encourages people to doubt external reality, and it is focused on abstract ideas rather than physical things. He suggests that religion and ethics also focus on abstract ideas as opposed to observation. (Emerson differentiates religion and ethics by saying that, unlike ethics, “Religion includes the personality of God.”) Religion encourages its practitioners to focus on the “unseen,” “eternal” things.
At several points in the essay, Emerson criticizes science for relying too heavily on objective facts and measurements. But here he suggests the opposite, claiming that science relies more heavily on abstract ideas than observation. This is one of several contradictions in the essay that scholars have pointed out. But Emerson’s overarching point in this passage is that people must focus on experiencing the physical, natural world, and that in doing so, a person can learn those more abstract lessons. A person can’t focus on “unseen” or “eternal” things (e.g., heaven) without looking to the natural world first for spiritual guidance.
Themes
Poetry, science, religion, and ethics all influence our understanding of external reality. Emerson suggests that a person who uses Reason adopts the perspective of philosophical idealism by default. Idealism, Emerson writes, “sees the world in God” and acknowledges the divine unity of all things. The person who employs idealism has a more nuanced perspective of Christianity. Such a person doesn’t get distracted by historical inaccuracies, scandals in the Church, or even miracles; instead, this person “accepts from God the phenomenon […] as the pure and awful form of religion in the world.”
Emerson continues his critique of religion by suggesting that it makes people focus on the wrong things—like getting hung up on small historical details or scandals. Instead, people must use their intuition (“Reason”) to see the world and God more clearly.
Themes
