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Summary
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
Emerson quotes philosopher Plotinus in the epigraph that proceeds the introduction. In it, Plotinus suggests that nature is an “image or imitation” of humankind.
Plotinus was an ancient philosopher who founded Neoplatonism. His philosophy hinged on three key elements: the One, the Intelligence, and the Soul. This breakdown of reality into parts echoes the way Emerson breaks down nature into smaller parts at the end of the Introduction. The epigraph also introduces the idea that humankind and nature are intimately connected, and that people project their own experiences or emotions onto nature (which is why nature is an “image or imitation”).
Themes
Our society is focused on the past—it’s common, for instance, for people to build monuments or write biographies of famous figures from the past. And in the past, it was once common for people to “be[hold] God and nature face to face.” Emerson suggests that we should draw inspiration from this particular past and likewise cultivate a personal connection with the universe.
Here, Emerson suggests that society—at least in his current time and place (mid-1830s United States)—is overly focused on the past. But ironically, in the past, people often had a personal connection to the universe and to God, and Emerson suggests that this approach is what we should try to venerate and replicate in the present.
Themes
Emerson suggests that poetry and philosophy should be grounded in intuition, not tradition, and that religion should hinge on one’s own personal revelations rather than someone else’s. We must set aside “the dry bones of the past” and instead think new thoughts, explore new lands, meet new people, construct new laws, and engage in a new kind of worship. Emerson encourages the reader to adopt a curious, questioning mindset and to contemplate “to what end is nature.”
Emerson suggests that the lessons we can glean from the past are like “dry bones,” which means that they’re essentially dead and have been wrung dry of any kind of nourishment. These “dry bones” need to be buried, and people need to focus on experiencing the world that’s in front of them and drawing their own conclusions about God and nature this way.
Themes
All forms of science try to pin down a “theory of nature,” but Emerson suggests that humankind is actually far away from “the road to truth.” He sees proof of this in the way that religions squabble with one another, and in the way that critical thinkers are deemed trivial and foolish. But to Emerson, “the most abstract truth is the most practical.”
Here, Emerson lays out the key issue humanity faces: we’re not living in alignment with truth, nor are we even on the “road to truth.” In this passage, he suggests that what society values (e.g., arguing about who’s right; practical, concrete truth; etc.) isn’t what will realign humanity with truth.
Themes
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Emerson suggests that the universe has two parts: Nature and the Soul. In other words, Nature is everything that isn’t a person’s own Soul—it consists of the natural world (nature in the common sense of the word, spelled with a lower-case -n), other people, and even one’s own physical body. Art also falls under the umbrella of Nature; it’s the combination of nature and human will. For instance, a statue is composed of natural materials (e.g., stone) and an artist’s choice to create something out of those materials (human will).
In breaking up the universe into smaller parts, Emerson echoes Plotinus’s similarly structured philosophy. Although Emerson is separating out Nature from the Soul, his overarching point is actually about unity, not division. In other words, he’s not trying to stress how Nature and the Soul are different, but how Nature and the Soul combine to form one universe (and likewise, how all of the different parts of Nature combine to form Nature).
Themes
