1. American Transcendentalism Shandong University Li Baojie March 8, 2011

2. Transcendentalism In America  A philosophical and literary movement centered in Concord and Boston, which was prominent in the intellectual and cultural life of New England from 1836 until just before the Civil War. It was inaugurated in 1836 by a Unitarian discussion group that came to be called the Transcendental Club.  Transcendentalism was neither a systematic nor a sharply definable philosophy, but rather an intellectual mode and emotional mode that was expressed by diverse, and in some instances rather eccentric, voices.

3. Origin of the Term  The term “transcendental”, as Emerson pointed out in his lecture “The Transcendetalis”(1841), was taken from the Immanuel Kant the German philosopher (1724-1804).  Kant had confined the expression “transcendental knowledge” to the cognizance of those forms and categories --- such as space, time, quantity, causality --- which, in his view, are imposed on whatever we perceive by the constitution of all human minds. He regards these aspects as the universal conditions of all sense-experience.

4. Major Concepts  It stressed the power of intuition, believing that people could learn things both from the outside world by means of the five senses and from the inner world by intuition. But the things they learned from within were truer than the things they learned from without, and transcended them. It held that everyone had access to a source of knowledge that transcended the everyday experiences of sensation and reflection. Intuition was inner light within.

5. The Significance of Solitary Thinking  To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me.  In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, --- no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. (From “Nature”)

6. Intellectual Independence  The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun; and, after sunset, night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows. Every day, men and women, conversing, beholding and beholden. The scholar is he of all men whom this spectacle most engages. He must settle its value in his mind. What is nature to him? There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself.  Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The millions, that around us are rushing into life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests. Events, actions arise, that must be sung, that will sing themselves. (From “The American Scholar”)

7.  The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual, since the individual is the most important and basic element of society. An individual with self- reliance, spiritual perfection, self-culture, self-improvement and prudence is an ideal type of individual.

8.  To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. (From “Nature” by Emerson)

9. The Revelation by Nature  Standing on the bare ground, --- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, --- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, --- master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. (From Nature)

10.  Nature is symbolic of the Spirit or God. It is not just matter, but alive filled with God’s overwhelming presence.  It is the garment of Oversoul, exercising a healthy, restorative influence on the human mind.

11.  As romantic idealism, it placed spirit first and matter second. It believed that both spirit and matter were real but that the reality of spirit was greater than that of matter. Spirit transcended matter, and the permanent reality was the spiritual one. It stressed essence behind appearance.  It held that commerce was degrading and that a life spent in business was a wasted life. Humanity could be much better off if people paid less attention to the material world in which they lived.

12.  The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that which must be, is that great nature in which we rest, as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity, that Over- soul, within which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other; that common heart, of which all sincere conversation is the worship, to which all right action is submission; that overpowering reality which confutes our tricks and talents, and constrains every one to pass for what he is, and to speak from his character, and not from his tongue, and which evermore tends to pass into our thought and hand, and become wisdom, and virtue, and power, and beauty. (From “The Oversoul”)

13.  We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self- sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul. Only by the vision of that Wisdom can the horoscope of the ages be read, and by falling back on our better thoughts, by yielding to the spirit of prophecy which is innate in every man, we can know what it saith. (From “The Oversoul”)

14.  Emerson placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. The Oversoul is an all-pervading power for goodness, omnipresent and omnipotent, from which all things came and of which all were a part.  It existed in nature and in humanity alike, and constituted the chief element of the universe.

15.  Everything in the universe was viewed as an expression of the divine spirit. Behind physical objects was a universal soul. Nature was God’s enlightenment towards human beings. Therefore, it could exercise a healthy and restorative influence on human mind. Nature was ennobling and people were somehow better for being out in the woods or meadows. So people should come close to nature for instructions. Nature not only showed humanity its own materiality but taught human morality. Nature’s beauty was the beauty of human mind. The two were joined together. With this organic view in mind, it stressed unity of humanity and nature.

16.  It held that there was a greatness in all human beings that needed only to be set free. People should depend on themselves for spiritual perfection. As the individual soul could commune with God, it was, therefore, divine. With the assumption of the innate goodness of humanity, it held that the individual soul could reach God without the help of churches or clergy. While stressing individuality, it rejected the restraints of tradition and custom. The transcendentalist had an uncompromising concern for individual’s moral development rather than for social progress. The dignity of the individual remains a vital part of American creed even today.

17.  Generally, the Oversoul referred to spirit of God as the most important thing in the universe. Since the Oversoul was a single essence, and since all people derived their beings from the same source, the seeming diversity and clash of human interests was only superficial, and all people were in reality striving toward the same ends by different but converging paths. Thus was affirmed the universal brotherhood of humanity, and the ultimate resolution of all social problems. The harder each person strove to express his or her individuality, the more faithfully he or she followed the inner voice, the more surely would the aims of his or her life coincide with those of his or her neighbor.