Emerson was a thought leader of the Transcendentalist movement, and his 1836 essay “Nature” was a founding document that outlines many of the movement’s tenets. The concept of unity—that all people and things are interconnected—is central to Transcendentalism, and Emerson focuses on the idea that people in his time (the early 19th century) have lost sight of this. In “Nature,” he proposes that nature, humanity, and the spiritual world are all animated and united by the same “Universal Being,” or life force. His central argument in the essay is that everything and everyone is interconnected—but that people have become dangerously alienated from themselves, from other people, from nature, and from the divine.
When most people look at nature, they see its individual parts, but Emerson underscores that nature is really a single, unified whole. For instance, he describes looking out at the countryside, which is dotted with 20 or 30 farms that seem separate from one another, given that they each have their own boundaries and owners. This is how most people see nature—they see its individual parts. But Emerson underscores that these seemingly disparate farms all make up one landscape. And likewise, the different aspects of the natural world (like a flower petal, the wind, a tree, an animal) all fall under the same single umbrella of nature. Emerson writes that all aspects of nature have something in common—beauty—and that “A single object is only so far beautiful as it suggests this universal grace.” Few people are able to see this interconnectedness that runs throughout the natural world. It’s people who genuinely love nature and live in close proximity to it (Emerson includes children and poets in this category) who are able to recognize this unity.
But it’s not just nature that’s interconnected—Emerson stresses that humankind and nature are connected, too. To illustrate this point, Emerson describes how a person who’s mourning the loss of a loved one will perceive nature as looking dark and somber, because “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.” He stresses that nature doesn’t have its own personality; we project our own emotional experiences on it. In this way, nature is a reflection of humankind, and even an extension of it. The epigraph from the original 1836 version of “Nature” underscores this point. Quoting the philosopher Plotinus, Emerson notes that nature is “an image or imitation of wisdom,” meaning that it’s an imitation of humankind. Emerson pushes his argument about nature and humanity’s interconnectedness one step further with the concept of the “Universal Being.” A core Transcendentalist belief, the Universal Being is the creative, animating, supernatural life force imbued in all things. And because this spirit underpins everything—it’s infused in nature and in people—it consequently links nature, humanity, and the spiritual/supernatural world together. At times, Emerson calls this force the “Universal Soul,” or the “Oversoul.” He suggests that just as individual aspects of the natural world (e.g., a single leaf) form the broader whole of nature, so too do individual people’s souls form the universal soul.
Emerson makes—but never resolves—a key contradiction to his argument about unity. At several points throughout the essay, he (perhaps unintentionally) suggests that nature and humankind are actual distinct from one another. In the essay’s Introduction, Emerson differentiates nature from Nature. With a lowercase -n, nature refers to the natural world—the common definition of the word. But when he uses Nature with a capital -N, Emerson is taking a philosophical angle: Nature encompasses the natural world (nature), art, a person’s own physical body, and other people. In other words, Nature encompasses everything except for the soul. In a way, Emerson is linking nature and humankind as he notes how the physical human body is part of Nature. But he filters out the human soul—which is perhaps central to what it means to be human—from this broad definition of Nature. Overall, though, Emerson’s primary point in “Nature” is clear: all things are connected, but people have lost sight of this truth.
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Unity and Interconnectedness Quotes in Nature
Philosophy considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the NOT ME, that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, NATURE. In enumerating the values of nature and casting up their sum, I shall use the word in both senses—in its common and in its philosophical import. […] Nature, in the common sense, refers to essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf. Art is applied to the mixture of his will with the same things, as in a house, a canal, a statue, a picture. But his operations taken together are so insignificant, a little chipping, baking, patching, and washing, that in an impression so grand as that of the world on the human mind, they do not vary the result.
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. 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.
It is necessary to use these pleasures with great temperance. For, nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs, is overspread with melancholy today. Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. To a man laboring under calamity, the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it. Then, there is a kind of contempt of the landscape felt by him who has just lost by death a dear friend. The sky is less grand as it shuts down over less worth in the population.
The misery of man appears like childish petulance, when we explore the steady and prodigal provision that has been made for his support and delight on this green ball which floats him through the heavens. What angels invented these splendid ornaments, these rich conveniences, this ocean of air above, this ocean of water beneath, this firmament of earth between? this zodiac of lights, this tent of dropping clouds, this striped coat of climates, this fourfold year? Beasts, fire, water, stones, and corn serve him. The field is at once his floor, his work-yard, his play-ground, his garden, and his bed.
Therefore, that spirit, that is, the Supreme Being, does not build up nature around us, but puts it forth through us, as the life of the tree puts forth new branches and leaves through the pores of the old. As a plant upon the earth, so a man rests upon the bosom of God: he is nourished by unfailing fountains, and draws, at his need, inexhaustible power.
The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself. He cannot be a naturalist, until he satisfies all the demands of the spirit.
