Question: What are the functions of books, according to Emerson?
Or, Why does Emerson say, “Books are the best of things well-used; abused, among the worst.”
Answer: Emerson gives new ideas about the importance and functions of books for the scholar. His views in this respect are different from the traditional views about the matter. Francis Bacon's view that "some books are to be chewed and digested” seems to sound traditional in essence, but Emerson goes against the current tradition. However important books may be, they do not hold truths for all ages. They may contain truths for the ages they were written, but some of their truths may become inapplicable to the following ages. So the American Scholar should accept those truths only which are applicable to his own age and reject others.
People, in general, are largely affected by books. Books have a profound influence upon all reading people, but especially upon the mind of the scholar. The scholar of the first age studied the world around him, imposed his own thoughts upon it, and formed his own philosophy that may be called truth. But the amount of the validity of the truth depended upon the depth of the mind that it came from.
Books contain truths that are the essence of the knowledge of the scholar of one generation, but they cannot hold truths for all generations. At best books of one generation can be relevant for the next generation. Even the accepted master-minds of the past like Cicero, Locke, and Bacon may not be acceptable to the present generation. Books of the past are accepted as immutable truths only by the sluggish minds; the Man Thinking does not accept them as such.
Books should be used only for inspiration, not for anything else. Books should not pin down a genius. A genius is an active soul which may lie dormant in man. It looks forwards, not backward. But the geniuses of the past should not exert over-influence on the genius of the present through books. But such over-influence is observed in the case of some great minds of the past like Shakespeare. This should not be the case with the American Scholar.
Emerson says, “Books are the best of things, well used; abused among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire." He had better never see a book than to be warped by its attraction clean out of his own orbit and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. This every man is entitled to; this every man obstructed and as yet unborn. The active soul sees absolute truth and utters truths. He creates truths and is a genius in this respect. His genius is, in essence, progressive. The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. People accept them as immutable. But they actually pin people down. They look backward and not forward: the eyes of man are set on his forehead, not in his Hindhead: man hopes, genius creates. Whatever talents may be, if a man does not create, the pure efflux of the Deity is not his; cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame. There are creative manners, there are creative actions, and creative words; manners, actions, words, that is, indicative of no custom or authority, but springing spontaneously from the mind's own sense of good and fair.
“Books are the best of things well-used; abused, among the worst.”
If one mind receives truth from another though it were in torrents of light, without periods of solitude, inquest, and self-recovery, a fatal disservice is done. Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over-influence. The literature of every nation bears witness to this fact. "The English dramatic poets have Shakespearised now for two hundred years."
Books are the best of things if they are rightly used. If, on the contrary, they are abused, they are among the worst. The right way of using books must be subordinated to the main function of Man Thinking. To him, books are only an instrument. He should use books during idle items. What a man of thinking should do is read God directly. He should not waste his valuable time pondering over other men's "transcripts of their reading”- the books. No doubt we derive pleasure from reading the books of the great authors of the past--Chaucer, Marvel, or Dryden because they give us the feeling that our mind is identical to theirs, and they have already thought out what we might have thought out about ourselves. But that belongs to the philosophical doctrine of pre-established harmony which Emerson does not accept.
Emerson points towards the method of reading in the right way. Reading should be sternly subordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments, like books. Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of their readings. But when the intervals of darkness come, as come they must – when the sun is hiding and the stars withdraw their shining. We repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn is. We hear, that we may speak. The Arabian proverb says, “A fig tree, looking on a fig tree, becometh fruitful.”
The character of the pleasure we derive from the best books is remarkable. They impress us with the conviction that one nature wrote and the same reads. We read the verses of some of the great English poets, Chaucer, Marvell, of Dryden, with the most modern joy-with pleasure, which is in great part caused by the abstraction of all time from their verses. There is no doubt that we derive pleasure from reading the great authors of the past. Great and heroic men have existed who had information only from the books. But reading and writing should be creative. When the mind is inspired by labor and invention the page of whatever book were read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence appears significant, and the sense seems to be as broad as the world. But the writer's real vision of truth must have been very short, so his record of it. While reading great authors like Plato or Shakespeare, a discerning mind will accept only the best part, only the authentic utterances. He rejects all the rest.
Emerson's ideas about the use and abuse of books are original. The American Scholar should read books carefully and should accept only those ideas that are relevant for his age and reject the irrelevant ones. He should derive his knowledge from Nature, he should read God, more than he should be influenced by books, and the masterminds of the past.
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