The American Scholar
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Synopsis of the Essay
This essay was delivered as a lecture to the Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard College on 31 August 1837. It embodies Emerson's philosophy of what an American Scholar's profession should be like.
He gives his philosophy of One Man derived from an old fable. One Man was the original unit, but now it has been divided into many, each with a particular function. He has been spilled into drops and cannot be gathered. The members of society have suffered amputation from the trunk, One Man, and each part of One Man is walking about like a monster- a good finger, a neck, a stomach, etc. A man following a particular profession has become an inert machine.
In the context of this social state, a scholar is the delegated intellect. In a degenerate state of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or worse, he mimics other men's thinking, catering to original thinking beneficial to mankind.
The influence of Nature upon such a man is of prime importance He studies the phenomena of Nature and realizes that there is never a beginning, never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of the web of God. It is always a circular power returning to itself. He discovers that all things of nature are connected to each other by law and that there is essential unity of things behind their apparent diversity. His mind has the same laws as those of nature because he and Nature proceed from the same source: the soul of the soul. Nature is the counterpart of his soul. He knows so much of his soul as he knows of nature. So the old precept “know thyself” and “study nature' become one maxim.
Books are the best type of influence of the past, but the knowledge derived from those books cannot be relevant for all ages. So the accepted master-minds of the past like Cicero, Locke, and Bacon may not be acceptable to the present generation. The Man Thinking should not accept the truths derived from the books of the past uncritically. For him “books are the best of things well-- used; abused, among the worst." Books should be used only for inspiration. A genius of the past, like Shakespeare, should not exert influence on the mind of the Man Thinking who should read God directly, instead of wasting his precious time on other men's transcripts of their readings.
Reading and writing should be creative. While reading the great authors like Shakespeare or Plato, the Man Thinking should accept only the authentic utterances, the best part, and reject all the rest. The one indispensable reading for a wise man is history and the exact science,
A Man Thinking (Scholar) should not be a recluse or a valetudinarian, unfit for any handiwork or public labor. He becomes actively involved in the world. He knows as much of himself as he knows of the world. Actions both in the past and the present profoundly influence the scholar. They give him the richest wisdom and a language by which to illustrate and embody perceptions. Actions are a resource. Thoughts and actions should come alternately. When thoughts are exhausted, actions should be resorted to.
The duties of the American Scholar are such as becoming Man Thinking. He should cheer, raise and guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. He studies the human mind, relinquishes display and immediate fame, and is ready to accept poverty and solitude. He resists the vulgar prosperity that retrogrades ever to barbarism. He is the world's eye and heart.
The American Scholar should have full confidence in himself. He is not misled by popular propaganda. He explores his own mind and learns that he knows as much of other men as he knows of himself.
The American Scholar should be free and brave. He puts fear behind him and faces danger courageously. He investigates the nature of danger and controls it. The reason is the basis of his self-confidence.
He should spread the idea of culture, the idea of One Man. Men have so far worshipped great men, and so we have one or two in a century or a millennium. They have indulged in hero worship. The American Scholar should wake them and they should quit the false god, leap to the true, and leave governments to clerks and desks. This is a sort of revolution that can be brought about by the idea of culture-- the idea of one man. The private life of one man is more powerful and gorgeous than any kingdom in history. One man comprehends the particular natures of all men. It is the central fire that, flaming out of the lips of Etna lightens the capes of Sicily. It is one light that beams out of a thousand stars. It is one soul which animates all. The differences between the different ages of the world are only apparent, not real because there runs the oneness or the identity of the mind through all individuals of all ages.
The American scholar is to bring about the American Revolution. It is a great sign of the present time that things that were regarded as the low and the common have assumed the proportions of the beautiful and the sublime. The scholar need not ask for the great, the remote, and the romantic. He should embrace the common and explore the familiar, the low. Another sign is the importance given to a single person. The world is nothing, the man is all. In man there are all the laws of nature, in him slumbers the whole of Reason. The American scholar has this confidence in the unsearched might of man. So far the American people have listened to the thinkers of Europe. The consequence is already tragic. America is taught to aim at low objects, young men are dying of disgust, of suicide. The remedy is: the single man should plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and abide there. Then the whole world will come round to him, and America will be a nation of men who will exist for the first time because each will believe himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.
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