Transendentalism through Franklin Emerson and Thoreau

For many of us, slowing down only occurs when we are forced to, by some sort of tragedy or health problem in our lives. Government should not be viewed as a crutch, but rather a springboard, helping individuals and society reach maximum potential. “The moral law lies at the center of nature and radiates to the circumference.

Thoreau believed that only things necessary to life should be valued. We should use the rest of our efforts bettering ourselves and society.

Nature, as Emerson believed, was the source of God’s law’s. In 1832, he became friends with Carlyle, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, and began to formulate his transcendental faith. We should not get so wrapped up in our everyday lives that we are blind to what messages are made clear in all things around us. Emerson believed that art was a simply nature expressed through the eyes of man. “A man is fed, not that he may be fed, but that he may work” (Emerson). “By the words, necessary of life, I mean whatever, of all that man obtains by his own exertions, has been from the first, or from long use has become, so important to human life that few, if any, whether from savageness, or poverty, or philosophy, ever attempt to do without it” (Thoreau). Thoreau lived his life rather simply, never borrowing to obtain more, but working hard to obtain what he needed. There is no formula to measure the amount of influence that an individual receives from nature, but we should all allow ourselves to accept what nature has to teach us. We spend our lives in the constant struggle to obtain symbols of wealth, happiness, and prosperity, only to find that these things only make us poor, sad, and desolate.