Ralph Emerson Transcendentalism Analysis

After reading Emerson’s ideals Transcendentalism in English Three Edited by: Dave Bean and Anne Rothacker of the American Experience, it defines Transcendentalism as an Ideology rather than a religion. In Emerson’s writings he explains this. “The transcendental law, Emerson believed, was the “moral law,” through which human beings discover the nature of God, a living spirit yet it had been the practice of historical Christianity--”as if God were dead”--...”(182). Emerson believed that transcendentalism respected god as spiritual being rather than being alive and watching over us. Emerson thanked god for his creations in nature, but looked at Christianity as a thing of the past. He viewed nature as the living spirit of god, rather than god …show more content…
He explains this through his essay titled: Experience. “Spirit is matter reduced to an extreme thinness: O so thin!--But the definition of spiritual should, that which is its own evidence”(199, Emerson). As Emerson explains Spirit is matter, which is only known and seen by some through the Transparent Eyeball. The evidence behind this is completely your own understanding of matter and nature. There is a Transparent Eyeball that can be revealed in all of us, just as long as we look hard enough. Emerson believed in the connection through nature of the spiritual and material world. The material world being the one we’re current and living in, and the spiritual world being the world beyond ours. one that is not seen, but felt. This is felt through the realization that matter is the fabrication of the human mind, and that spirit is matter just thinned out as said in the quote. Emerson believed that one could feel this connection by being apparent in, and connecting to nature. This expresses the idea that nature is a metaphor of the human mind, which brings up the last point in Transcendentalism, which is being one with