"Why should we not also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have the poetry and philosophy of insight and not the tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?"
I love the point Emerson is making in his introduction to Nature. The beautiful thing about new generations is that we come with new ideas built on the same foundation as the last. This idea comes up in a lot of his works, that as long as we are following the path laid out by the "foregoing generations" and striving to live up to their preset laws, we won't be able to achieve the same intesity of life that we would if we were to rediscover it for ourselves. Trying to"grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generations to maswuerade out of it's faded wardrobe" only leaves room for things to be lost and distorted, not created and discovered as they should. In Emerson's address to the Harvard Divinity School he is adamant throughout his speech that religion should not be something taught, but instead discovered independantly. If faith is here to be found, let each person find it for what he sees it, feels it as. Through this each person would be able to have their own conviction instead of trying to mock the devotion of their teachers. This isn't saying that it's wrong to be preached to, or to devote yourself to the bible. Only that these things should derive from something you've found in yourself, instead of being told that this is what is right, and this is how it should be believed because somebody else had found it that way.
Sophie,
ReplyDeleteNice post! I really enjoyed reading this one (thanks!).; I think you're on the right track when you note that, rather than "follow the path"f the "foregoing generations" (this would seem to be taking things second hand), we look to our predecessors as examples of how to find 'independently' the trughts that Emerson talks about.
Again, good job on this post!