The American Mind; 9; Prophet Out of Concord; Part 1

the peaks beneath that'll do it is tv and tulane university present the american why a series of programs concerned with it intellectually dr roberts associate professor of philosophy at tulane university remarkable women distant future their cultural historians get around to

estimating the distinctive american contribution to the spread of culture is most probable that they will come upon that one institution which we have pioneered more than all the rest that is to say a lifesaving itself in the sense that we use it takes its name from the garden at athens where aristotle talked today however it signifies simply any institution in which popular lectures are given on literary or scientific subjects the lyceum is an institution of very ancient an honorable standing in the united states today with radio and television making possible mass communications instantaneously the millions it takes somewhat of a backseat at all throughout the nineteenth century the lyceum was the cultural center of every community large or small

to it came all of the great men of the day the politicians and the poet's the reformers the literary men and women of all types all of them came to speak their peaks and it is probable that the average citizen who patronized his local i see was culturally speaking better informed than you an eye out for all our mass media however the lyceum and radio and television do share one thing in common they all serve to create public personality is on the lyceum circuit perhaps the most famous of these personalities was the man we are to discuss tonight ralph waldo emerson anderson as a famous man in american literature and he comes from a long line of new england for that his parents his father his grandfather was

a cartoon new england clergyman unitarian clergy and ralph waldo was destined to follow in their footsteps he was born as might be expected in boston and eighteen hundred and three and during his early years he lived in boston with his mother his father died while he was still quite young boy and upon the mother of our bait problem of bringing up the fan there were other brothers that was a sister and they didn't have much money all they had was the pension of their father's church had voted that nonetheless the mother did manage to bring up the children ralph waldo went on to harvard he wasn't a very good student you probably wasn't gertrude diligent and studying it was a bit of a dream he didn't do too well at heart really did get out he spent some time as a schoolteacher and then he decided to go into the unitarian minister and this edith and his father's is the influence of the

emerson name coupled with the fact that his father had been a boston preacher got him a job in boston as a preacher he couldn't stay there too long however because even as a young man in his middle and late twenties he was beginning to feel that the unitarian creed was a bit too restrictive he found he just couldn't continue to believe in the sort of thing that he was supposed to believe in on sunday morning he couldn't for instance believe in the institution of the lord's supper and so he finally decided to leave the ministry and the mold to concord about the time he moved he looked somewhat like that for rather idealistic young man as you can say with a sort of a high forehead solomon opened tended face when he first came to concord he lived in the famous house called the old maps which later

on hawthorne was to live in it belonged to one of the emerson family connections and hear emerson who did much of his early writing later on when he got a little more famous and he got settled down in concord and he began to make money as the lyceum lecture and his books began to get published he bought this house here in this house is the famous emerson house in concord it's still there if you go to concord you can visit it and see all week emerson wrote concord itself was probably the most famous little village in america at that time it still is quite famous today for more with you would read about or hear about that you might think it was a pretty glamorous place actually it was a bit of a model is this picture of the main street in concord in anderson's time will show you just a muddy old street the song a tavern hero another tavern their house up here in the corn so it wasn't nearly as

glamorous as it looked and yet the name concord stands for a great literary tradition in america and we're going to be hearing about it for several weeks to come now i said that emerson could not remain as a minister with in the unitarian church and this is where we must begin our understanding of emerson and his philosophy first of all we have to know a little bit about what the unitarian estimates unitarian as a man emerson's day was itself an offshoot from congregational it's as you'll recall from our earlier telecasts the puritan father is we're congregational as bad as they believed in me principal of local congregation or autonomy their theology was calvin estate they believed in the literal truth of the word of god in the bible they believed in original sam they believe the man was depraved them that man was eternally damned to

perdition unless he was one of the small elected john calvin had spoken of this was a congregation listen by the beginning of the nineteenth century it had begun to soften quite perceptibly people just couldn't buy this stuff about eternal damnation and going straight to hell and the religion was too severe and so in boston the congregation all his way of looking at things gradually became a unitarian way of looking at things the unitarians for instance did away with the emphasis on the original salmon predestination and damnation they even eventually what you'd do away with all of that which centers around the divinity of jesus christ jesus christ as a great moral teacher but he is a man like other men on all of our airmen he is most of be admired and follow as a unitarian you would believe in the oneness of god well if so you would also look at the scripture and a somewhat

different light for instance the unitarians came to believe that the bible was not really one book literally infallible to be taken in all liberal seriousness but rather as a library of books some of which are more authentic than others all of which are good guidance but none of which has to be followed to close this then is the softening of the calvinist think they but you know italian ism which had begun itself as a radical revolt against the congregation was a puritan view itself gradually became institutionalized became sort of ossified became for all of the dogma and it was at this stage of the game that the young emerson ascended the pope and he couldn't take it as he goes on to say and some of his addresses which we're going to consider the difficulty with this religion at least as it was in his day was that was becoming much too formal it stick it

was losing the spirit or the letter it was worrying too much about the past it was falling into the same trap that the puritans had fallen into love taking it too literally and paying too much attention to the book and to lay off it and to the preacher and it was just not communicating this false sense of christian participation in life that emerson want and this participation in life is the essence of what comes to be known as transcendental as emerson is called a transcendental estimate is a very vague word what that means is simply that you believe that the things of the spirit are somewhat greater importance than the things of the flesh it's a sort of a fuzzy headed idealistic you believe in god yes but you don't believe in god in the form of a stick where you find god talked about in the institutional religions know god is this sort of human dwellings

spirit you find god in nature you find god in your own soul you are an individual you're not simply one of the crowd one of a mass the transcendental list is in revolt against what today we would call but heard ma'am the white emerson puts this is given at the very opening of his first book a very short essay but which was to have an enormous the significance of consequence in the literary history of new england it's called nature and it was first published in haiti hundred and thirty six and this is the way it opens our page is retrospective it builds the settlers of the father it writes biographies histories and criticism the foregoing generations be held god and nature face to face wayne through their eyes is why should we not all so enjoy an original relation to the

universe why should we not have a poetry and the philosophy of insight and not the tradition and the religion by revelation to us and not the history of theirs well that you say it sums up what they wanted if you're going to believe in god if you're going to have a religion well why not religion for me why should i buy something that paul have a moses have their move there have why should i take my religion secondhand why should i take mice spiritual awareness of things secondhand that's what emerson and the transcendentalists cannot a bye and that's what it seemed to them that the unitarians in new england and indeed most of their brethren with getting tied up with they were becoming a nation a book worm's they were not living they were not existing themselves they were just taking a pass on faith they were becoming stodgy and conservative they were a hardening into this new england snob richness which later

generations of writers would do so much to make a popular wine if this is the way things are or if you have to have an experience of things yourself if they're going to be something important to you then what are you going to do with this well you have to recognize says emerson that we cannot simply take a materialistic outlook on the universe we have got to say things in a more spiritual sense but he goes on to say the world is emblematic parts of speech are metaphors because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind the laws of maron nature answer to those a matter of face to face in a glass the visible world in the relation of its part says the dial plate of the invisible the axioms of physics translate the laws of ethics family emphasis seriously is on the spiritual we've got to get away from this

monday material sort of way of looking at things every natural process he says is a version of amara was sentenced eliza the path of nature and radiates to the circumference it is the pick the narrow of every substance every religion every process all things with which we do you preach to us what is a far what a new gospel well it's very literary as you can see it's very low and it's the sort of inspirational literature that one finds existentialist in all ages writing and it had a great effect it made emerson somewhat famous and towards the close of this essay on nature he sums up his whole point of view and these words nature is not fix what fluid spirit alters molds makes it be a mobility our brokenness

of nature is the absence of spirit to pure spirit is fluid it is a volatile it is old media every spare wood bills itself a house and beyond its house a world and beyond that swirl the heavens no man of the world just for you the world exists or you sell them for a transcendental this tells you if you're going to live live yourself don't live on books don't live other men's lives don't live another man's religions think feel exist for yourself what's the thing that we find enunciated in nature it's spelled out in a way which came to startle emerson's intellectual contemporaries in a very famous address he made in eighteen hundred and thirty seven at harvard it's called the american scholar at anderson at harvard was walking into a scene somewhat like

this here's a picture of harvard at the time the students marching forward into the chapel it's the chapel in which emerson gave this address and he was telling these young harvard graduates about to be and their professors that's our day of independence are long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands draws to a close the millions that around us are rushing into life cannot always be fed on the sale remains of foreign harvest events actions arise that must be sunday that will sing themselves this is his declaration of independence his advice is simply not to rely upon the europeans scholarship think for yourself just because some european says it doesn't mean that it's true you have an american tradition you have an american scholarship live up to its

remember he says meek young men grow up in libraries believing it their duty to accept the views which cicero which lockwood bacon of given and they forget that cicero up and bacon were only young men in libraries one million of you and so you want to be all right you will think for yourself feel for yourself exists for yourself this is the only way in which we as americans can possibly function towards the end of the american scholar he says they send it sums up i think pretty well his whole philosophy of education and in our day it's very important we ought to pay heed to what he says if there'd be one less and more than another which should pierce the scholars year it is the world is nothing the man is all in yourself is the law of all nature and you know not yet tell a globular sap the sands in yourself

slumbers the whole reason it is for you to my law it is for you to do overall is it not the chief disgrace in the world not to be a unit not to be reckoned with one character not to yield that particular fruit which each man was created to bear what to be recommended gross in the hundred of the thousand of the party the section to which we belong in our opinion predicted geographic please god our shelby knot so we will walk on our own feet we will work with our hands we will speak our own lions the study of letter shall no longer be a name for pity for doubt and for sensual indulgence the dread of man and the love of man shall be awhile of defense and a wreath of joy around all a nation of men will for the first time exist because each believes himself inspired by the divine souls which inspires all man

well done david for all i heard that and so did many other famous or subsequently famous new england man of letters and it came into their hearts like a thunder clap here was a man getting up at harvard the puritan college stop me oh we're all relying upon the european models for everything to believe it was telling them to hell when we are rome thank you well you can imagine what sort of a furor this created what emerson wasn't done because it was scarcely a year later and he got up in the same place the same chapel and delivered what is called today the divinity school address and if you think his ideas on education his ideas on things for yourself a shocker imagine this audience so rather stuffy puritan boston clergy

gathered to hear the youngest emerson one of their number a man with generations of heritage in new england he gets up and he says things like jesus christ is simply a map the church itself is simply an ossified institution it's something that we made no longer take account of in all seriousness once man that was all not only as an appendage a nuisance and because of the end welling supremes spirit can only be got rid of the doctrine of it suffers this proportion that the define nature is attributed to one or two persons and denied to all the rest and denied with fury what's he saying why are you simply saying that it isn't really part of the task of religion simply to put it all on jesus christ and think that he saved

all them that he does all know you know must save yourself in another one of his essays he says something like this mann is a god in ruins and man must function as a god man must remember this man must remember that he himself art takes of the divine jesus was a great profit yes that is very true you belong to the race of profits the song would open it the mystery of the soul drawn by its severe harmony ravaged with its beauty he lived in it and he had as being there alone in all history he estimated the greatness of my body the importance of jesus lies not as emerson sees it in the fact that he is the incarnation of god and it lies in the fact that what jesus saw and what jesus did you can do because this is the essence you see of the

declaration of independence and it's that independence not only of european models of scholarship one of european religious institutions and indeed of every institution that would make man enters something about her stir them being for himself an individual that is always best which gives me to myself the sublime as excited in me by the great stoic old doctrine oh brace myself and that you say is really the heart of the matter that is one at all really adds up to obey yourself the stationary ness of religion the assumption that the age of inspiration his past with them wible is closed the fear of degrading the character of jesus by representing him as a man indicate with sufficient clearness the full set of archaeology it is the office of a pro teacher to show us that god is not was

that he speak not by andy speaks to you in your own heart anderson believed above all that each man has an intuition an awareness of the spiritual him and he gets this intuition by consulting his own inner voice not by simply consulting the words of st paul or sweden barbara george walks and so he concludes let me admonished you first of all to ball a low to refuse the good models even those which are sacred in the imagination of man and dared to log off without a mediator or a fail you yourself a newborn wyatt of the holy ghost past behind you all conformity and equate them out firsthand with the icky look to it first and only the fashion

custom or for the pleasure and money are nothing for you are not babbage's all realize that you cannot say that was his advice to them away and women clergy and they reacted all they reacted furiously who is this man that dares to tell us that everything we preach and believe is wrong israeli a perversion of the spirit rather than an expression of it well harvard did what it could they didn't invite him back to harvard for thirty years and even fifty years later there were many people who said that terrible mr emerson we should have nothing to do with well perhaps i've shown you a little of the maverick nature of the man actually of course he was a very gentle soul he wasn't really a fighter of all when he went out on the lyceum circuit he's spoken only mild voice and the chief complaint of his heroes was that the people in the bible all couldn't catch what he said but he was a

bombshell and he ignited a fire and this fire was to sweep through new england and by the time it was done that many of the order and the old institutions had passed away for those of you that want to find something more about emerson there are several biographies the one that i would recommend to you is a biography by ron ross the life of ralph waldo emerson like much that is written in new england it's a bit stuffy it's a bit stodgy it's hard going when it's helen you'll find all the information there you need to know but you should get acquainted with emerson directly and the best book for that is the modern library edition of the writings of ralph waldo emerson everything that i have quoted from this evening you'll find him this little book and it's the one indispensable book that you should have to read about

ralph waldo emerson the map a son of the revolutionary in new england at the time he delivered this divinity school address which caused so much trouble which gave rise to such an enormous amount of controversy he was only thirty five years old and he had some forty five years of life left too it was in this forty five years left to him it really made his fight it really settled down and wrote the books that would make him famous there are several of them and they basically develop this same transcendental his theme which we have been talking about all evening the idea that the spiritual is all and that the material is really nothing the idea that the individual is all and that that herd is something to be avoided the idea that man can

perfect himself that man can become one with the divine throughout all the rest of his work emerson is going to preach this gospel it is a gospel which is going to develop into a major thing in mid nineteenth century american letters and how it works out and what it signifies we shall see next week as we continue with the career of the profit of congo that night i need the police it's nice the american on a series of britain's concerned with intellectual history of the american republic is conducted by dr roberts

associate professor of philosophy at tulane university the american mind is a studio presentation of wypr stevie new orleans and this is national educational television ms bee mr dave dog or an avenue you study center will be the guest on working press tomorrow night at eight o'clock newsman quizzing mr dobrin will include bob fridley bill monroe and dan wilson see working press tomorrow night on channel eight