The Chain of Being
The basis of Transcendentalism is heavily grounded on two linked theories: spiritual correspondence (first presented by Emanuel Swedenborg) and the Great Chain of Being. Swedenborg's theory of spiritual correspondence, boiled down to its bare essentials, puts forth that man is capable of intellectually perceiving and connecting to the divine spirit. His perception of spirit is reliant on the cross-cultural belief that spirit is imbued in all things through the Chain of Being. At the top of the Chain of Being, spirit reaches its perfection, or in many religions, a godhead which embodies pure morality.
From notes on: Wilber, Ken. “The Great Chain of Being.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 33.3 (1993): 52-65. Jstor. Web. 22 Jan. 2013.
Wilber describes the Chain of Being as consisting of Holons (segments) which portray differing levels of material and spiritual planes of existence. A constant of this system is the growing spiritual unity as one moves up the Chain of Being. While there is a divide between the material world and spirit, spirit is found in all parts of the chain.
Called the perennial philosophy, Wilber is clear that it is found in many, if not all human social religions. Each step up the chain implies that the lower hierarchy is contained within the next holon and is made up of something new and unique, but also consists in part of the lower holons. This is important to Emerson and Thoreau in terms of what the spirit entails-what is reality, and for Thoreau that matter is part of all (Nature), that the earth is part of all things-a based part. Wilber uses the metaphor of the tree (think Thoreau and Emerson here) to describe the manner in which there is an ordered and hierarchical growth of a tree from acorn to tree. This should not be confused with linearity in Wilber’s opinion, as the growth of the oak is intricate and” interactive” (55)-each part becoming and changing into something new, to be something greater, but still part of the initial acorn.
Of key importance to these planes of existence is the belief that spirit has a transcendental nature in that it is present in all things, as well as composing the highest rungs of existence. In this sense, spirit is considered to be “both the highest goal of all development and evolution, and the ground…Spirit is prior to this world, but not other to this world” (Wilbur 58-59).
1579 drawing of the Great Chain of Being from Didacus Valades, Rhetorica Christiana.
Image and text from Wikipedia's entry on the theory
This image from a Palaeos.com entry on the theory provides a more basic understanding, though without the connection to spirit imbued within the entire system.
Calling this "the ladder of intellect" is very important when considering Emerson's consideration of spirit because he viewed spirit and humanity as linked chiefly through thought.
Emerson and Thoreau's use of Spiritual Correspondence and the Over-Soul in Connection to Universal Truth
Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature (1836)
Emerson's Nature construes it as only reflective of spiritual order and law, making Nature little more than food for the mind’s moral development. Spirit is described as connecting humanity and Nature through the Over-Soul, which implies a divine connection between natural order and human intellect. The physical senses as they stand in relation to material bulk are viewed as nothing more than Commodity.
“In like manner, nature is already, in its forms and tendencies, describing its own design. Let us interrogate the great apparition, that shines so peacefully around us”
"The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right"
"The world thus exists to the soul to satisfy the desire of beauty. This element I call an ultimate end. No reason can be asked or given why the soul seeks beauty. Beauty, in its largest and profoundest sense, is one expression for the universe…But beauty in nature is not ultimate. It is the herald of inward and eternal beauty, and is not alone a solid and satisfactory good. It must stand as a part, and not as yet the last or highest expression of the final cause of Nature."
---. “Self-Reliance” (1841)
Emerson presents the need one has to live according to their own will and ability to perceive universal truth. A belief in spiritual correspondence creates a dual approach to individuality which finds each individual to be part of the Over-Soul (partial divinity for all individuals), which creates the expectation that each person can and should find/listen to their innate connections to universal spirit.
"a man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages.”
"There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is give him to till.”
"We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents…God will not have his work made manifest by cowards."
---. "The Over-Soul" (1841)
Emerson's belief in spiritual correspondence presents that an innate connection exists between humanity and Nature through the Over-Soul, as spirit is imbued in all things and on all planes of existence along the Chain of Being. Emerson’s methodology of communing with the Over-Soul places him as a removed observer of the material world. The intellectual act of communing with universal spirit is done through the contemplation of spiritual truths shown through the Over-Soul. This places both the individual, and the material examples which surround them as possible avenues of study as one attempts to garner spiritual truths.
“within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE.”
“Let man then learn the revelation of all nature and all thought to his heart; this, namely; that the Highest dwells with him; that the sources of nature are in his own mind, if the sentiment of duty is there”
Henry David Thoreau's Walden
Calls for immersion in both the spiritual and organic. Rather than viewing Nature in its totality as a symbol of universal harmony, or as food for moralistic consideration of spiritual truth, Thoreau found all facets of the material world to be part of universal spirit. By viewing the particulars of Nature as singular exemplars of universal order, the material world is presented as part of universal order. This stresses the need for the use of the human senses to physically experience the world.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."
"I have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed by a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks after I came to the woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the near neighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life…In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me...every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to me... "
---. "Civil Disobedience"
I find that "Civil Disobedience" continues Walden's stress on materiality's importance by extending Thoreau's consideration of spiritual morality to what happens in the material world. The focus of “Civil Disobedience” is on individual spiritual health, yet the author looks beyond it to take into account the actions of society as they affect the spiritual individual through material connections. While the stress is on one's spiritual health, much the same as Emerson's consideration of society (Role of Society here???), the difference lies in Emerson's Nature and Thoreau's Nature. This is most strongly seen in "Civil Disobedience's" call that all individuals take into account what effects their physical actions and/or material connections have on those around them. Thoreau's perception that the material world directly offers lessons on and connections to the sublime instills a healthier conscience for what happens in the material realm. Boiled down, Thoreau's sense of spiritual correspondence take into account materiality, and if society's treatment of others is not moral, then Thoreau pulls away on the principle that his passive acceptance of the state’s immoral actions would harm his own morality.
"It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even to most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too."
"I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to nature, it dies; and so a man."
Spirit, being the origin of truth, and accessible only through personal contemplation, places "second-handedness" as the "cardinal sin" of Transcendentalism (Madden 88).
4/10/2013
Jane Bennett “On Being Native: Thoreau’s Hermeneutics of Self.”
560-“For Thoreau, civil disobedience was rare because individuality is rare.” In part due to a lack of connection to Nature and the Wild.
564-565 only by getting away from society can one discover what makes them unique. Which is the only way to find one’s true character
To be alone was something unpleasant. But I was at the same time conscious of a slight insanity in my mood, and seemed to foresee my recovery. In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since. Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to me, even in scenes which we are accustomed to call wild and dreary, and also that the nearest of blood to me and humanest was not a person nor a villager, that I thought no place could ever be strange to me again.
“Only immersed in Nature is it possible to discern the remainder that would be left of the self were all common traits and thoughts to evaporate. This hypothetical remainder is also a very real core, for it represents one’s authentic self.”
*The term native is used by Bennett to describe that part of the person that is left once all of society has been washed away-[Reminds me of Diesm]
566 To take in the world as a native was to “discover not only an intimacy of earth and universe, but also a link between individual and cosmos.” To see one’s self as part of a whole.
“Thoreau suggests that while Nature, fortunately, is alien enogh to provoke self-revalation [alien from society I am guessing], it is at the same time, as a link in the chain of being, at one with us.
Notes that Thoreau was self autonomy “only in regards to conventional social life; he is very much intertwined with the cosmos.”
Her quote from Life Without Princple: “Really to see the sun rise or go down every day, so to relate ourselves to the universal fact, would preserve us sane forever.” (USE THIS IN EM. SECTION)
567: Relates back to Hegel, that the “I” of one’s self “interprets and witnesses Nature as he was himself part of the natural mold. Nature helps to ascribe meaning to the self which connects to nature and spirit (Hegel’s other)-one’s own over-soul, to construct one’s understanding of the individuality and worth.
568- As an individual, Thoreau doubles as an observer and partaker of natural experience. In connection he is also acutely aware that he himself is a natural object to be observed by himself for a better understanding of self, and Nature-of which he is a part of.
569-571 Both Thoreau and Russeau see an inner core of identity which is sullied by society. What Thoreau refers to as a living kernel. Bennett considers the Bean Field section of Walden to be an allegory for the culitivation of the innerself. One weeds their garden, makes order of the unorganized soil of the self to serve a higher pupose. “The next lesson” is that “over cultivation ruins the soil.” One does not want to have too perfect a bean field or there is nothing to weed, there is no longer any impetious to better oneself. Bennett sees this as a token back to his considerations of the wasted East, living without any connection to the wild weeds that implore one to go out and till their fields. Uses part of the below quote to suggest that part of cultivating the self is being able to acknowledge a connection to the wild that moves beyond orders and humanistic impulses. “To over weed is to deny Nature a place in the self and to deny the self a place in the universe (572) “These beans have results which are not harvested by me. Do they not grow for woodchucks partly? The ear of wheat (in Latin spica, obsoletely speca, from spe, hope) should not be the only hope of the husbandman; its kernel or grain (granum from gerendo, bearing) is not all that it bears. How, then, can our harvest fail? Shall I not rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the granary of the birds? It matters little comparatively whether the fields fill the farmer's barns.”
572 -574 As a natural object, Bennett notes that Thoreau struggled with “Higher Laws” to break down the balance to be struck between wildness, and morality. This is described as conflict with the self. A self that has been purged from society, and washed in Nature. Bennett uses quotes from Walden to show Thoreau’s take that the killer wildness of Nature was something of childhood, that the higher principle was what should be striven for, which correlates to a movement away from animalistic predation, and moralistic contemplation.
VI Augustine… Notes that by the end of Higher Laws, the wild has become something of a moralistically reviled entity-though she does not that the Thoreau views it as an integral part of the self due to its GENERATIVE qualities (PLACE THIS IN WILDNESS SECTION.)
Emerson “Self-Reliance”
19-“ a man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages.”
Mentions the connected sense that genius brings as thoughts which we had already had and rejected. All original genius being contained with the universal spirit, as in we are all capable of genius thoughts.
20- “ There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is give him to till.”
Presentation of imitation as suicide get to Emerson’s placement of the divine mind. To kill yourself by not being yourself. Imitation, as noted by Madden, truly is the cardinal sin to Emerson.
Porte stresses many times that Emerson was all about moral duty to better the self and society. Yet I am getting the impression that much of this is based on moral duty to one’s self to be the best individual, regardless of others-it is all about letting yourself shine.
p- 20 “We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents…God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.
P 20 “A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace.”… “trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
Individuality of expression is heavily stressed here. While society may benefit from the oracular genius of universal spirit, it is the individual that delivers it.
Emerson considers the youth to be natural expressions of individuality unattached from society. The issues of consciousness affecting one’s natural opinion begins, to Emerson, as soon as one has put forth a care for fame or hope to impress another, they have lost their individuality.
P 21 “Ah, that he could pass again into his neutrality!”
Quote stresses a distance from society, and beyond that, I hope that one does not need their fellow man on any mental regard.
P21 “Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater.”
P21 “They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the above.” I replied, “They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil’s child, I will live then from the Devil. No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.”
Emerson asserts his position that one lives according to their spiritual genius. Once again stressing the divine nature of the mind/humanity.
4/3/2013 Madden, Civil Disobedience and Moral Law in Nineteenth-Century American Philosophy. Pages 85-103
Sees Emerson on eschewing the reality of material. Idealism of Emerson situates absolute reality within spirit.
Additionally finds the metaphorical construct of language as situated in the ideal theory as the cornerstone of Emerson's philosophy
P 87- "Key to his idealism is his view of language and metaphor. Every metaphor, Emerson thought, literally describes some spiritual fact or announces some spiritual truth.
p 88-Though Madden does not directly mention the "Over-Soul" in his description of humanity's connection to universal spirit, he does note the general idealist principle that each is an "incarnation of the universal mind" and is thus capable of connecting to inherent morality of universal spirit.
Wilber, Ken. “The Great Chain of Being.” (correspondence of Spirit on all planes of existence)
Called the perennial philosophy, Wilber is very clear that it is found in many if not all human social religions. Each step up the chain implies that the lower hierarchy is contained within the next holon, is made up of something new and unique, but also the lower holons. This is important to Emerson and Thoreau in terms of what the spirit entails-what is reality, and for Thoreau that matter is part of all, that the earth is part of all things-a based part. Wilber uses the metaphor of the tree (think Thor and Paine here) to describe the manner in which there is an ordered and hierarchical growth of a tree from acorn to tree. This should not be confused with linearity in Wilber’s opinion as the growth of the oak is an intricate and” interactive” (55)-each part become and changing into something new, to be something greater, but still part of the initial acorn
The holons are seen as being parts of a stage of growth which cannot go backwards. Spirit though is entailed as present in all stages-em’s idealism here. Notes on page 57 that some holons can become corrupt and not act according to their purpose (think Paine and poltics here). These must be changed to act according to the plan-these he terms as pathological holons. Which must be rooted out as they are abusing their powers of either upward or downward causation.
Page 58-illustrates common holons such as body mind spirit, or earth human heaven, also Spirit as the highest level of human interaction of the holoarchy. Yet it is also an integral part of all lower holons. The highest aspect of spirit being it transcendental nature as it moves beyond the body or earth. it is ephemeral and timeless. He additionally has this to say about the lopsided relationships between earth or spirit, “Failure to take both of those paradoxical aspects of Spiritin into account has lead people to some very lopsided views of Spirit. Traditionally, the patriarchal religions have tended to overemphasize the transcendental nature of Spirit, thus condemning earth, nature, body, and woman to an inferior status. Prior to that, the matriarchal religions tended to emphasize the immanent nature of Spirit alone, and the resultant pantheistic worldview equated the finite and created Earth with the infinite and uncreated Spirit.”
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.