THE XXI. NATURE. HE law of contraries, as expressed by Plato and his successors, was revived by Eckhart and Boehme; and it became an important element in the nature-philosophy of Schelling and Goethe. With Boehme, "These contraries are his trade-winds, whereby he voyages to and fro, and traverses with such facility the whole system of things. He teaches that the Divine unity, in its manifestation, or self-realization, parts into two principles, variously called light and darkness, joy and sorrow, fire and light, wrath and love, good and evil. Without what is termed the darkness and the fire, there would be no love and light. Evil is necessary to manifest good. Not that every thing is created by God for evil. In every thing is both good and evil; the predominance decides its use and destiny." 1 This idea occupied a prominent place in the speculations of Kant, Schelling, Goethe, and in all the German thought of their day. "The scientific investigation of nature showed a particular bias during this period to the adoption of a duality of forces as dominant there: In mechanics, Kant had given a theory of the antithesis of attraction and repulsion; in chemistry, the phenomena of electricity, abstractly conceived as positive and negative, were assimilated to magnetism; in physiology, there was the antagonism of irritability and sensibility, etc. As against these dualities, Schelling passed forward to the unity of all opposites, of all dualities, not the abstract unity, but to the concrete ideality, the harmonious concert and co-operation of the whole heterogeneous variety. The world is the actuose unity of a positive and negative principle, and those two opposing forces, in conflict or coalition, lead to the idea of a world-organizing, world-systematizing principle, the soul of the universe." 2 1 Vaughan's Hours with the Mystics, vol. ii. p. 109. Schelling saw in mind and matter, simply the polar opposites of the Absolute, the Absolute being truly seen only at the indifference point of the two poles. The magnet became with him, as with Goethe and many others, the symbol of this unity of nature and soul in the Universal Spirit. In mind and matter, subject and object, is the same substance, the same life, the same identical power; but one is positive, the other negative. All things manifest this tendency; each thing has its positive and its negative manifestation This is a universal law, the first law expressed by the Universal Spirit in its creative development. This theory occupies an important place in Emerson's philosophy. Mind is also with him the positive, matter the negative, expression of the Universal Spirit, or the Absolute Substance; and this polarity is essential to its manifestation. He sees in mind and matter, subiect and object, not unlike things, but the polar expressions of the same absolute reality As an essential thing in itself nature has no existence, but it is the negative expression of Universal Mind. "Every thing in nature, says Emerson, is bipolar, or has a positive and negative pole. There is a male and female, a spirit and a fact, a north and a south. Spirit is the positive, the event is the negative. Will is the north, action the south, pole."1 Whilst the world is thus dual, he says, so is every one of its parts. The entire system of things gets represented in every particle. There is somewhat that resembles the ebb and flow of the sea, day and night, man and woman, in a single needle of the pine, in a kernel of corn, in each individual of every animal tribe." This polarity appears as motion and rest, so that nature is one stuff with two ends; or as nature and thought in perpetual tilt and balance.1 In man it is expressed as a double consciousness, as a private and public nature whose interests are not the same.5 Essays, second series, p. 98. 2 Essays, first series, pp. 86, 87. 8 Essays, second series, pp. 175, 176. 4 Conduct of Life, p. 36. 5 Ibid., P. 40. "2 As nature and thought are the magnetic poles of the Universal Mind, as both inhere in and are nothing apart from that Central Life they manifest, it follows they exactly correspond to each other. They reflect and interpret each the other.They are identical in nature, identical in their laws, identical in the impression they make, simply because each is the Universal Spirit in its positive or negative form. It is the same magnetism, but different only in appearing at the opposite ends of the magnet. This view of mind and matter leads to the doctrine of identity, which in one form or another is a cardinal one with, all the idealists and mystics. Even so orthodox a mystic as William Law says, "Body and Spirit are not two separate, independent things, but are necessary to each other, and are only the inward and outward conditions of one and the same being.' The doctrine of identity Emerson expresses in these words: "A perfect parallelism exists between nature and the laws of thought." This relation between matter and mind, he says, is not a fancied one, but stands in the will of God; so that "the laws of the moral nature answer to those of matter as face to face in a glass." "Intellect and morals appear only the material forces on a higher plane. The laws of material nature run up into the invisible world of the mind," and in those laws we find a key to the facts of human consciousness.5 Identity of nature and man, matter and mind, object and sub-. ject, gives the basis and the means of knowledge. Things are so strictly related, that from one object the parts and properties of any other may be predicted." 6 Man and nature are so much alike, that man can know nature by what it is in himself. "Man carries the world in his head, the whole astronomy and chemistry suspended in a thought. Because the history of nature is charactered in his brain, therefore is he the prophet and discoverer of her secrets."7 Man 66 1 Spirit of Love. 8 Ibid., pp. 8, 9. 5 Perpetual Forces, p. 273. 7 Ibid., p. 178. "4 3 2 Letters and Social Aims, p. 7. 6 Essays, second series, p. 177. can understand the objective world, only because he is of like nature with it. The maxim of Plotinus, Boehme, and Schelling, that "like can be known only by like," is fully accepted by Emerson. "The possibility of interpretation, he says, lies in the identity of the observer with the observed. Each material thing has its celestial side; has its translation, through humanity, into the spiritual and necessary sphere, where it plays a part as indestructible as any other." Man "is not representative, but participant. Like can only be known by like. The reason why he knows about them is, that he is of them; he has just come out of nature, or from being a part of that thing. Animated chlorine knows of chlorine, and incarnate zinc, of zinc. Their quality makes his career; and he can variously publish their virtues, because they compose him. Man, made of the dust of the world, does not forget his origin; and all that is yet inanimate will one day speak and reason.” 1 The material world Emerson regards as precipitated mind, while Nature is a symbol of the Absolute. Matter is undeveloped mind. He says "that which once existed in intellect as pure law, has now taken body as Nature. It existed in the mind in solution; now, it has been precipitated; and the bright sediment is the world." 2 In Nature Emerson seems to have been affected by the theory of Plotinus, who says creation resulted from a fall on the part of pure souls, whose sense-desires they put forth as nature. If he was at all affected by that theory, however, it was only temporarily. He has regarded matter as the first scale, or sphere, of being. From it life rises in successive forms of development, through mind, to complete union with the Universal Spirit. How nature came to exist he seems not to have attempted to solve. He appears to entertain the opinion of many idealists, that self-manifestation is a necessity of the Absolute. The process of the return of matter, the lowest form of that manifestation, back into its original, he explains by the theory of continuous self-development. Every natural fact, he says, is an emanation. Not the cause, but an ever novel effect, nature descends always from above. It is unRepresentative Men, p. 17. 66 2 Miscellanies, p. 189. broken obedience. The beauty of these fair objects is imparted into them from a metaphysical and eternal spring. In all animal and vegetable forms, the physiologist concedes that no chemistry, no mechanics, can account for the facts; but a mysterious principle of life must be assumed, which not only inhabits the organ, but makes the organ."1 "1 Nature is alive with God, fluid and volatile with his presence. As God sees nature, it is "a transparent law, not a mass of facts," 2 a method by which laws are revealed to the soul and expressed by it Nature is a revelation to man of that Universal Soul in which he belongs, of which he is a part; and it serves also to reveal to him the laws of his own nature. "The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and orbit. the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufficing, and therefore selfrelying, soul." Nature was once thought, and towards thought it always tends. "The world is mind precipitated, and the-volatile essence is for ever escaping again into the state of free thought. Hence the virtue and pungency of the influence on the mind, of natural objects, whether inorganic or organized. Man imprisoned, man crystallized, man vegetative, speaks to man impersonated." 4 "Man is fallen; nature is erect, and serves as a differential thermometer, detecting the presence or absence of the divine sentiment in man.' Nature is growing, ever proceeding towards spirit. "We can point nowhere to any thing final, but tendency appears on all hands; planet, system, constellation, total nature is growing like a field of maize in July, is becoming somewhat else, is in rapid metamorphosis. The embryo does not more strive to be man than yonder burr of light we call a nebula tends to be a ring, a comet, a globe, and a parent of new suns." 6 The inherent, quickening life of Nature, natura naturans, is drawing all things towards their perfect realization of 1 Miscellanies, p. 191. 8 Ibid., p. 62. 5 Ibid., p. 174. 2 Essays, first series, p. 274. |