"By virtue of its openness to science . . . transcendentalism avoids divorcing itself from the mainstream of modern science and technology. But it affirms that ”not he is great who can alter matter, but who can alter my state of mind.” Some say that modern liberalism is without a soul . . . It is the ambition, if it has not yet been the fate, of transcendentalism to provide a soul for modern liberalism and thereby to enlarge the possibilities of modern life.”
" Transcendentalism
did not change American life, but it did change – and continues to change—individual
American lives. Transcendentalism was not only a literary philosophical and
religious movement; it was also, inescapably, a social and political movement
as well. . . . Thoreau could say ”the purest science is still biographical,”
or, as Emerson might have said, there is, finally, no science, there are only
scientists.
In
religion transcendentalism teaches that the religious spirit is a necessary aspect
of human nature . . In literature
transcendentalism holds that it is a built-in necessity of human nature to
express itself . . .The social imperative of transcendentalism
is twofold. It insists, first, that the well-being of the individual – of all
the individuals – is the basic purpose and the ultimate justification for all
social organizations and second that autonomous individuals cannot exist apart
from others. . . that the purpose of education is to facilitate the
self-development of each individual. The political trajectory of
transcendentalism begins in philosophical freedom and ends in democratic
individualism.
By virtue of its openness to science . . . transcendentalism avoids divorcing itself from
the mainstream of modern science and technology. But it affirms that ”not he is
great who can alter matter, but who can alter my state of mind.” Some say that
modern liberalism is without a soul . . . It is the ambition, if it has not yet
been the fate, of transcendentalism to provide a soul for modern liberalism and
thereby to enlarge the possibilities of modern life.”
from Emerson: Mind On Fire by Robert D. Richardson, Jr.
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