Self-Reliance

"Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate;
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still."
—Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's Fortune.

Cast the bantling on the rocks,
Suckle him with the she-wolf's teat;
Wintered with the hawk and fox,
Power and speed be hands and feet.

I READ THE OTHER day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. Always the soul hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,— that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for always the inmost becomes the outmost—and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.

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 given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. It is not without preestablished harmony, this sculpture in the memory. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. Bravely let him speak the utmost syllable of his confession. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. It needs a divine man to exhibit anything divine. 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. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the Eternal was stirring at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not pinched in a corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but redeemers and benefactors, pious aspirants to be noble clay under the Almighty effort let us advance on Chaos and the Dark.

What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text in the face and behavior of children, babes, and even brutes. That divided and rebel mind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed the strength and means opposed to our purpose, these have not. Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we look in their faces, we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it; so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, it will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room who spoke so clear and emphatic? It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or bold then, he will know how to make us seniors very unnecessary.

The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the healthy attitude of human nature. How is a boy the master of society; independent, irresponsible, looking out from his corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries and sentences them on their merits, in the swift, summary way of boys, as good, bad, interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome. He cumbers himself never about consequences, about interests; he gives an independent, genuine verdict. You must court him; he does not court you. But the man is as it were clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as he has once acted or spoken with eclat he is a committed person, watched by the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds, whose affections must now enter into his account. There is no Lethe for this. Ah, that he could pass again into his neutral, godlike independence! Who can thus lose all pledge and, having observed, observe again from the same unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted innocence, must always be formidable, must always engage the poet's and the man's regards. Of such an immortal youth the force would be felt. He would utter opinions on all passing affairs, which being seen to be not private but necessary, would sink like darts into the ear of men and put them in fear.

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. 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. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested,—”But these impulses may be from below, not from 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. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways. If malice and vanity wear the coat of philanthropy, shall that pass? If an angry bigot assumes this bountiful cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from Barbadoes, why should I not say to him, “Go love thy infant; love thy wood-chopper; be good-natured and modest; have that grace; and never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love afar is spite at home.” Rough and graceless would be such greeting, but truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it,—else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be preached, as the counteraction of the doctrine of love, when that pules and whines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the doorpost, Whim. I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I seek or why I exclude company. Then, again, do not tell me, as a good man did today, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go to prison if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots, and the thousandfold Relief Societies;—though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar, which by-and-by I shall have the manhood to withhold.

Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the rule. There is the man and his virtues. Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world,—as invalids and the insane pay a high board. Their virtues are penances. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life. It is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. My life should be unique; it should be an alms, a battle, a conquest, a medicine. I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse this appeal from the man to his actions. I know that for myself it makes no difference whether I do or forbear those actions which are reckoned excellent. I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character. If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible Society, vote with a great party either for the Government or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers,—under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are. And of course so much force is withdrawn from your proper life. But do your thing, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what a blindman's-buff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect I anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church. Do I not know beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous word? Do I not know that with all this ostentation of examining the grounds of the institution he will do no such thing? Do I not know that he is pledged to himself not to look but at one side, the permitted side, not as a man, but as a parish minister? He is a retained attorney, and these airs of the bench are the emptiest affectation. Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four: so that every word they say chagrins us and we know not where to begin to set them right. Meantime nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere. We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by degrees the gentlest asinine expression. There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean “the foolish face of praise,” the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease, in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved but moved by a low usurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face, and make the most disagreeable sensation; a sensation of rebuke and warning which no brave young man will suffer twice.

For non-conformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face. The bystanders look askance on him in the public street or in the friend's parlor. If this aversation had its origin in contempt and resistance like his own he might well go home with a sad countenance; but the sour faces of the multitude, like their sweet faces, have no deep cause—disguise no god, but are put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs. Yet is the discontent of the multitude more formidable than that of the senate and the college. It is easy enough for a firm man who knows the world to brook the rage of the cultivated classes. Their rage is decorous and prudent, for they are timid, as being very vulnerable themselves. But when to their feminine rage the indignation of the people is added, when the ignorant and the poor are aroused, when the unintelligent brute force that lies at the bottom of society is made to growl and mow, it needs the habit of magnanimity and religion to treat it godlike as a trifle of no concernment.

The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.

But why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about this monstrous corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat you have stated in this or that public place? Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then? It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand eyed present, and live ever in a new day. Trust your emotion. In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the Deity, yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them heart and life, though they should clothe God with shape and color. Leave your theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and flee.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Out upon your guarded lips! Sew them up with packthread, do. Else if you would be a man speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon balls, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. Ah, then, exclaim the aged ladies, you shall be sure to be misunderstood! Misunderstood! It is a right fool's word. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

I suppose no man can violate his nature. All the sallies of his will are rounded in by the law of his being, as the inequalities of Andes and Himmaleh are insignificant in the curve of the sphere. Nor does it matter how you gauge and try him. A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza;—read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. In this pleasing contrite wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day my honest thought without prospect or retrospect, and I cannot doubt, it will be found symmetrical, though I mean it not and see it not. My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. The swallow over my window should interweave that thread or straw he carries in his bill into my web also. We pass for what we are. Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.

Fear never but you shall be consistent in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost sight of when seen at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. This is only microscopic criticism. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness always appeals to the future. If I can be great enough now to do right and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances and you always may. The force of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their health into this. What makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate and the field, which so fills the imagination? The consciousness of a train of great days and victories behind. There they all stand and shed an united light on the advancing actor. He is attended as by a visible escort of angels to every man's eye. That is it which throws thunder into Chatham's voice, and dignity into Washington's port, and America into Adams's eye. Honor is venerable to us because it is no ephemeris. It is always ancient virtue. We worship it to-day because it is not of to-day. We love it and pay it homage because it is not a trap for our love and homage, but is self-dependent, selfderived, and therefore of an old immaculate pedigree, even if shown in a young person.

I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency. Let the words be gazetted and ridiculous henceforward. Instead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from the Spartan fife. Let us bow and apologize never more. A great man is coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him: I wish that he should wish to please me. I will stand here for humanity, and though I would make it kind, I would make it true. Let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl in the face of custom and trade and office, the fact which is the upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor moving wherever moves a man; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the centre of things. Where he is, there is nature. He measures you and all men and all events. You are constrained to accept his standard. Ordinarily, every body in society reminds us of somewhat else, or of some other person. Character, reality, reminds you of nothing else; it takes place of the whole creation. The man must be so much that he must make all circumstances indifferent—put all means into the shade. This all great men are and do. Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish his thought;—and posterity seem to follow his steps as a procession. A man Cæsar is born, and for ages after we have a Roman Empire. Christ is born, and millions of minds so grow and cleave to his genius that he is confounded with virtue and the possible of man. An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man; as, the Reformation, of Luther; Quakerism, of Fox; Methodism, of Wesley; Abolition, of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton called “the height of Rome;” and all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons.

Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper in the world which exists for him. But the man in the street, finding no worth in himself which corresponds to the force which built a tower or sculptured a marble god, feels poor when he looks at these. To him a palace, a statue, or a costly book have an alien and forbidding air, much like a gay equipage, and seem to say like that, ‘Who are you, sir?’ Yet they all are his, suitors for his notice, petitioners to his faculties that they will come out and take possession. The picture waits for my verdict; it is not to command me, but I am to settle its claim to praise. That popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead drunk in the street, carried to the duke's house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke's bed, and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he had been insane—owes its popularity to the fact that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason and finds himself a true prince.

Our reading is mendicant and sycophantic. In history our imagination makes fools of us, plays us false. Kingdom and lordship, power and estate, are a gaudier vocabulary than private John and Edward in a small house and common day's work: but the things of life are the same to both: the sum total of both is the same. Why all this deference to Alfred and Scanderbeg and Gustavus? Suppose they were virtuous; did they wear out virtue? As great a stake depends on your private act to-day as followed their public and renowned steps. When private men shall act with original views, the lustre will be transferred from the actions of kings to those of gentlemen.

The world has indeed been instructed by its kings, who have so magnetized the eyes of nations. It has been taught by this colossal symbol the mutual reverence that is due from man to man. The joyful loyalty with which men have everywhere suffered the king, the noble, or the great proprietor to walk among them by a law of his own, make his own scale of men and things and reverse theirs, pay for benefits not with money but with honor, and represent the Law in his person, was the hieroglyphic by which they obscurely signified their consciousness of their own right and comeliness, the right of every man.

The magnetism which all original action exerts is explained when we inquire the reason of self-trust. Who is the Trustee? What is the aboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be grounded? What is the nature and power of that science-baffling star, without parallax, without calculable elements, which shoots a ray of beauty even into trivial and impure actions, if the least mark of independence appear? The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the essence of genius, the essence of virtue, and the essence of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct. We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions. In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their common origin. For the sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things, from space from light, from time, from man, but one with them and proceedeth obviously from the same source whence their life and being also proceedeth. We first share the life by which things exist and afterwards see them as appearances in nature and forget that we have shared their cause. Here is the fountain of action and the fountain of thought. Here are the lungs of that inspiration which giveth man wisdom, of that inspiration of man which cannot be denied without impiety and atheism. We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us organs of its activity and receivers of its truth. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes—all metaphysics, all philosophy is at fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can affirm. Every man discerns between the voluntary acts of his mind and his involuntary perceptions. And to his involuntary perceptions he knows a perfect respect is due. He may err in the expression of them, but he knows that these things are so, like day and night, not to be disputed. All my wilful actions and acquisitions are but roving;—the most trivial reverie, the faintest native emotion, are domestic and divine. Thoughtless people contradict as readily the statement of perceptions as of opinions, or rather much more readily; for they do not distinguish between perception and notion. They fancy that I choose to see this or that thing. But perception is not whimsical, but fatal. If I see a trait, my children will see it after me, and in course of time all mankind,—although it may chance that no one has seen it before me. For my perception of it is as much a fact as the sun.

The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure that it is profane to seek to interpose helps. It must be that when God speaketh he should communicate, not one thing, but all things; should fill the world with his voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls, from the centre of the present thought; and new date and new create the whole. Whenever a mind is simple and receives a divine wisdom, then old things pass away,—means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour. All things are made sacred by relation to it,—one thing as much as another. All things are dissolved to their centre by their cause, and in the universal miracle petty and particular miracles disappear. This is and must be. If therefore a man claims to know and speak of God and carries you backward to the phraseology of some old mouldered nation in another country, in another world, believe him not. Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fulness and completion? Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? Whence then this worship of the past? The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and majesty of the soul. Time and space are but physiological colors which the eye maketh, but the soul is light; where it is, is day; where it was, is night; and history is an impertinence and an injury if it be any thing more than a cheerful apologue or parable of my being and becoming.

Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say “I think,” “I am,” but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the fullblown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied and it satisfies nature in all moments alike. There is no time to it. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.

This should be plain enough. Yet see what strong intellects dare not yet hear God himself unless he speak the phraseology of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not always set so great a price on a few texts, on a few lives. We are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they grow older, of the men of talents and character they chance to see,—painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke; afterwards, when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered these sayings, they understand them and are willing to let the words go; for at any time they can use words as good when occasion comes. So was it with us, so will it be, if we proceed. If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man to be strong, as it is for the weak to be weak. When we have new perception, we shall gladly disburthen the memory of its hoarded treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn.

And now at last the highest truth on this subject remains unsaid; probably cannot be said; for all that we say is the far off remembering of the intuition. That thought, by what I can now nearest approach to say it, is this. When good is near you, when you have life in yourself,—it is not by any known or appointed way; you shall not discern the footprints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name;—the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude all other being. You take the way from man, not to man. All persons that ever existed are its fugitive ministers. There shall be no fear in it. Fear and hope are alike beneath it. It asks nothing. There is somewhat low even in hope. We are then in vision. There is nothing that can be called gratitude, nor properly joy. The soul is raised over passion. It seeth identity and eternal causation. It is a perceiving that Truth and Right are. Hence it becomes a Tranquillity out of the knowing that all things go well. Vast spaces of nature; the Atlantic Ocean, the South Sea; vast intervals of time, years, centuries, are of no account. This which I think and feel underlay that former state of life and circumstances, as it does underlie my present and will always all circumstances, and what is called life and what is called death.

Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one fact the world hates, that the soul becomes; for that forever degrades the past; turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to a shame; confounds the saint with the rogue; shoves Jesus and Judas equally aside. Why then do we prate of self-reliance? Inasmuch as the soul is present there will be power not confident but agent. To talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking. Speak rather of that which relies because it works and is. Who has more soul than I masters me, though he should not raise his finger. Round him I must revolve by the gravitation of spirits. Who has less I rule with like facility. We fancy it rhetoric when we speak of eminent virtue. We do not yet see that virtue is Height, and that a man or a company of men, plastic and permeable to principles, by the law of nature must overpower and ride all cities, nations, kings, rich men, poets, who are not.

This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this, as on every topic, the resolution of all into the ever-blessed ONE. Virtue is the governor, the creator, the reality. All things real are so by so much virtue as they contain. Hardship, husbandry, hunting, whaling, war, eloquence, personal weight, are somewhat, and engage my respect as examples of the soul's presence and impure action. I see the same law working in nature for conservation and growth. The poise of a planet, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are also demonstrations of the self-sufficing and therefore self-relying soul. All history, from its highest to its trivial passages, is the various record of this power.

Thus all concentrates; let us not rove; let us sit at home with the cause. Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books and institutions by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid them take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here within. Let our simplicity judge them, and our docility to our own law demonstrate the poverty of nature and fortune beside our native riches.

But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is the soul admonished to stay at home, to put itself in communication with the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of men. We must go alone. Isolation must precede true society. I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary. Se let us always sit. Why should we assume the faults of our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our hearth, or are said to have the same blood? All men have my blood and I have all men's. Not for that will I adopt their petulance or folly, even to the extent of being ashamed of it. But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation.

At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say, “Come out unto us.”—Do not spill thy soul; do not all descend; keep thy state; stay at home in thine own heaven; come not for a moment into their facts, into their hubbub of conflicting appearances, but let in the light of thy law on their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act. “What we love that we have, but by desire we bereave ourselves of the love.”

If we cannot at once rise to the sanctities of obedience and faith, let us at least resist our temptations, let us enter into the state of war and wake Thor and Woden, courage and constancy, in our Saxon breasts. This is to be done in our smooth times by speaking the truth. Check this lying hospitality and lying affection. Live no longer to the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we converse. Say to them, O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth's. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law less than the eternal law. I will have no covenants but proximities. I shall endeavor to nourish my parents, to support my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife,—but these relations I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I must be myself. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and if we follow the truth it will bring us out safe at last.—But so may you give these friends pain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when they look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they justify me and do the same thing.

The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a rejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism; and the bold sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the law of consciousness abides. There are two confessionals, in one or the other of which we must be shriven. You may fulfil your round of duties by clearing yourself in the direct, or in the reflex way. Consider whether you have satisfied your relations to father, mother, cousin, neighbor, town, cat and dog; whether any of these can upbraid you. But I may also neglect this reflex standard and absolve me to myself. I have my own stern claims and perfect circle. It denies the name of duty to many offices that are called duties. But if I can discharge its debts it enables me to dispense with the popular code. If any one imagines that this law is lax, let him keep its commandment one day.

And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others.

If any man consider the present aspects of what is called by distinction society, he will see the need of these ethics, The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous desponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. We want men and women who shall renovate life and our social state, but we see that most natures are insolvent; cannot satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all proportion to their practical force, and so do lean and beg day and night continually. Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion we have not chosen, but society has chosen for us. We are parlor soldiers. The rugged battle of fate, where strength is born, we shun.

If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is ruined. If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards, in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hamsphire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not “studying a profession,” for he does not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances. Let a stoic arise who shall reveal the resources of man and tell men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear; that a man is the word made flesh, born to shed healing to the nations, that he should be ashamed of our compassion, and that the moment he acts from himself, tossing the laws, the books, idolatries and customs out of the window,—we pity him no more but thank and revere him;—and that teacher shall restore the life of man to splendor and make his name dear to all History.

It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance—a new respect for the divinity in man—must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views.

1. In what prayers do men allow themselves! That which they call a holy office is not so much as brave and manly. Prayer looks abroad and asks for some foreign addition to come through some foreign virtue, and loses itself in endless mazes of natural and supernatural, and mediatorial and miraculous. Prayer that craves a particular commodity, any thing less than all good, is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end is meanness and theft. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action. The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard throughout nature, though for cheap ends. Caratach, in Fletcher's Bonduca, when admonished to inquire the mind of the god Audate, replies,—

 "His hidden meaning lies in our endeavors;
  Our valors are our best gods."

Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work and already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. We come to them who weep foolishly and sit down and cry for company, instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric shocks, putting them once more in communication with their own reason. The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide; him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him because he did not need it. We solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods love him because men hated him. "To the persevering mortal," said Zoroaster, "the blessed Immortals are swift."

As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect. They say with those foolish Israelites, 'Let not God speak to us, lest we die. Speak thou, speak any man with us, and we will obey.' Everywhere I am hindered of meeting God in my brother, because he has shut his own temple doors and recites fables merely of his brother's, or his brother's brother's God. Every new mind is a new classification. If it prove a mind of uncommon activity and power, a Locke, a Lavoisier, a Hutton, a Bentham, a Fourier, it imposes its classification on other men, and lo! a new system. In proportion to the depth of the thought, and so to the number of the objects it touches and brings within reach of the pupil, is his complacency. But chiefly is this apparent in creeds and churches, which are also classifications of some powerful mind acting on the elemental thought of duty, and man's relation to the Highest. Such is Calvinism, Quakerism, Swedenborgism. The pupil takes the same delight in subordinating every thing to the new terminology as a girl who has just learned botany in seeing a new earth and new seasons thereby. It will happen for a time that the pupil will find his intellectual power has grown by the study of his master's mind. But in all unbalanced minds the classification is idolized, passes for the end and not for a speedily exhaustible means, so that the walls of the system blend to their eye in the remote horizon with the walls of the universe; the luminaries of heaven seem to them hung on the arch their master built. They cannot imagine how you aliens have any right to see,—how you can see; 'It must be somehow that you stole the light from us.' They do not yet perceive that light, unsystematic, indomitable, will break into any cabin, even into theirs. Let them chirp awhile and call it their own. If they are honest and do well, presently their neat new pinfold will be too strait and low, will crack, will lean, will rot and vanish, and the immortal light, all young and joyful, million-orbed, million-colored, will beam over the universe as on the first morning.

2. It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were, like an axis of the earth. In manly hours we feel that duty is our place. The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance that he goes, the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign and not like an interloper or a valet.

I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins.

Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.

3. But the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind? Our houses are built with foreign taste; our shelves are garnished with foreign ornaments; our opinions, our tastes, our faculties, lean, and follow the Past and the Distant. The soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. It was in his own mind that the artist sought his model. It was an application of his own thought to the thing to be done and the conditions to be observed. And why need we copy the Doric or the Gothic model? Beauty, convenience, grandeur of thought and quaint expression are as near to us as to any, and if the American artist will study with hope and love the precise thing to be done by him, considering the climate, the soil, the length of the day, the wants of the people, the habit and form of the government, he will create a house in which all these will find themselves fitted, and taste and sentiment will be satisfied also.

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakspeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow. Shakspeare will never be made by the study of Shakspeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. There is at this moment for you an utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses or Dante, but different from all these. Not possibly will the soul, all rich, all eloquent, with thousand-cloven tongue, deign to repeat itself; but if you can hear what these patriarchs say, surely you can reply to them in the same pitch of voice; for the ear and the tongue are two organs of one nature. Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again.

4. As our Religion, our Education, our Art look abroad, so does our spirit of society. All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and no man improves.

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. Its progress is only apparent like the workers of a treadmill. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given something is taken. Society acquires new arts and loses old instincts. What a contrast between the well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American, with a watch, a pencil and a bill of exchange in his pocket, and the naked New Zealander, whose property is a club, a spear, a mat and an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under. But compare the health of the two men and you see that his aboriginal strength, the white man has lost. If the traveller tell us truly, strike the savage with a broad axe and in a day or two the flesh shall unite and heal as if you struck the blow into soft pitch, and the same blow shall send the white man to his grave.

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He has got a fine Geneva watch, but he has lost the skill to tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind. His notebooks impair his memory: his libraries overload his wit; the insurance-office increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some energy, by a christianity entrenched in establishments and forms some vigor of wild virtue. For every stoic was a stoic; but in Christendom where is the Christian?

There is no more deviation in the moral standard than in the standard of height or bulk. No greater men are now than ever were. A singular equality may be observed between the great men of the first and of the last ages; nor can all the science, art, religion, and philosophy of the nineteenth century avail to educate greater men than Plutarch's heroes, three or four and twenty centuries ago. Not in time is the race progressive. Phocion, Socrates, Anaxagoras, Diogenes, are great men, but they leave no class. He who is really of their class will not be called by their name, but be wholly his own man, and in his turn the founder of a sect. The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume and do not invigorate men. The harm of the improved machinery may compensate its good. Hudson and Behring accomplished so much in their fishing-boats as to astonish Parry and Franklin, whose equipment exhausted the resources of science and art. Galileo, with an opera-glass, discovered a more splendid series of facts than any one since. Columbus found the New World in an undecked boat. It is curious to see the periodical disuse and perishing of means and machinery which were introduced with loud laudation a few years or centuries before. The great genius returns to essential man. We reckoned the improvements of the art of war among the triumphs of science, and yet Napoleon conquered Europe by the Bivouac, which consisted of falling back on naked valor and disencumbering it of all aids. The Emperor held it impossible to make a perfect army, says Las Cases, “without abolishing our arms, magazines, commissaries and carriages, until, in imitation of the Roman custom, the soldier should receive his supply of corn, grind it in his hand-mill and bake his bread himself.”

Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation today, die, and their experience with them.

And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long that they have come to esteem what they call the soul's progress, namely, the religious, learned and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is. But a cultivated man becomes ashamed of his property, ashamed of what he has, out of new respect for his being. Especially he hates what he has if he sees that it is accidental,—came to him by inheritance, or gift, or crime; then he feels that it is not having; it does not belong to him, has no root in him, and merely lies there because no revolution or no robber takes it away. But that which a man is, does always by necessity acquire, and what the man acquires, is permanent and living property, which does not wait the beck of rulers, or mobs, or revolutions, or fire, or storm, or bankruptcies, but perpetually renews itself wherever the man is put. “Thy lot or portion of life,” said the Caliph Ali, “is seeking after thee; therefore be at rest from seeking after if.” Our dependence on these foreign goods leads us to our slavish respect for numbers. The political parties meet in numerous conventions; the greater the concourse and with each new uproar of announcement, The delegation from Essex! The Democrats from New Hampshire! The Whigs of Maine! the young patriot feels himself stronger than before by a new thousand of eyes and arms. In like manner the reformers summon conventions and vote and resolve in multitude. But not so O friends! will the God deign to enter and inhabit you, but by a method precisely the reverse. It is only as a man puts off from himself all external support and stands alone that I see him to be strong and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner. Is not a man better than a town? Ask nothing of men, and, in the endless mutation, thou only firm column must presently appear the upholder of all that surrounds thee. He who knows that power is in the soul, that he is weak only because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and, so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles; just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head.

So use all that is called Fortune. Most men gamble with her, and gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as unlawful these winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance, and shalt always drag her after thee. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick or the return of your absent friend, or some other quite external event raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. It can never be so. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

Footnotes

  1. I would interpret this as that every time you envy someone there is ignorance that takes presence. Also if you pretend to be someone else you look up to or like it may result into envying that person.

    — Jade
  2. I believe this means that every man must come to a point in there life where they choose to follow others or their own path.

    — Elijah Hoss
  3. This alludes to Newton’s Third Law that claims “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” In this context, Emerson argues that people can look only within themselves to improve their own lives. No amount of money, machinery, or work can achieve progress, only the fact of knowing and being your most accurate, individual self. The passage makes use of parallelism, a rhetorical device in which multiple phrases are expressed in the same manner, even if they are contrary.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  4. An acrostic stanza is a poem in which letters from each line form a word that can be read vertically on the page. Notice how Emerson consistently reinforces his main argument; here he supports it with the idea that humans have only their nature, no matter how they act it will never change. Notice the subtle use of alliteration, one of Emerson’s preferred rhetorical devices.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  5. In Greek mythology, Lethe is the river of forgetfulness which winds through the underworld. Emerson alludes to Lethe to make the point that once one grows up, one cannot forget the responsibilities and restraints of adulthood that have been thrust upon her. Notice how short this sentence is compared to the previous one. This noticeable variation in sentence length is a rhetorical device that emphasizes a point by surprising the reader.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  6. This metaphor explains that people cannot expect that brilliance and success will come strictly from education and waiting for greatness to come; rather, one’s greatest intelligence comes from using the life and the brain they were given at birth. This is an example of a delayed sentence, a rhetorical device in which the central phrase of a sentence arrives at the end.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  7. Here Emerson introduces individualism, the most enduring theme of the essay. He uses historical figures to exemplify how some of the greatest philosophers, scientists, diplomats, and artists all created, apparently, brand new branches or aspects of their respective fields. With his repetition of “to believe,” Emerson makes use of anaphora, a rhetorical device that emphasizes through repeated phrasings.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  8. St. Paul the Apostle (10-67 CE) was an important early disciple of Christianity. Also known as “Apostle to the Gentiles,” Paul converted to Christianity when Christ revealed Himself in a vision while Paul was on the road to Damascus. Paul's vast writings and teachings contribute to the foundation of Christian belief and practice.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  9. David (Hebrew for “Beloved One”) was the second king of Israel. He was also a poet, musician, and author. He wrote much of the Book of Psalms. As a young shepherd, David defeated Goliath with a sling and stones.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  10. Thor and Woden are pagan gods who appear in varied forms in Viking, Germanic, and Anglo-Saxon mythology. Thor is the god of thunder. Woden, also known as Odin, is the chief of the gods. Their influence can be found in our daily lives: Wednesday mean “Woden’s day” and Thursday means “Thor’s day.”

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  11. Antinomianism—meaning, from its Greek derivations, “against laws”—is a belief that moral and ethical laws ought to be considered flexible rather fixed, objective, and universal.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  12. The Whigs were an American political party prominent in the 19th century. The Whigs opposed the Democratic Party and promoted the protection of industry and limitation on the power of the executive branch. There have been four Whig presidents: William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, and Millard Fillmore, all of whom served between 1841 and 1853.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  13. Emerson gives the reader a sort of reality check here. He makes the point that people cannot accurately measure themselves by the success of their society. The true measure is one’s ability to grow, learn, and follow personal virtue.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  14. The Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) is most famous for his epic poem The Divine Comedy. This poem is split into three sections that delve into the three tiers of Christian afterlife: Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Heaven (Paradiso).

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  15. Phidias (490 BCE–430 BCE) was an Athenian artist and sculptor most famous for directing the construction of the Parthenon, which still stands on the Athenian acropolis despite being worn down by time and weather.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  16. Emerson posits individualism as the central theme of this essay. Emerson calls for each reader to not look at past heroes, or even at Emerson himself, for guidance on how to be the greatest person they can be. Instead he calls for us to look into ourselves. He wants the readers to know that their uniqueness is where they can find their greatness and thrive.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  17. Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was a philosopher who served as the Lord Chancellor of England. He was most famous for arguing for an observational and experimental approach to science, now known as the scientific method.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  18. George Washington (1732–1799) led the Continental Army in the American Revolution and was the first president of the United States.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  19. Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) was a scientist, inventor, diplomat, writer, and, most famously, a founding father of the United States. Some of his most well-known inventions include swim fins, the Franklin stove, and the lightning rod.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  20. Emerson uses repetition throughout the essay to make his themes read with a sense of meditative feeling. In the second to last paragraph, he opens with this sentence to bring the reader back to the main thesis of the essay: “Insist on yourself.” After the long list of historical figures he has cited and ideas he has developed, in his eyes this thesis of self-reliance is all that truly matters.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  21. Doric and Gothic are two different styles of architecture. Doric is an ancient Greek style recognizable by circular caps at the tops of fluted pillars. Gothic style came about during the 12th century in Europe and can be recognized by flying buttresses and sharply pointed arches.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  22. Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) was a Swedish philosopher and theologian who founded Swedenborgianism, also known as The New Church. At the age of 53, he claimed to go through a spiritual rebirth where he had dreams and visions from God that called upon him to write The Heavenly Doctrine, which called for a reformation of Christianity.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  23. The aforementioned people all created new systems of philosophical or scientific reasoning. Emerson chooses these specific people to highlight his theme of intellectual pioneerism. At any given point in history, there are new fields and avenues of study to be invented, discovered, and explored.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  24. Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) was an English philosopher and social activist who founded utilitarianism, the idea that the best moral action is the one that benefits the greatest number of people. Although innovative, his theories have come under criticism because they ignore individual values and feelings.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  25. James Hutton (1726–1797) was a Scottish geologist and naturalist who described uniformitarianism, a cornerstone principle of geology that accounts for geological change over time.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  26. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743–1794) was a French scientist known as the “father of modern chemistry.” His most notable discovery was understanding the role that oxygen plays in combustion.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  27. John Locke (1632–1704) was an English philosopher who contributed to the disciplines of political theory, empiricism, economics, epistemology, and social reform. He was associated with the Whig party and heavily promoted political liberalism. His essays remain amongst the most influential and foundational documents of modern Western philosophy.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  28. Zoroaster (628 BCE–551 BCE) was an Iranian religious leader who founded Zoroastrianism. His name roughly translates to “He of the golden light.” His major focus of study was the struggle between good and evil.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  29. Emerson argues that regrets come from a lack of willpower and straying from one’s purpose. Throughout the essay, Emerson reinforces the notion that one’s most important resource is one’s self; here Emerson explains that “discontent” comes from somebody not trusting their most useful resource.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  30. John Fletcher (1579 - 1625) was a Jacobean-era English playwright who rivaled Shakespeare at the turn of the 17th century. His historic play Bonduca is about a Celtic queen who leads a revolt against the Romans in 60 CE.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  31. Notice how this stanza follows iambic pentameter, a metrical scheme in which each line contains five stresses. This poem also uses rhymes, with patterns of both AABB and ABAB. Although this style of strictly formal poetry is not as widely used today, it was an extremely popular poetic form at the time of the publication of Self-Reliance in 1841.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  32. John Franklin (1786–1847) was an English naval officer and explorer who disappeared during his last exploration of the Arctic.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  33. Sir William Edward Perry (1790–1855) was an English explorer who attempted to reach the North Pole and although he didn’t get there, held the record as the person closest to doing so for nearly five decades.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  34. Stoicism was a school of philosophical thought developed in Rome in the early centuries of the first millennium. The ideal stoic is a person able to withstand hardship without complaint. Emerson uses this comparison to show how people who follow their own abilities (for example a stoic’s ability to endure discomfort) have strength, whereas Christians (who follow other’s teachings) have become split in many ways. Because Emerson’s question carries an implicit answer and opinion, it serves as a rhetorical question.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  35. Julius Caesar (100–44 BCE) was a Roman general and statesman who led a vast military campaign in an effort to overturn the Republic. He is responsible for laying the foundations of the Roman empire.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  36. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) was a Renaissance-era Polish astronomer and mathematician who first proved a heliocentric model of the solar system, wherein the earth revolves around the sun. The Catholic church argued against his theory (although many years after it was published) because it upended the traditional geocentric model of the time.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  37. The notion of the “genius” comes from Roman mythology. The ancient Romans believed that each person is accompanied through life by a guardian spirit, known as the “genius.” The word derives from the Indo-European root gen-, which means “birth.” In Emerson’s use, the “genius” is the productive source of creative work.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  38. This simile conveys the phenomenon that when people think about the idea of freedom in solitude, the idea goes deep into the mind because it seems right. However Emerson also points out that when we enter the populace again, we forget these thoughts of freedom.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  39. Emerson uses Moses, Plato, and Milton as examples of intellectual innovators and self-reliant thinkers. They used their intelligence to challenge norms and create their own paths. These figures did not do so by promoting the ideas of others. Rather, they shared their ideas out of personal authority.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  40. John Milton (1608–1674) was an English poet most famous for his epic poem Paradise Lost. He predominantly wrote in a signature blank-verse style. His writing addressed themes of faith and morality as well as issues of political and societal injustice. Milton has been tremendously influential since his time, both as a powerful, innovative poet and also as a visionary interpreter of Christian theology.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  41. Plato (approx. 428 –348 BCE) was a Greek philosopher. He was a student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, the two other most prominent Greek philosophers. He wrote on human justice, worldly beauty, and morality in his “dialogues,” a form of exposition in which he used several characters with conflicting ideas to present a variety of perspectives. He founded the Academy of Athens, known as one of the first academic institutions in the Western world.

    — Zachary, Owl Eyes Editor
  42. A “bivouac” is a temporary encampment that uses a triangular tent. This was an innovative addition to the French military repertoire because it allowed troops to both set up and pack up camp quickly if need be.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  43. This can be paraphrased to mean that your life is seeking you, so you don’t have to seek after it. Again notice how Emerson ties his ideas and references back to one’s self. Here, Emerson tell us that we don’t have to look into ourselves for answers and for our meaning in life because if we simply live our lives and follow our paths those answers will be given.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  44. David, Jeremiah, and Paul are all biblical figures. This line indicates that Emerson believes people should not only listen to and trust in the words of the Bible, but also to God’s presence within themselves.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  45. All of the references in the following list are movements or religions started by one man alone. The “lengthened shadow of one man” is a figure of speech that means one person’s ideas can start a movement that spreads over a large group of people.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  46. Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727) was an English mathematician and physicist who developed the Laws of Motion, which serve as the basis for a number of theories in physics.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  47. Notice the alliteration in this line, as exemplified by the repetition of the s sound. Although this is an essay, Emerson consistently uses poetic writing, a style that was typical of the transcendentalist writers.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  48. Emerson uses the aforementioned list of historical figures as support for this point because they were all men of virtue who looked for moral guidance within themselves rather than from a religion or previously stated philosophy.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  49. According to the New Testament, Judas Iscariot was one of Jesus’s twelve disciples. He betrayed Jesus by revealing his location to the Roman Empire for thirty silver coins. The Roman Empire then nailed Jesus to the cross.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  50. This is a possible reference to René Descartes' (1596–1650) most famous philosophical statement, “I think, therefore I am” (“Cogito ergo sum). René Descartes was a French philosopher known as the father of modern Western philosophy.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  51. Francis Beaumont (1584–1616) and John Fletcher (1579–1625) were English dramatists who collaborated on a number of plays during the English Renaissance. Along with other dramatists (including Nathan Field and Philip Massinger), the two writers published the Beaumont and Fletcher folios in 1647 and 1679. Honest Man's Fortune is a play in the 1647 folio.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  52. This alludes to Newton’s Third Law that claims “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” In this context, Emerson argues that people can look only within themselves to improve their own lives. No amount of money, machinery, or work can achieve progress, only the fact of knowing and being your most accurate, individual self.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  53. This metaphor shows how humans and nature act differently. Emerson says that humans are “ashamed” of their own thoughts and feelings, and he then goes on to point out that nature is never “ashamed.” He calls for humans to return to their natural state and to stop overthinking and worrisome behavior.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  54. This embodies a major theme and is perhaps one of the most famous quotes from the essay. Emerson tells us that if we get into a day-to-day routine that does not help us grow, no matter who we are, rich or poor, our minds will be ruined by the constraints we make for ourselves.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  55. The adjective “transcendent” refers to that which extends beyond the range of normal human experience. Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the leaders of the transcendentalist movement, a philosophical and literary movement in the 19th century that supported a new way of thinking that argued for individualism, nature, and free spirituality.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  56. Emmanuel Las Casas (1766–1842) was a French historian and author most famous for his book about Napoleon, The Memorial of Saint Helena. This quote serves as a metaphor for one of Emerson's main claims in this essay: "to make a perfect army" every soldier would have to learn how to do everything involved in the battle from scratch (even manufacturing guns), instead of being given the guns ready to shoot.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  57. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) was a French military general who led a number of successful military conquests and temporarily conquered most of mainland Europe. He is famous for an unwavering desire to expand French rule and changing the way military campaigns are fought. Considered one of the greatest military generals in history, he was also the first emperor of France.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  58. Emerson compares Hudson and Behring’s (Bering’s) modes of explorations with that of Parry and Franklin to highlight how Hudson and Behring were able to make great strides in exploration without the aid of advanced exploration technology. Although we would not consider Parry and Franklin’s equipment to be advanced now, they most likely had access to the best equipment when Emerson wrote this in 1841.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  59. Vitus Jonassen Behring (Bering) (1681–1741) was a Danish explorer credited with “finding” the passageway that is now called the Bering Strait.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  60. Henry Hudson (1565–1611) was an English explorer credited with “discovering” what are now called the Hudson River and Hudson Bay.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  61. Diogenes of Sinope (404–323 BCE) was a Greek philosopher who promoted personal virtue by means of self-control and simple living. Based on these ideals, he founded the Cynic school, which believed the prominent reason for living is to live a life of virtue. The cynicism of Diogenes became the foundation of stoicism in subsequent generations.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  62. Anaxagoras (500–428 BCE) was a Greek philosopher who studied nature and cosmology. His most famous discovery was that of celestial eclipses. Anaxagoras stated that these phenomena occur when a celestial mass passes in front of a source of celestial light, such as when the moon passes in front of the sun.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  63. Phocion (402 BCE–318 BCE) was an Athenian politician who became known as “The Good” for his sense of virtue and reputation as an honest government official. When Macedonia threatened (with their significantly stronger military) to overtake Athens, he built good diplomatic relations with them to avoid complete domination. Plutarch wrote about him in Parallel Lives.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  64. Plutarch (46–119 CE) was a Greek biographer whose work contributed to the popularity of essay and biographical writings in Europe beginning in the 16th century. His two most famous works are Bioi Parallēloi, or Parallel Lives (stories of Greek and Roman soldiers, government officials, and artists), and Moralia (a book of essays covering a wide variety of topics). Emerson uses this reference to show that although there have been great strides in all fields of study, the men Plutarch wrote about were all great even without all of those impressive strides to build upon.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  65. A “parallax” is the difference in the position of an object as brought about by a new angle of view. In this context, Emerson uses “parallax” to show how everything must be looked at from a different point of view.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  66. Gustavus Adolphus (1594–1632) was the King of Sweden accredited with making Sweden into a great power during his military leadership during the Thirty Years War.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  67. Known as “Skanderbeg,” George Castriot (1405–1468) was an Albanian warrior who led marches through Ottoman territory while severely undermanned and consistently defeated opposing armies. This was important at the time because the Ottoman Empire was ruthlessly trying to spread throughout Europe and the Middle East through brute military force.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  68. Alfred the Great (849–899) was the King of Wessex in southwestern England and is most famous for defending England against a Danish invasion and forming the first British navy. He is known for being a great peacemaker during his time of rule.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  69. Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846) was a tireless opponent of the African slave trade who led campaigns and formed the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  70. Charles Wesley (1707–1788) led the Methodist movement, a denomination of Protestantism, in England during the 18th century. Methodists were concerned with social issues, mainly the abolition of slavery.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  71. Quakers are members of the Religious Society of Friends, a sect of Christianity founded by George Fox in England during the late 17th century. Quakers strongly oppose violence and have no formal creeds, rites, or clergy.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  72. The “Spartan fife” was a small flute used by Spartan soldiers. Emerson contrasts the “Spartan fife” with “the gong for dinner” to symbolize that he wants to hear different ideas from society rather than the norm.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  73. John Adams (1735–1774) was the first vice president of the United States and the second president. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and is known as one of the most important of the founding fathers.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  74. William Pitt (1708–1778), the first Earl of Chatham, supported the American colonists’ cries for independence. Emerson uses this line to show how Pitt’s consciousness and gut feeling likely made him willing to support an unpopular idea in the eyes of Great Britain’s government.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  75. The Andes are a large mountain range in South America and the Himmaleh (Himalayas) are a large mountain range in Asia. Although the Andes are a significantly longer mountain range, the Himalayas are made up of significantly taller mountains. This simile says that each individual's talents are significant in their own way and need not be compared to anyone else’s.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  76. The preceding list only includes men who introduced seemingly brand new ideas into society. Whether their ideas were disputed by common belief or had never been thought of before, Emerson uses these men to exemplify that the greatest minds don’t learn their greatness from previously provided information, but instead they acquire it from their innate ability to think and act independently of the common fields of thought.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  77. Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was an Italian astronomer and mathematician whose studies made enduring impressions in the field of astrophysics. He constructed a telescope that was able to support Copernicus’s theory that the earth is round and located within a heliocentric solar system. The church accused him twice of heresy for his controversial findings.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  78. Martin Luther (1483–1546) was a German priest and an important figure in the Protestant Reformation. He was excommunicated for criticizing the Roman Catholic Church. In his Ninety-five Theses, he argued that eternal salvation was granted by God and could not be purchased through indulgences. Historically, he is an exemplar of a religious thinker who followed what he believed to be morally right rather than listening blindly to the word of the church.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  79. According to Christian doctrine, Jesus of Nazareth (approx. 4 BCE–33 CE) is the son of God in human form. He consented to being crucified in order to save humanity from sin, so that all people could have an opportunity to go to heaven. He preached love, humility, piety, faith, and salvation as the most important values of one’s religious life. Jesus’s ideas conflicted with the two prevailing religious traditions in his time and place: Judaism and Roman Paganism.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  80. Socrates (approx. 470 BCE–399 BCE.) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who was sentenced to death because his teachings conflicted with the Greek government during his time. His teachings survived through the writings of his students, Plato and Xenophon.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  81. Pythagoras of Samos (approx. 570 –490 BCE) was a Greek philosopher and mathematician credited by some as the first person to devise a spherical, rather than flat, model of the world. Many of his theories were disputed because they were radically new and challenged the prevailing cosmology.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  82. This simile alludes to a story in the Old Testament, in which Jacob’s son Joseph goes to Egypt and is falsely accused of raping “the harlot” (the Pharaoh’s wife). She tries to use Joseph’s coat as evidence after he purposefully leaves it behind. The simile means that no matter what you are told to be true, the most important truths come from yourself and not from the mouths of others.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  83. Blindman’s-buff is a game similar to tag, but the person trying to catch the other players is blindfolded. This metaphor means that people who chose to conform to societal norms are simply living their life blindfolded, rather than opening their eyes and seeing the plethora of opportunities the world has to offer.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  84. “Bleeding” was a common medical treatment during the 19th century that oftentimes used leeches to remove toxins and infections from a sick person. In this context, Emerson could have used the word “suffering” interchangeably to communicate the point that he would rather his life be easy and comfortable than constricted and full of hard, tedious work.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  85. Barbadoes (Barbados) is an island country in the Caribbean that was once infamous for being a major port for the African slave trade.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  86. A joint-stock company is a company that allows people to buy stock in it; owners of the stock are then able to share in profits and losses. This metaphor means that people both benefit and suffer by living in a society.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  87. According to the Old Testament, Moses was a Hebrew raised by the Egyptian royal family. He fled Egypt after killing an Egyptian slavemaster for murdering a Hebrew. After fleeing Egypt he encountered God on Mount Horeb, who told him he must return to Egypt to save the Israelites from slavery. He led the Israelites for 40 years through the desert and died within sight of the Promised Land. He is the most important prophet in Judaism and a prominent prophet in Islam, Christianity, and a number of other faiths.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff
  88. In Christian doctrine, the Last Judgement is God’s final, eternal judgement that determines the resting place of all souls. The term comes from passages in the Gospel according to Matthew and the Gospel according to Luke, where the text discusses the second coming of Jesus and the resurrection of the dead. Emerson mentions it to stress how one must live a life of non-conformity in its entirety.

    — Evan, Owl Eyes Staff