I finished Neal Stephenson’s Anathem yesterday, a great read by the way, and near the end he paraphrases an interesting passage from Emerson (p.883 in the HB edition). Emerson’s original text being as follows (my emphasis added):
“But the quality of the imagination is to flow, and not to freeze. The poet did not stop at the color, or the form, but read their meaning; neither may he rest in this meaning, but he makes the same objects exponents of his new thought. Here is the difference betwixt the poet and the mystic, that the last nails a symbol to one sense, which was a true sense for a moment, but soon becomes old and false. For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead. Mysticism consists in the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one. The morning-redness happens to be the favorite meteor to the eyes of Jacob Behmen, and comes to stand to him for truth and faith; and he believes should stand for the same realities to every reader. But the first reader prefers as naturally the symbol of a mother and child, or a gardener and his bulb, or a jeweller polishing a gem. Either of these, or of a myriad more, are equally good to the person to whom they are significant. Only they must be held lightly, and be very willingly translated into the equivalent terms which others use. And the mystic must be steadily told, — All that you say is just as true without the tedious use of that symbol as with it. Let us have a little algebra, instead of this trite rhetoric, — universal signs, instead of these village symbols, –and we shall both be gainers. The history of hierarchies seems to show, that all religious error consisted in making the symbol too stark and solid, and, at last, nothing but an excess of the organ of language.”
The Poet, Essays: Second Series 1844 – Ralph Waldo Emerson
I found this very interesting as I spent the second third of my life thus far studying literature and trying to live aesthetically, and then have since spent the subsequent third studying religious doctrine. The question, or koan, that occurs to me therefore is whether I have neglected or set aside something important. I hope not. Though no poet I have certainly tried to approach my journey in a poetic spirit.
Whilst Emerson’s point is well-taken it would, I think, be foolish to suggest that structured symbolism and doctrine is worthless. Indeed given the human capacity for spinning symbols out of life’s warp and weft we can easily weave ourselves into a maze. Clear doctrine can illuminate the way forwards, even if it is a means that must ultimately be set aside in the manner of the Buddha’s raft.
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Thank you for the quotation. Outside of a few poems, to my regret, I have not read much Emmerson, not as much as Thoreau and Whitman.
I, too, finished Anathem yesterday, and found your blog while searching for the Emerson quote in larger context. Thank you for posting it. I do not think a life of inquiry is ever wasted. I think Emerson was highlighting the difference more of the approach with which we inquire– whether from a stance that assumes one must be right or that which acknowledges one could be wrong. In other words, I think you’re OK. :)
Thanks for your thoughts Dana! Coming back to that quotation I really like Emerson’s phrase; “[symbols] must be held lightly”. It reminds me of this that I posted the other day: “[we] must know that systems have a very short life and not allow ourselves to be imposed on” (Witold Gombrowicz)